When people say
video games aren’t art I tend to agree. As a medium I think they have great potential to become art,
but video games out of the box are not art. They may be artful or even
beautiful, but most games never go beyond simple aesthetic pleasure. Culturally
we tend to needlessly attach the term ‘Art’ capitol ‘A’ to something whenever
we want to imbue an object or thing with value or prestige. I have never
understood why a thing/object not traditionally considered art needs to be re-categorized
as such. Like with video games, why do we feel the need to make them fit into
the ‘ART’ box? Why can’t video games just stay video games and be judged as
shitty or amazing, or beautiful video games? I mean aren’t video games fucking
awesome for the very reasons that they are not art? For the most part, art is
stuffy, boring and pretentious. Oscar Wilde famously said about art:
Art is useless
because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to instruct, or to
influence action in any way. It is superbly sterile, and the note of its
pleasure is sterility. If the contemplation of a work of art is followed by
activity of any kind, the work is either of a very second-rate order, or the
spectator has failed to realise the complete artistic impression.
In contrast video games are activity based fun; pure entertainment
of the highest order. For the sake of fun, capitol ‘F’ and the future of the
industry I hope the two worlds continue to exist separately. For me to regard a
video game as a piece of art it needs to transcend the purely superficial and
visceral joy associated with the vast majority of video games and game play. I
want art to tell me something new about the world, try and expand my
understanding of something and tackle the existential. It’s a very narrow view
of how art can operate and probably signifies an over reliance on pragmatic,
rational thinking, but looking at and making art in this way wards off the
persistent feeling of nihilism I get when I make and look.
An obstacle in
the general acceptance of video games as an art form is video games rarely if ever
provide any insights or values. Most games are usually nothing more than crass
(but extremely entertaining) exercises in the spectacular. Generally the gate
keepers of the art world demand more from its art then pure experience, but as
the old guard is replaced by the new, meaning once our generation becomes the
old guard, we’ll see that change and video game art will eventually become
absorbed into the mainstream (my guess is it’ll probably get twisted and
commercialized- similar to the way graffiti and street culture have been
legitimized- into a marketing tool so corporate America can sell Mt. Dew and
Red Bull). In fact you could make the case that the stigmas surrounding video
games as art have already started to disappear. As gallerists have discovered
ways to commodify game art, artists like Corey Arcangel have begun to show at
institutions like The Whitney, opening doors for the future legitimization of
video game art and artists.
My most
emotional reaction elicited by a game was when I beat the original Medal of Honor I strutted around like a
proud peacock for about a week solid. I played non-stop for four days straight.
To this day it’s the only game I have ever beaten.
True or
False: video games are now more culturally important than they
were in the past. True. In recent years the gaming industry has become one of the
leading forms of entertainment in terms of revenue, often going toe to toe with
or outright beating Hollywood for the almighty entertainment dollar. Highly
anticipated game titles routinely gross more in the first 24hrs of release then
the most anticipated films during an opening weekend. Stratospheric earning
power, combined with shadowy funding from military/government sources and the
pervasive, global reach of the gaming industry make gaming one of the most
important mediums in contemporary culture to understand and critically engage. While the connection between violence
and video games may be tenuous, there’s clearly a connection between video
games and propaganda. Games like Call of Duty raise interest and support for
the U.S. military and have become a part of the militarization of society. A
recent Call of Duty commercial reinforced this point with the tag line “There’s
a soldier in all of us” and gun battles being fought by people (presumably
Americans) in work attire. Additionally in 2010, the U.S. military spent $50
million dollars developing combat training games and even developed a first-class
shooter of its own, similar to Call of Duty, called “America’s Army” which is
openly used as a recruiting device and is free to download from the internet. As
a medium, video games pose a danger in that their often violent natures are
rarely, if ever, reflected upon meaningfully by users. Video games require
active participation unlike other media such as music or movies, which raises
their potential to distance user associations between violent actions and
possible consequences. I see this is getting convoluted so I’ll end it here.
But it’s a big question that deserves more critical analysis then I am capable
of. So to summarize: yeah, shit is real important.
Why should
people view your piece? Cool generic explosions.
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