Do Video Games Fall Under Visual and Performing Arts

ABSTRACT

In this paper I argue that past whatsoever major definition of fine art many modern video games should be considered art. Rather than defining art and defending video games based on a single contentious definition, I offer reasons for thinking that video games can be art co-ordinate to historical, aesthetic, institutional, representational and expressive theories of art. Overall, I debate that while many video games probably should not be considered fine art, there are expert reasons to think that some video games should exist classified as art, and that the debates concerning the artistic status of chess and sports offer some insights into the status of video games.

KEY WORDS

video games, technology-based fine art, gamers, game pattern, game designers, narrative fine art

one. Introduction

In a Newsweek commodity from March of 2000, Jack Kroll argues that "games can exist fun and rewarding in many means, but they tin can't transmit the emotional complexity that is the root of art."[1] Kroll's commodity sparked a series of angry replies, by and large from gamers writing for industry magazines on the spider web,[two] but the controversy was not bars to fan culture and journalism. In an article published in MIT's Technology Review chosen "Fine art Grade for the Digital Age," movie scholar Henry Jenkins criticized Kroll for dramatically underestimating the potential of video games.[3] Outside of academia, Kroll's article was also cited in an amicus brief advising the Seventhth Circuit Court of Appeals on a case regarding an Indiana video game censorship police force.[iv] The extent and variety of the response indicates that Kroll hit a nerve, and it is worthwhile to dig a petty deeper into the issue.

Despite the cultural prominence of video games and engineering science-based art, philosophical aesthetics has completely ignored the area. Scholars in other disciplines, such every bit film, have taken the atomic number 82 in the conceptual contend. This is unfortunate, since seldom are there questions in the philosophy of fine art that accept straight, existent world consequences. Philosophical inattention to video games has a de facto effect on the multi-billion dollar industry past inadvertently making jerky censorship attempts easier. The fact that philosophers take not raised the question of whether video games can be art lends credence to the assumption that they are non.

In this newspaper I argue thatby any major definition of fine art many modern video gamesshould be considered art.[5] Typically, one advances the art condition of a purported art class in a deductive fashion, past first picking a favored definition of art, then demonstrating that the candidate satisfies the sufficient conditions for fine art according to that definition, and finally concluding that the art form in question is art. Rather than defining art and defending video games based on a single contentious definition, I offer reasons for thinking that video games can be fine art according to historical, aesthetic, institutional, representational and expressive theories of art. If we can concord that all these theories generally track our intuitions virtually what should be considered art, then when they are all in agreement nosotros have proficient reason to think that we accept successfully picked out an art form.

My argument proceeds in three major steps: I begin with a cursory clarification of three contempo games that have received extensive praise from gamers and game reviewers. I then attempt to situate video games with respect to larger issues about art and games past assessing the relevance of arguments about the aesthetics of sport and chess. Finally, I offer a host of reasons why some video games should be considered art according to several major theories of art. Overall, I debate that while many video games probably should not be considered art, there are skillful reasons to think that some video games should be classified as art.[half-dozen]

2. Three Candidate Games

It volition be useful to give a cursory description of a few important games from which I will describe key examples. Max Payne (Remedy Entertainment, 2001), Halo (Bungie, 2001), and Tom Clancy's Splinter Jail cell (Ubisoft, 2002) are three contempo games that take earned meaning critical acclaim. The composure of these games indicates the promising aesthetic potential of the purported art form.

Max Payne (Remedy Entertainment, 2001) is a third-person shooter, a game where the photographic camera takes a perspective from slightly behind the character, assuasive the thespian to command the direction in which the character looks and moves. Max Payne is a noir-revenge thriller in which the player's avatar[seven] is a rogue cop on a mission to avenge the death of his wife and child. The game employs first-person, vox-over narration, like many works in the film noir genre, and information technology includes periodic graphic-novel cut scenes, inserts that develop the narration between levels or major sections of play. Although the cut-rateChandler-inspired dialogue and voice-over could apply some extensive rewriting, the game makes a great effort to motivate revenge-directed anger by forcing the player to work through hallucinatory flashback episodes in which Max is impotent to prevent the slaughtering of his family. The elaborate plot, complete with double-crossings and evidence of conspiracies spiraling out to the highest levels, helps to evoke classic noir-inspired dread.

Halo, the most successful game for Microsoft's X-Box platform, is an elaborate scientific discipline fiction adventure set in an artificial world. The game mixes play modes, moving from the first-person perspective of a cyborg warrior, to driving and flight modes of play. Like Max Payne, Halo takes over 20 hours to complete. The levels (or long, goal-directed segments of play) are highly integrated with the narrative, and much of the pleasure in playing the game derives from slowly uncovering the purpose of the globe on which your regular army has crash-landed. The narrative development is highly sophisticated for a video game and involves plot twists, double-crossing and surprise introductions of new characters.

Splinter Cell, likewise a game for the Ten-box, is renowned for its graphics and life-like character move. In the game'south jingoistic narrative, yous play a secret operative set up to infiltrate a hostile state. As in the other two games discussed, Splinter Cell has an elaborate narrative that is tightly integrated with the game play. It is a third-person shooter simply requires stealth-like movements. Much of the game play is spent waiting and hiding in suspense. The game features a complex plot, extremely detailed character movements and elaborate lighting effects, which include stunning shadow play and chiaroscuro. Splinter Jail cell is a highly unified effort to provoke the feeling of tension one has when sneaking around and hiding from danger.

These 3 games represent contempo trends in video game design made possible by increasingly sophisticated applied science. All feature integrated narratives, graphics nearing photograph-realism and elaborate iii-dimensional worlds with rich and detailed textures. I exercise not claim that whatsoever of these games are great art, simply they are all adept at achieving the goals they set for themselves, goals of provoking specific emotions that are typical of like genres in other fine art forms.

3. Where's the Art?

In gild to determine whether video games are an art grade, we start need some idea of where the art might lie. Video games combine elements from narrative fiction motion picture, music and sports. They are arguably an art or sister art of the moving image, specifically, a form of digital animation. The code is like musical note that is performed by the estimator, and the games are played like sports. As we shall see, the debates apropos the artistic status of chess and sports offering some insights into the status of video games.

In the philosophy of sport, David All-time makes a distinction betwixt sports that are evaluated aesthetically (aesthetic sports) and those that are not (purposive sports).[viii] Although nosotros may say that a baseball bullpen has a beautiful arm or that a boxer is graceful, when judging sports similar baseball, hockey, soccer, football, basketball and battle, the competitors are non formally evaluated on aesthetic grounds. All the same, sports such as gymnastics, diving and ice skating are evaluated in large function past artful criteria. 1 may manage to perform all the moves in a complicated gymnastics routine, but if it is accomplished in a feeble mode i will not get a perfect score. All-time argues that "an artful sport is one in which the purpose cannot be specified independently of the manner of achieving it."[9] One might argue that such sports are and so close to trip the light fantastic that they are plausible candidates to be called art forms.

Ane objection to calling sports such every bit diving art forms is that they are competitive. If this objection holds, then maybe video games are not art works either, since they are essentially competitive. Competition is considered inimical to artistic creation considering it locates the purpose behind the production in not-aesthetic goals. Withal, information technology is adequately obvious that competition does not deny something of fine art status. Greek tragedies were explicitly entered into competitions, but no one seriously denies that they are fine art because of their competitive provenance. One can compose a poem with the intention of submitting it to a competition without its ceasing to be an art work. The same tin can be said of whatsoever kind of art, and at that place is thus no reason to think that competition is incompatible with other aesthetic goals.

One might fence that the state of affairs is somewhat different with video games, since they are experienced competitively and in that location are no uncontested art forms where the audience's feel is itself competitive. This line of objection fails to account for the competitive aspect of the plethora of fictions that are centered around competitions. National Velvet, Sea Biscuit, The Karate Kid, and numerous other fiction films that we might consider art encourage the audition to root for one side of a competition, making the feel of the fiction competitive. If ane takes issue with my examples, whatsoever suspense-generating fictional example will do. Does Hamlet stop to exist art because the audience is encouraged to side with Hamlet confronting his father'southward killer?

Ane might reply that although nosotros may observe ourselves rooting for a fictional character in a novel, play or movie, this experience is far different from that of rooting for our own success in a game. The objection may conclude that being involved in a competition precludes aesthetic feel; however, this objection is beside the point. We should non confine the audience of video games to players, since oft games are played with an audience. There is no radical divergence hither between video games and dance contests or poesy slams. Although playing video games usually involves a smaller audience-to-competitor ratio, there is no reason why the audience watching someone play a game must be smaller than the audience of non-competitors at a poetry slam.

Notwithstanding, nosotros should not ignore the aesthetic feel of the performers of art works. The video game thespian can plausibly be considered a performer in a larger video game performance. Since the principal goal of most game pattern is to enhance such aesthetic experiences, it would seem that nosotros have proficient reason to evaluate games as fine art works. Unfortunately, the philosophy of fine art and aestheticians announced oblivious to the aesthetic experience of performers of art works. Nonetheless, we must ask, does non even the apprentice musician accept aesthetic or creative experiences?

Though video games share a competitive aspect with sports, the comparison between sports that may be art and video games does non bring to lite any other important similarities. Indeed, video games and art-candidate sports are different in an of import way. Unlike sports that are evaluated on aesthetic grounds, the playing of video games has not been considered an art form. Information technology is true that recordings of game play take been taken and pieced together to make digital video art. In addition, some games let the player to salvage and distribute instant replays. However, the operation of a video game is not commonly evaluated aesthetically. Perhaps someone volition make an argument that playing a particular video game is an art, but I do not wish to brand such a claim here. A player can be evaluated for a grade of athletic quickness, but not usually for grace or other aesthetically relevant features of play. Surprisingly, this is not the case in a chess functioning.

A similar question has arisen regarding the artistic status of chess.[10] Some consider chess to be an art form, much like the aesthetically evaluated sports. One might retrieve information technology is difficult to call chess art and exclude things, such equally crossword puzzles, that we exercise not normally consider art works; however, insofar every bit crossword puzzles but possess i solution, in that location is no such thing as an elegant or otherwise aesthetically qualified holding of their solution.

In that location are 2 principal reasons why someone might argue that chess is an art form. In major competitions, there are often two prizes: one for the winner and i for the best game. The best game is determined in part by the elegance of moves, the originality of solution and the difficulty of play. Whether this earns chess the status of art has centered around the question of whether elegance is a goal of the players. Even if information technology is not a primary goal, 1 tin can argue that elegance and simplicity play a role in the pick of moves. Peradventure the aesthetics of a move serve as heuristics that optimize selection. If this is the case, then aesthetic concerns can become office of mastery of the game itself, adding support to the idea that playing chess is an fine art form. In addition to judgments of the most cute game, end-game solutions are often evaluated for their formal simplicity and elegance. This is a more controversial basis for calling chess an art, since if end games should be considered art, then logical and mathematical proofs would become candidates.

As stated previously, unlike chess and gymnastics, the playing of video games has not been proposed as a candidate for art status. 1 reason that video game play is not considered an creative performance is that video games are numerous and the technology has changed quickly over the terminal few decades. As such, in that location is no one video game effectually which players accept focused on for extended periods of time. Though video games announced to be performative, what might count as the performance--the playing--is non considered art. Perhaps this is considering the games themselves draw more attention than the players. Unlike video games, non-electronic games such as poker and football are just rules of play: they depict penalties and goals. Electronic games are unlike in that they are much more than than rules:[11] They include narratives, graphic design, label, dialogue and more.

Having looked at the relevance of the aesthetics of chess and sport, we are in a meliorate position to empathise where the fine art of video games might lie. Unlike chess and sport, the art is not but in the playing; every bit in film, the type of art that should business u.s. in video games involves non the playingbut the making.

iv. Video Game Art: A Historical Narrative

Today, the question "Is it art?" arises well-nigh ordinarily in response to single art works whose art status is in dispute. Noel Carroll has offered a compelling account of how such disputes tin can be, should be and are resolved. He advocates a narrative approach to resolving such disputes, whereby a candidate artwork is assessed past whether a story can be told linking the problems and goals of recognized artists at a previous catamenia to those of the artists whose work is in question. Although we seldom have an opportunity, the narrative historical business relationship tin exist also applied to fine art forms or representational systems as a whole. I will attempt to provide a brief sketch, that could exist fleshed out into a more comprehensive story, of the relationship between video games and other mass art forms.

Advances in computer technology over the last forty years provided the means whereby artists could attempt to solve a recurrent problem at the centre of modernism: How to involve the audience in the art work? Those working in theater and performance arts experimented with happenings and participatory theatre, trying to bring the audience into the performance. Nevertheless, the trouble was more hard for artists working in flick and literature, where we find novelistic experiments such as Cortazar'southward Hopscotch struggling with the limitations of the medium. Video games allowed artists to tackle a more difficult sub-problem facing non-performed arts, the trouble of how to involve the audience in mechanically reproduced art.

In the last affiliate of Principles of Fine art, Collingwood complains that mechanically reproduced art is essentially flawed considering the medium of transmission prohibits art works from being "concreative." Collingwood argues that in mechanically reproduced art:

"The audience is not collaborating, it is simply overhearing. The aforementioned thing happens in the cinema where collaboration equally between author and producer is intense, but equally between this unit of measurement and the audition nonexistent. Performances on the wireless have the same defect. The event is that the gramophone, the cinema, and the wireless are perfectly serviceable as vehicles of amusement or of propaganda, for hither the audience'south office is merely receptive and non concreative; merely as vehicles of art they are field of study to all the defects of the printingpress in an aggravated form."[12]

This is the starting time and only fourth dimension Collingwood uses the term "concreative" in The Principles of Art, and just as Collingwood himself left the notion somewhat unexplained, concreativity has been nearly completely ignored in the philosophy of art.[13]

In A Philosophy of Mass Art, Noel Carroll makes 1 of the few gimmicky references to Collingwood'southward term.[fourteen] Carroll sees Collingwood's criticisms of non-concreative art every bit one species of the passivity charge against mass art, the claim that mass art is inherently defective because it reduces the audition to mindless drones, thereby prohibiting the free play of the imagination that genuine art provokes. On this reading, Collingwood is lament that the audience is made a mere receptacle past mass art and that mass fine art is defective by virtue of its pacifying effect. Although this may be part of Collingwood'southward criticism, I retrieve his accent lies elsewhere. Rather than criticizing mass art for its pacifying effect on the audience, Collingwood is diagnosing what he sees as a source of limitation on the expressive potential of mechanically reproduced art. It is not the art piece of work'southward supposed deleterious effects on the audience that is at issue but the inability of the audience to provide feedback to help the artist create the most effective work possible.

On my reading, Collingwood is pointing out a feature of mass art that Walter Benjamin noticed in "The Work of Art in the Historic period of Mechanical Reproduction," written in 1935, 3 years before than the publication of The Principles of Fine art. Benjamin argues that in mechanically reproduced art the potential opens up for the art work to fall out of step with the audience, losing its immersive grip and thereby providing conditions likely to spark a critical attitude. He says, "the motion-picture show actor lacks the opportunity of the stage actor to adjust to the audition during his performance, since he does not present his functioning to the audience in person. This permits the audience to accept the position of a critic."[15] Rather than playing upward the supposed politically liberating potential of this limitation of mechanically reproduced fine art, Collingwood laments the handicap.[sixteen]

We oftentimes hear it said that films can "break the fourth wall" through techniques such as directly addressing the audition, just the wall remains. It is ontologically impossible for the audience of a film to intermission the wall. Video game technology has allowed artists to experiment with solutions to the problem of how to make an interactive movie: Video games are the commencement concreative mass art.

5. Video Games and Every Major Theory of Fine art

In this section, I argue that according to about major theories of fine art, many video games should be considered art. I practise non offer detailed definitions of each theory of art, since every theory has various contentious formulations, the major variations are familiar to most readers, and to outline in particular the specifics of every theory would require much more infinite. Instead I operate with breezy glosses of the theories that are adequate for my purpose.

As the classical film theorists focused on the relationship between movie theater and photography and theatre, one may recall that the all-time manner to approach video game art is to observe its differentiating features with a similar fine art form. In the case of video games, the sis fine art is cinema. Even so, in defending the art condition of games, the opposite may exist more useful: Examining just how close video games are to animation and digital picture palace may be more productive.

Almost anything said most video games is controversial. Some game developers fifty-fifty belittle at the idea that video games are an art, equally exercise certain filmmakers, even distinguished ones. Theorists who call themselves ludologists debate that video games should not be considered merely another narrative art form, but a class of play. Other theorists, narratologists such every bit Janet Murray, argue that video games can and should become more narrative-driven in order to realize their artistic potential. This seems to be the path game developers have chosen. Current video games have highly integrated narratives that are oftentimes far more complex than the most sophisticated noir plots. Fifty-fifty if you tin can remember the details of "The Big Sleep" (Howard Hawks, 1946), you will never exist able to recount the details of most modern games. As mentioned previously, many narrative games tin can have upwards of 20 hours to complete.

For the by decade, at that place has been a moderate amount of influence between film and video games. Although most of them are awful, several films take been fabricated based on video games. More commonly, video games are made based on film subjects. Many readers of this commodity will retrieve of PacMan or Pong when they hear of video games. If so, then the possibility of creating a narrative motion-picture show on a video game story should sound surprising. As my examples betoken, recent games are far more than complex than PacMan; they often involve complex stories and characterization. For those who have not played heavily narrative-integrated games, the possibility of basing a narrative of whatever sophistication on a game should point the level of narrative complexity already to be establish in the medium.

Game designers often attempt to make their games wait more like picture show past including cut scenes and imitating other cinematic features. Most narrative-driven games are heavily interspersed with full-motion video sequences chosen cut-scenes. The game called Splinter Cell is typical. In this game, cut scenes are encountered frequently on various missions. After major events and before new episodes, a cut-scene will be introduced to indicate the goals of the level and the objects for which one should exist on the sentry. In addition to including these small digital movies, games oftentimes attempt to emulate the wait of film. In the popular game Halo, for case, if you wait up towards the sun, the glare produces nested circles, equally if the player is controlling a moving picture camera. This is inconsistent with the perspective of the player who is non looking through a photographic camera, just the reference to cinema is intended to raise the realism, equally if the game were a documentary. Such techniques are articulate examples of game designers trying to situate their work in the tradition of cinema. For such reasons, any historical theory of art that admits moving-picture show as an art class would most plausibly acknowledge video games.

Through repeated allusions and attempts at emulating the moving image, game designers intend that we appreciate their games as nosotros do digital animation and video art. Mod video game designers are deeply concerned with traditional aesthetic considerations familiar to animators, novelists, fix designers for theater productions and art directors for films. The evolution of game environments is an intensive process involving the creation of level maps, lighting sources, setting detail and visual texture complexity. As the writer of a realist novel or the set designer of a film might identify props in a room, level designers aim for the consequent incorporation of details to flesh out the world of the game. Grapheme motility is some other expanse of pattern in which video game designers share goals with animators. For example, the designers of Splinter Jail cell carefully created hand-animated motility studies for the player-grapheme to add together richness and a life-like feel to the textures. From set design to lighting techniques, games largely depict upon the aesthetic toolkit bachelor to filmmakers. Any artful theory of art that acknowledges the art status of animation would also recognize many contemporary video games, since the intentions of the creators and the variety of artful experience the ii art forms acknowledge overlap considerably.

A potent case can likewise exist made for video games on institutional grounds, since in that location is a developing art globe for video games. Over the by decade, there has been a multifariousness of museum exhibits of video games, ranging from technological development lessons to explorations of the influence of video games on digital fine art, every bit well every bit stand-alone exhibits of the emerging art form. Although not exactly an art museum, from June 6, 1989 to May 20, 1990, the American Museum of the Moving Image featured a testify called "Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade" that brought a collection of arcade games for visitors to play first hand. The show traveled to ten other locations throughout the land from June 1990 to September 2003. Since this show, the museum has had several other major video game exhibits and has almost ever had a video game exhibition on display.

In July 2001, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art hosted a symposium entitled "ArtCade: Exploring the Relationship Betwixt Video Games and Art," where contempo video game-inspired artworks were presented alongside a option of video games from the 1970s to the present.[17] In the same year, over a dozen art exhibits featured video game-related art work. Video games are appreciated as both art forms in their own right and astools for the creation of fine art works such as "Machinema" or the video loops of digital artists who utilise clips from games to construct avant-garde video art. In the spring of 2001, the Whitney Museum of American Art housed a video game-art showroom called "BitStreams," which featured video game-influenced works. Recent biennials have as well incorporated interactive digital artworks, and video games and digital art are a growing presence in museums.

Non only are video games gaining recognition from museums of art, fine arts programs are springing up focused on the graphic aspects of video game design. MIT, NYU, Carnegie Mellon and CalArts all have programs concentrating on entertainment applied science, and the Academy of California at Irvine is creating a MFA program devoted to interactive media. Georgia Tech recently created a PhD in interactive media that merges advice studies and information science.

Exterior of art world and bookish contexts, video games, like other mass art forms, are the discipline of popular aesthetic evaluation. In December of 2002, the National Network, a unit of MTV networks, announced that it would be creating an awards show dedicated to video games. The bear witness will offer awards for categories such equally all-time villain and best film adaptation. A digital cablevision channel devoted to video games called G4 was launched in 2003.[eighteen] Several newspapers, including the Village Voice and the New York Times have started publishing game reviews. The web site www.metacritic.com posts summaries of reviews for 3 pop art forms: movies, video games and popular music.

The institutional credibility for attributing art to video games is improving. There is clearly a burgeoning fine art world for videogames, and one demand not await for every modern art museum in the country to feature a defended showroom before feeling comfortable in calling video games an art course. As indicated by the ties between animation and video game design, a persuasive story can be told that links the goals and features historically attributed to art works to those of video games. Much like movie production, game design is an expensive, collaborative project. Several groups within the product process pursue artful goals common to other arts.

In that location are as well video game auteurs who imprint a creative stamp on a serial of games that show artistic stardom. Shigeru Miyamoto, the designer of "Mario Brothers," "The legend of Zelda" and other popular games for Nintendo, is considered the Eisenstein of video games. He is the field of study of several popular manufactures and is oftentimes a hero in books devoted to the history of video games. Miyamoto is praised for his power to create original stories, characters and the expect backside captivating and complex games. Today at that place are hundreds of game designers working with programmers, producers, level designers, dialogue and script writers, balancers who suit difficulty to skill and a variety of other specialists who contribute to a finished game.

In addition to the similarity betwixt film directors and game designers, the history of video games can be tied to other arts. Much every bit film grew out of photography and drama, video games grew out of digital animation. Beyond the goals of verisimilitude, games share narrative themes and expressive goals with the history of Western literature and theater. In the 7th Excursion Courtroom decision for American Amusement Machine v. Kendrick, Richard Posner argues that the video game should be considered an art form, since information technology shows thematic and expressive continuity with herald literature and is at least every bit effective as much in the popular arts that is considered protected speech. Posner defends what is considered by most standards a mediocre game:

"Take one time once more "The House of the Dead." The player is armed with a gun--near fortunately, considering he is existence assailed by a seemingly unending succession of hideous axe-wielding zombies, the living dead conjured back to life past voodoo. The zombies have already knocked down and wounded several people, who are pleading pitiably for aid; and i of the player's duties is to protect those unfortunates from renewed assaults past the zombies. His main chore, however, is self-defence. Zombies are supernatural beings, therefore difficult to kill. Repeated shots are necessary to finish them every bit they rush headlong toward the player. He must not only be alert to the advent of zombies from whatsoever quarter; he must be assiduous almost reloading his gun periodically, lest he be overwhelmed by the rush of the zombies when his gun is empty.

"Self-defense, protection of others, dread of the "undead," fighting against overwhelming odds-- these are all age-quondam themes of literature, and ones particularly highly-seasoned to the young."

Posner clearly sees the thematic and expressive continuity between literature and a mid-level genre video game. Though this may not be an instance of peachy fine art by whatever adequate standards, nothing inherent to the video game rules out its artistic potential, here the arousal of emotions through an interactive narrative. It should exist clear that a strong case can be fabricated that near expressive theories of art would have to include video games if they include picture and literature.

As Judge Posner notes, video games excel when they are about struggle. Although many games are more clearly about triumphant victory in boxing, at that place is naught stopping game designers from creating a game virtually the horrors of warfare. As should be apparent, current narrative-based video games can hands meet neo-representation theories of art such equally Danto's "aboutness" benchmark, where an fine art work is roughly something formally appropriate to what it is most. By putting players in the position to make decisions affecting the lives of simulated civilians and troops, games could potentially be the almost formally appropriate way to annotate on war via a fictional representation.

The fine art status of video games has much stronger support from representational theories of art than do other disputed art forms. In The Philosophy of Human Move, David All-time argues that there is a crucial difference betwixt sports and art: Sports fail to meet bones representational criteria. Putting the contrast nicely, Best says that "whereas sport can exist the subject of art, art could not be the subject area of sport. Indeed, the very notion of a discipline of sport makes no sense."[nineteen] In this mode, the distinction betwixt sports and video games is profound. As such, video games are much more than plausible candidates for fine art than are artful sports or chess.

v. Conclusion

In this newspaper, I provide several reasons for thinking that some video games may be art. Articulate thematic continuities tie video games to the history of western literature, and games share expressive goals with other recognized art forms. Museums and fine art programs take begun to incorporate video games into their exhibits and curriculum equally games begin to reach recognition in the art globe. Like the not bad figures we await to find occupying key places in an artistic canon, at that place are game designers who have reached auteur condition. Like to other bourgeoning fine art forms, there is a quickly growing body of recognized major works in video games. In add-on, game designers take used the medium to tackle previously unsolvable artistic problems facing film and literature, linking the art of video games to the problems facing modernist film and literature.

Although all video games should not be considered fine art, contempo developments in the medium accept been widely recognized as clear indications that some video games should be regarded as art works.[20] Of class, the status of an fine art form is never decided autonomously from its products. Without masterpieces, arguing that video games can be fine art seems premature. "Max Payne" and "Halo" are two of the best games ever produced, but they are not great art. I look that in the course of time current video games may seem equally artistically insignificant equally Lumière actualités, with little more than historical significance. Mayhap it is a niggling feat, but several recent games accept reached levels of excellence that exceed the majority of popular picture palace. The potential of the medium seems clear: good if not great video game art is in the virtually hereafter.[21]

Stop Notes

1. Jack Kroll, Newsweek, March half-dozen, 2000.

2. Numerous spider web pages are devoted to criticizing Kroll.

iii. Henry Jenkins, "Fine art Form for the Digital Age" (Engineering Review, September/Oct 2000); run into as well Henry Jenkins, "Games, the New Lively Art," forthcoming in Jeffrey Goldstein (ed.), Handbook for Video Game Studies (Cambridge: MIT Printing).

4. See the IDSA's (Interactive Digital Software Association) amicus brief for American Amusement Machine Donkey'n v. Kendrick (2000).

5. A ready of necessary conditions for something to be a video game might wait like this: Something is a video game only if (i) it incorporates a visual display (2) allows for user input that can (iii) change aspects of the visual display, (iv) giving the impression of movement (5) for purposeful, internally indicated progressive action (6) in face of some difficulty (7) that exists apart from whatsoever conventionally (externally) established rules or goals.

6. At that place is cypher unusual about the suggestion that some video games are art and others are not. We make a similar distinction for virtually every major fine art class. Many do not consider the photographs in grocery store circulars to exist art, but most think some photographs are fine art. Nearly people practise non consider the jingles in commercials to exist art, but well-nigh everyone considers some pieces of music to be art. . . .

7. The thespian-controlled characters in games are chosen "avatars."

eight. For more than on the sport-as-art debate, the following sources are useful:

Louis Arnaud Reid, "Sport, The Aesthetic and Art," British Periodical of Educational Studies, vol. 18, Oct. 1970, pp. 245-258.

Maureen Kovich, "Sport every bit an Artform," JOHPER, vol. 24, October. 1974, p. 42.

Paul One thousand. Kuntz, "Aesthetics Applies to Sports likewise as to the Arts," Philosophic Substitution, sum. 1974, no. 1, pp. 25-39.

David All-time, "Art and Sport," Journal of Artful Education, 1988, vol. fourteen, pp. 69-80.

S. K. Wertz, "Are Sports Fine art Forms?" Periodical of Aesthetic Education, vol. xiii, no. i, 1979.

nine. David Best, The Philosophy of Human Movement (Boston: George Allen and Unwin, 1978), p. 105.

x. At that place is only a handful of articles on the chess-equally-art debate. I provide a small annotated bibliography in this note, for those who might be interested.

In one of the earlier articles on the subject, Harold Osborne argues that chess tin exist considered an fine art form since it affords the possibility for the cosmos of objects of intellectual dazzler. Harold Osborne, "Notes on the Aesthetics of Chess and the Concept of Intellectual Beauty," British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. iv, no. 2.

Rachels argues that not simply do nosotros appreciate chess games every bit aesthetic objects, they are played / created with aesthetic goals in heed. James Rachels, "Chess as Art: Reflections on Richard Reti," Philosophic Commutation, 1984-v, vols. xv&16, pp. 105-115.

Lord argues that though chess games may be objects of aesthetic contemplation, they are not fine art works. Museums include aesthetic objects that are non art, to follow the institutional theory of art and call such things art would be to gerrymander the concept. Lord endorses something like an expressive theory of art. Catherine Lord, "Is Chess Art?" Philosophic Substitution, 1984-5, vols. 15&16, pp. 117-122.

Humble argues that chess playing should be considered an art class. He argues that the competitive aspects tin can contribute directly and indirectly to the aesthetic value of the game. Though chess may be an fine art form, he concludes that its masterpieces are only small art works in the grand scheme of things. P. N. Apprehensive, "Chess equally an Fine art Class," British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 33, no. one, 1993.

For a consideration of the equanimous chess problem as fine art, meet C. P. Ravilious, "The Aesthetics of Chess and the Chess Problem," British Periodical of Aesthetics, vol. 34, no. 2, July 1994. Humble offers a defense confronting Ravilious'southward objections that he should have talked virtually composed chess problems rather than contest chess and that he over emphasizes the function of contest. P. N. Humble, "The Aesthetics of Chess: A Reply to Ravilious," British Periodical of Aesthetics, vol. 35, no. iv, 1995.

xi. I would argue that video games are unlike other formal games in that they lack rules altogether. Every bit the quondam proverb goes, "Rules are made to be broken." We would not say that the law of gravity is a rule governing our behavior; rather it is a brute physical limitation. In video games, the supposed "rules" are much more like physical laws than rules which one must follow or face penalty. In a video game, i simply has no selection.

12. R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 323.

xiii. In Art as Feel, John Dewey developed his theory of the "esthetic" by reference to certain unified and complete experiences that creatures have with their environments. He calls such an experience "an-feel." An experience merely becomes "an-experience" for Dewey when it involves doings and sufferings and is marked off from the residual of our experiences as unified and complete. One might say that Dewey thinks "esthetic" feel is best had from interaction or interactivity, and that coldhearted experience results when people become dominated or under whelmed by their environments. For more on Dewey and coldhearted experience, see Aaron Smuts, "Anesthetic Feel," Philosophy and Literature, 29.1, 2005, pp. 97-113. More remains to be said about how Dewey reconciles the success of non-interactive artworks with his interactive theory of "esthetic" experience.

14. Noel Carroll, A Philosophy of Mass Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 102.

15. Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Fine art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Film Theory and Criticism, eds. Gerald Mast, Marshall Cohen and Leo Braudy (New York: Oxford Academy Press, 1992), p. 672.

16. In this article, I am not concerned with whether or not Collingwood'southward remarks on the value of concreativity are consistent with his larger theory of art.

17. See Kendra Mayfield "In one case It Was Atari, Now It'due south Art," Wired, 19 July 2001.

xviii. Reuters, "Video Game Industry Gets Idiot box Award Evidence."

xix. David Best, The Philosophy of Human Motility (Boston: George Allen and Unwin, 1978), p. 122.

twenty. I may enquire why the art status of video games is an interesting effect. Beyond the practical consequences the art status of video games may have on censorship attempts, the question "Are video games fine art?" has inherent involvement. It is essentially the same question every bit "What is art?"

21. I would similar to give thanks Noel Carroll and Heidi Bollich for excellent comments on an before draft of this paper, Lee Brown for commenting extensively on a shorter version of the paper at the ASA Eastern sectionalization coming together in April 2005 and the two anonymous reviewers for Contemporary Aesthetics for their very helpful suggestions.

Department of Philosophy,

University of Wisconsin, Madison

asmuts@gmail.com

Published Nov 2, 2005

danistescomirce1991.blogspot.com

Source: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/ca/7523862.0003.006/--are-video-games-art?rgn=main;view=fulltext

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