Video games as art

[Original Alear]

http://blogs.suntime...ver_be_art.html

Egbert is a pretty famous movie critic. I don't know much about him myself but in terms of high profile names I'd guess he's the most famous movie critic living, period. I think he did a pretty good job arguing here even though I think he's wrong, and actually admitted he is.

But we could play all day with definitions, and find exceptions to every one. For example, I tend to think of art as usually the creation of one artist. Yet a cathedral is the work of many, and is it not art? One could think of it as countless individual works of art unified by a common purpose. Is not a tribal dance an artwork, yet the collaboration of a community? Yes, but it reflects the work of individual choreographers. Everybody didn't start dancing all at once.

Here he admits that art is something beyond definition. However,

Do they require validation? In defending their gaming against parents, spouses, children, partners, co-workers or other critics, do they want to be able to look up from the screen and explain, "I'm studying a great form of art?" Then let them say it, if it makes them happy.

One of the most important aspects of art is that it can't be defined either entirely by the creative process of the artist or the consuming process of the beholder. Art is something defined by both sides of the production and consumption. Video games have already been art and they will be in the future. I would agree that most games can't be appreciated as art for all of the time by most people, but most people can't appreciate the depth in every section of Paradise Lost their first time through. If you include subtext I don't think any work can ever be appreciated by everyone all of the time.

Egbert is also validifying all things that are already considered art by him already (film, for example) by defending them from the impending approach of video games, making him a hypocrite IMO. Not that that's a bad thing, I'm just surprised he didn't admit it a little more clearly. He seems like an intelligent guy, and if he wasn't laughing up his sleeve as he wrote this article I guess it's because he's old and his brain can only take so much (apparent) contradiction before it attempts to simplify.

EDIT-Hey, I'm old too so don't blame me if I seem outdated.

Edited May 14, 2010 by SeverIan