Videogames and Art: Second Edition
260
Videogames and Art: Second Edition
260Paperback(Second Edition)
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Overview
Together, the contributions position videogame art as an interdisciplinary mix of digital technologies and the traditional art forms. Of particular interest in this volume are machinima, game console artwork, politically oriented videogame art, and the production of digital art. This new and revised edition features an extended critical introduction from the editors and updated interviews with the foremost artists in the field. Rounding out the book is a critique of the commercial videogame industry comprising essays on the current quality and originality of videogames.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781841504193 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Intellect, Limited |
| Publication date: | 02/15/2014 |
| Edition description: | Second Edition |
| Pages: | 260 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.60(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Grethe Mitchell is a reader in digital and new media at the University of Lincoln, UK.
Read an Excerpt
Videogames and Art
By Andy Clarke, Grethe Mitchell
Intellect Ltd
Copyright © 2013 Intellect LtdAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84150-419-3
CHAPTER 1
SECTION I
Overviews
From Appropriation to Approximation
Axel Stockburger
Introduction
Recent years have seen a significant surge of museum and gallery exhibitions focusing on works in the context of computer and videogames. At the same time the discussion about the ontological status of computer games in relation to art, specifically whether they can be understood as an art form or not, is heating up.
Contemporary artists are increasingly influenced by computer and videogames, while game designers are turning towards the world of fine arts for inspiration.
It is the intention of this paper to examine the relationship between contemporary fine art practice and computer games. In order to understand how and why contemporary artist practice is moving towards games it is necessary to take a step back and take a look at the mutual attraction between the fields of games and art.
Modern Siblings
Johan Huizinga, the famous Dutch game scholar, posited play and games at the roots of all cultures and clarified that they permeate various sectors of society such as art, philosophy, law and politics. The notion of games as a core element of culture is also perceived by McLuhan. He states that "Games are popular art, collective, social reactions to the main drive or action of any culture." He hints at the historic importance of games as a form of collective art at the heart of ancient non-literate societies, for the constant modelling of the universe through dramatization and enactment. Similarly, Callois describes tribal rites as forms of play with mimetic functions that are often related to full bodily involvement.
According to McLuhan, the shift towards literacy brought about a change of focus from a mimetic relation to the outer world to the inner world of the human psyche. Tribal and participatory forms of art, which were homologous with games, evolved into literary substitutes and private dramatizations of the human psyche. Games in this context have to be described as a social art demanding bodily involvement and mutual participation. Adorno and Horkheimer identified the myth of the Odyssey and the personal struggle of the individual with this shift from the ancient world to an early phase of enlightenment. The cultural forms of art and games seem to depart onto separate tangents at this point. Text and the emergence of the individual narrative gradually create forms of art directed towards individuals, and thus move it away from the participatory game.
What then is the relation between art and games?
On the first glance we can identify a number of similarities, in that both are generating spatio-temporal zones, which are perceived as different from everyday life. Furthermore, art, as well as games, are said to be on the one hand governed by rules and on the other hand related to notions of freedom. The latter has led Sutton-Smith to critique the romantic conflation of art and play. He reflects upon the romantic ideal of childhood as a realm of freedom and creativity that can be traced back to Schiller and writes: "Essentially what this 'romantic' relationship between children's play and art did was to obscure whatever the true relationship between play and art actually is and to contribute instead the notion that what is most important about them is the freedom, originality and autonomy they connote."
Sutton-Smith is convinced that the direct identification of play with art is clouding the options of explaining the true nature of play. However, the interest in so-called primitive art and children's art as sources of innocent creativity has had a strong influence on modern art and therefore has to be treated as one important strain of proximity between the two forms.
Whereas child's play has been idealized as seemingly free from constraints, games are usually based on rules. The consensual acceptance of these rules by all players is necessary to enter the spatio-temporal microcosm of a game. Furthermore, the rules are precisely the means to create the difference that defines the threshold between everyday life and game. This adherence to the rules can be likened to a contract, which if broken by one of the participants holds the power to destroy the game.
Objects of art emerge from being perceived as different from profane objects and it can be argued that this process is similarly based on rules. As Boris Groys has shown in his famous examination of the concept of the new in art, we are only able to identify works of so-called "high" art based on processes that generate a difference between the profane world and the realm of art. For him the locus of differentiation throughout the history of modernity is the museum. In relation to the avant-gardes of the last century he states that "[t]he less an artwork differs visually from a profane object, the more necessary it becomes to draw a clear distinction between the art context and the profane, everyday, non-museum context of its occurrence".
What is important here for our argument is that every profane object that is transported into the museum at some point in time is thereby valorized and transformed into a work of art. Consequently, if games are passing this line, they are becoming works of art. A number of artists are indeed using "traditional" strategies of the appropriation of elements from the popular culture phenomenon of computer games and transform these objects into pieces of art by placing them in the art context. Groys relates to Marcel Duchamp as one of the most important artists to directly address the process of transformation from non-art to art. The concept of the ready-made challenged the differentiation process itself and has thus also transformed the rules of art itself. Groys asserts that in recent years the artistic focus has gradually moved away from the transformational power of the object in the museum space to the creation and examination of the context surrounding the artwork. He writes:
In the modernist tradition, the art context was regarded as stable – it was the idealized context of the universal museum. Innovation consisted in putting a new form, a new thing, in this stable context. In our time, the context is seen as changing and unstable. So the strategy of contemporary art consists in creating a specific context which can make a certain form or thing look other, new and interesting – even if this form was already collected before.
In other words, in his view, contemporary artistic practice is particularly concerned with examining, creating and transforming the rules governing the emergence of art itself.
The game of chess is the central metaphor in Marcel Duchamp's work. For him: "Chess is undoubtedly one of the most private forms of artistic activity, since the artist's constructions, however beautiful, occur on the invisible plain of thought and could not be said to please a wide audience." The simple rules of chess are able to generate a universe of "plastic" constructions. Part of the pleasure that can be derived from this process is its solipsistic nature. It creates a private aesthetic spatio-temporal realm. Here we have the perspective that playing a game might be part of an artistic practice in its own right with the player as the audience. It might be far-fetched to relate the playing of a computer game to Duchamp's notion of the creation of temporal aesthetic constructions on the "plain of thought", but the core element of individual aesthetic pleasure could be said to be similar. This is not to claim that every player of a videogame is an artist of some sort. However, the practice of playing a computer game most definitely can be regarded as an aesthetic and sometimes creative process, constricted by time that generally does not leave an artefact behind.
Game elements turn up in various shapes in Duchamp's work. There are the recurrent language games, the use of aleatorics or chance as an important part of artistic production, the constant play with gender identities, as well as the ever-present practice of chess. From the Surrealist exquisite corpse (cadavre exquis) over William Burroughs' cut-up method and John Cage's composition strategies to Karl Sim's artificial life installations, the use of aleatoric elements has played an important role in artistic practice. Fluxus art strongly employed various game structures such as participation, chance and the examination and dramatization of rule-based behaviour. The playful approach to the representation of gender identities can be seen as another highly influential aspect of the game in modern art. Callois refers to this element of games that can be found in children's play as well as forms of drama as "mimicry". There are numerous examples of mimicry in art; some of the most famous include Duchamp's female alter ego "Rrose Sélavy" as well as the work of Cindy Sherman.
Since computer games have only become important as a medium with the arcade games of the early 1980s the focus here will be on artists who have been influenced by and have used computer games for their artistic practice. Most of these artists seem to come from the fields of Net and Media art.
Between Appropriation and Approximation
In the last ten years we have witnessed a significant cultural re-evaluation of video and computer games. Whereas these games were generally treated as children's toys during the 1980s, they have permeated the whole of society by the year 2000.
Academic research and contemporary artistic practice are accompanying a general establishment of the cultural importance of those games. Currently they are entering the museums from two directions. On the one hand they more and more perceived to be cultural products worthy of exhibition in their own right and on the other hand they have become an integral part of contemporary fine art practice.
The exhibition "Game On" was an interesting example for the shift of perception that has been taking place in the last decade. In the exhibition catalogue, Henry Jenkins and Kurt Squire promote the notion of computer games as the "art of contested spaces". They write: "We should consider ... viewing games as spatial art with its roots in architecture, landscape painting, sculpture, gardening or amusement-park design." This approach is especially worth noting if one considers the impact of installation art during the 1990s that was led by an examination of spatial configuration and audience participation in space. Whether one adheres to the notion of computer games as an art form or denies their potential for creating high art, it remains obvious that they have a number of characteristics that are not entirely shared by fine art.
First of all they are a mass medium attempting to deliver compelling entertainment for a fixed prize on a PC or console. Furthermore, they demand a high level of participation and engagement. To put it bluntly: As games they have to be played. In terms of production a lot of similarities with the medium of film can be observed. Computer games and films are usually produced by teams consisting of professionals with highly specialized roles. The emergence of hybrid entertainment products incorporating film, game, toys and even fashion manifestations has led to a strong connection between formerly separated entertainment sectors.
However, given that most computer games are not attempting to be perceived as works of art it might be more interesting to move on from the discussion of the computer game as a form of art to its relation with contemporary fine art practice. This relationship between the poles of fine art and computer games can be described as a permanent oscillation between appropriation and approximation. In other words, both forms are borrowing elements from each other to employ them in their respective systems and both exist in varying degrees of proximity. Two major questions can be said to emerge from this context. Firstly, How is this process organized? and, secondly, What are the reasons for it?
From the perspective of art, the first question is synonymous with the examination of artistic practices and strategies at work. The particular artistic practices span from the appropriation of game iconography, via the modification and subversion of existing games to the production of unique and original games. Yet, between these three broader modes that can be identified, there also exist vast grey areas.
Why artists are interested in games at all, however, is a lot harder to explain in categorical terms and one can find a vast number of differing motivations and interests. It might well be that it can only be dealt with appropriately in the context of particular artworks. In general, the computer game is increasingly treated as a new medium with unique and original technologies, functions and codes. Very much like film, the whole dispositif at work in games has become an object of examination and reference. Artistic examination is directed towards all aspects of games, such as the user's environment, the game space, the gameplay and its rules, the game's audio-visual representation as well as narrative structures.
Artistic Strategies in the Context of Computer Games
Three different modes of relation between contemporary fine art and games have been mentioned: appropriation, modification and production of original games.
Appropriation of elements from the audio-visual apparatus of computer games and their transportation into the art context is probably the most widely used artistic strategy in this context. Here, artists do not necessarily need in-depth knowledge of a game's technology or rules.
The second strategy demands a certain knowledge of the rules and system of a particular game but, even more important, an understanding of the wider context, such as the game's fans and communities emerging from it. The artist is changing a functional or aesthetic element in an existing game. This often critical or ironic intervention is referred to as modification (mod) or patch.
Quite often, modding a game, providing a new skin for an avatar or creating a whole level generates better knowledge of its technology and functions. This leads directly to the third strategy, the production of unique and original games. A large number of these games, which have recently been termed "artist games", are playable online.
The Appropriation of Game Iconography
The classic pop art practice of the appropriation of aesthetic objects and codes from everyday life in order to employ them in the creation of works of art has been a major force in modern art. Here, artists act as critical instances, highlighting and researching popular cultural phenomena. There are lots of similarities between the 1960s pop artists, highlighting issues such as the branding of fabricated objects, the implications of aesthetics in the world of consumable objects and the concentration of contemporary artists on the iconography of computer games.
The focus remains on the iconography of gaming as a popular activity that has completely penetrated all western societies as one of the most important manifestations of commercial entertainment. Artists are treating the aesthetic peculiarities, from the early reduced vector graphics and sprites, which already seem to have a relation to minimal art, to the highly iconic game characters such as Super Mario and Lara Croft as an integral part of the contemporary media landscape. Furthermore, fashion and nostalgia are strongly influencing the choice of imagery. The "strong" iconic image of Pac-Man has been appropriated by countless visual artists, because it stands for a particular segment of 1980s youth culture.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Videogames and Art by Andy Clarke, Grethe Mitchell. Copyright © 2013 Intellect Ltd. Excerpted by permission of Intellect Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
IntroductionGrethe Mitchell and Andy Clarke
Section I: Overviews
From Appropriation to Approximation
Axel Stockburger
Meltdown
Rebecca Cannon
Videogames as Literary Devices
Jim Andrews
High-Performance Play: The Making of Machinima
Henry Lowood
“Cracking the Maze”: Curator’s Note
Anne-Marie Schleiner
Section II: Artists on Art
Two Interviews with Brody Condon
Andy Clark
In Conversation Fall 2003 and Spring 2012: Interviews with Joesph Delappe
Jon Winet
Figures in a Landscape: In Conversation with Gibson/Martelli (igloo)
Grethe Mitchell
The Idea of Doing Nothing: An Interview with Tobias Bernstrup
Francis Hunger
Staying in to Play: The Works of John Paul Bichard
John Paul Bichard
An Interview with Eddo Stern
Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell
The Isometric Museum: The Sim Gallery Online Project (an interview with Curators Katherine Isbister and Rainey Straus)
Jane Pinckard
The Evolution of a GBA Artist (2004)
Paul Catanese
From Fictional Videogame Stills to Time Travelling with Rosalind Brodsky, 1991-2005
Suzanne Treister
Virtual Retrofit (or What Makes Computer Gaming So Damn Racy?)
M.A. Greenstein
Perspective Engines: An Interview with JODI
Francis Hunger
How Independent Game Development looked in 2002 (an interview with Julian Oliver and Kipper)
Melanie Swalwell
Medieval Unreality: Initiating an Artistic Discourse on Albania’s Blood Feud by Editing a First-Person Shooter Game
Nina Czegledy and Maia Engeli
Section III: Games and Other Art Forms
Should Videogames be Viewed as Art?
Brett Martin
Some Notes on Aesthetics in Japanese Videogames
William Huber
The Computer as a Dollhouse (excerpts)
Tobey Crockett
Networking Power: Videogame Structure from Concept Art
Laurie Taylor
Fan Art as a Function of Agency in Oddworld Fan Culture
Gareth Schott and Andrew Burn
Will Computer Games Ever Be a Legitimate Art Form?
Ernest W. Adams
Notes on Contributors and Artists