14 ms·

An Apology for Roger Ebert (2011)

113 points by filipmandaric 10y ago

ouid 10y ago
"no one confuses mathematics with great art" This is where I stopped reading. Mathematics can be true, beautiful, compelling, creative, unique, etc. He has failed to define art except by exclusion, which makes his argument pointless. I could not read on.
- fizwhiz 10y ago
  Aye.
- olavk 10y ago
  > Mathematics can be true, beautiful, compelling, creative, unique, etc. Yes, but that does not mean it is art. Art literally means something created by humans, which is distinct from the natural sciences which is studying nature. Both are worthwhile, but it's not the same.
  - IanCal 10y ago
    I really don't think art has such a clear definition, but nevertheless looking at definitions, here's the first thing on Google: > the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. Can you find no space for mathematics there? No definitions or creations produced simply because they are beautiful? Maybe some later found uses, but that feels like discounting Michelangelo's David because it could be used to hold open a large door.
    - olavk 10y ago
      Maybe the word "art" have such positive connotations that it seems disparaging to state that something is not art. But that is not my intention at all. I'm just noting that in the usual sense of the word, math is not art just like say sociology or software design or sex is not art. Of course you can make a definition of art which does include all those activities and everything else for that matter, nobody owns the word.
      - IanCal 10y ago
        I didn't make up a definition though. That's an OED definition of art. Perhaps "doing maths" is often not art, but then neither is writing. Both can serve specific uses that wouldn't easily fall under definitions of art, but that doesn't mean they can't be. Software engineering isn't but then is it really a stretch to describe this spinning globe quine as art? https://github.com/knoxknox/qlobe https://github.com/knoxknox/qlobe or this 100 language quine https://github.com/mame/quine-relay/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/mame/quine-relay/blob/master/README.md
  - mrob 10y ago
    "God made the integers, all else is the work of man." - Leopold Kronecker Mathematics is also something created by humans.
    - olavk 10y ago
      So is astronomy, but that does not make it art. Of course you can define art however you want, it just not how the word is usually used. (Unless you take it in the colloquial sense of "something to appreciate", like in "that ass is a piece of art".)
  - hx87 10y ago
    Mathematics is not a natural science. Its structure and content is obtained strictly from axioms and logic.
    - olavk 10y ago
      I didn't intend to claim it way, just using examples.
  - ouid 10y ago
    Then video games qualify. This is an article which argues that something does not satisfy the criteria for art. So when he he invokes his ability to exclude mathematics from the definition without any justification, or at least without appealing to any reasoning whatsoever, and then using that conclusion to assert that games aren't art, all he is doing is demonstrating that his essay should have been much shorter. The same unqualified assertion that applies to mathematics would apply to videogames, and he needs go no further than the thesis.
    - olavk 10y ago
      I happen to agree. Video games definitely qualify as art in my opinion. Math does not. I don't buy his argument either. But the underlying mistake is thinking "art" means "valuable and worthwhile" (and "not art" means "bad"). There is lots of crappy art.
  - NoahTheDuke 10y ago
    > Art literally means something created by humans Mathematics are created by humans. Math is the map, not the territory.
- fusiongyro 10y ago
  Later in the article, he says one of the hallmarks of art is that it is a celebration of the ineffable. Your objection seems to be that his definition of art is not sufficiently mathematical to be sensible to you. This tells me that you are more interested in reasoning about art than appreciating it. Well, ... I'm glad you enjoy math more than art. But I don't think that art needs to bow down to math by confining itself to a definition that fits your criteria.
  - ouid 10y ago
    my objection is that his definition of art appears in no part of this essay. I don't need it to be "mathematical", I just need it to exist. As for the claim that I am more interested in reasoning about art than appreciating it. Do you actually think priorities are exclusive like that? May I not both reason and appreciate? Is this not an essay which itself attempts to reason about art, should I not appeal to that in a response to the article? The argument you make against my response to the article could be equally applied to the article itself, yet you take the author's side, which seems dishonest to me.
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      Various definitions for types of art follow in the latter half of the article. Discussions on kitsch, sublime, great, etc. Which is essential to be able to put the whole thing into context, seems to be what you want. It's right there.
    - fusiongyro 10y ago
      > my objection is that his definition of art appears in no part of this essay. I don't need it to be "mathematical", I just need it to exist. Yes, you need everything you read to be structured like a mathematical argument, so you can pick it apart. So you need a definition followed by proofs. You're annoyed that every article doesn't have this structure, especially argumentative articles like this one. You are acting as a natural language proof checker, not a person. > Do you actually think priorities are exclusive like that? May I not both reason and appreciate? I think if you bail out after a few minutes on an article for failing to supply you with the structure you demand, then yes, your priorities are basically exclusive. Now, I don't have a proof in hand for that, which I'm sure you'll fixate on. > The argument you make against my response to the article could be equally applied to the article itself, yet you take the author's side, which seems dishonest to me. I value articles over comments, especially obnoxious, entitled comments. I am not here to merely compile text and type check it. The accusation of "dishonesty" only reinforces that you are more interested in the structure of what is being said than what the words are saying. The accusation itself, what a preposterous idea, that there are some rigid rules about what I read and how I choose to respond to it which you can apply to me and constrain me with. Do you think you could berate me into agreeing with you?
- mrec 10y ago
  OK, I'll bite: yes, "Mathematics can be true, beautiful, compelling, creative, unique, etc", but those qualities are generally only discernable by other mathematicians working at a roughly comparable level. Same for code; I've talked to promising-but-junior programmers who couldn't understand at all what people meant when they talked about code being "ugly". "Art" in its various forms, on the other hand, is widely appreciated by people who are not artists, or art critics, or art dealers, or art students. (I'd exclude an awful lot of modern art from this, but that's probably a flamewar for another day.)
  - setr 10y ago
    >"Art" in its various forms, on the other hand, is widely appreciated by people who are not artists, or art critics, or art dealers, or art students. Warning: I don't know shit about the arts That's not really true. Much of the high arts is intended to be appreciated by those with sufficient background to do so. For example, when a piece makes a joke on another artist's trademarks. In Chicago, the IIT campus is mostly done by Mies; A more recent building on the campus (MTCC) was designed by Rem Koolhaas, and features Mies's iconic I-Beams. But for no real purpose as far as I can tell. I'm quite positive he did it in jest (he also placed extremely ugly victorian-style furniture made of excess metal from the construction, also I think, for humor). Of course, anyone unaware of Mies's work would entirely miss this. The building is obviously still useful even if you do not appreciate this facet, but its easy to imagine a work the ceases to be appreciable without any background. Interestingly, Russian abstract art was originally intended to avoid this; they attempted to remove reference from everything in the real world, to be purely emotional and evocative, and could thus be appreciated by even the most uninformed of persons. It was then rejected by the proletariat, interpreted as only being appreciable by those with a background they did not have; pretentious, masturbatory works only for those educated, useless artists. I imagine you're thinking more of like the realist styles, which often feature technical skill immediately appreciable; but it's not hard to see The Birth of Venus is depicting a scene, with particular emotions and characters that can only be appreciated to a lackluster degree if one has no knowledge of the mythos behind it (as I do). In the same way, near-anyone can appreciate the immediate benefit of a computer; but without sufficient background, appreciate ends at the screen. The deeper you understand the machine, the better you can appreciate the complexity underlying it.
- mrob 10y ago
  It's true that there's some aesthetic judgment involved in writing proofs, but it's heavily constrained by the problems you're trying to solve. I think this prevents it from being great art, even when it's great mathematics. It's similar to writing puns, which nobody claims are great comedy, or lipograms, which nobody claims are great literature.
  - hx87 10y ago
    Architecture, especially before the advent of reinforced concrete, is heavily constrained by mechanics, and yet few would claim that architecture cannot be great art.
  - IanCal 10y ago
    Pure maths is not particularly constrained, is it? You don't even really need to have a certain actual problem you're trying to solve. That feels like saying a book can't be great art because it's heavily constrained by the story you're trying to tell.
    - mrob 10y ago
      A book doesn't have to be heavily constrained by the story. What's the mathematical equivalent of Finnegans Wake?
      - IanCal 10y ago
        Would you accept no books "constrained" by their story as art?
        mrob 10y ago
        I don't think there's any hard cut-off where you can say something is art or not art. But even the most formulaic genre fiction gives more freedom to the author in how they can arrange their words. English language doesn't have a formal grammar and rules are more like suggestions. But if mathematics breaks the commonly accepted rules then it's just plain wrong.
- Frondo 10y ago
  I'd be curious; can you describe the emotional reactions you've had to reading a mathematical paper? Have you experienced joy, sorrow, loneliness, kinship, heartache, lust, tenderness, guilt, hope from reading a math paper? Could you tell us which paper inspired various emotional reactions in you? Honest questions all. If you've experienced a variety of emotions from a maths paper, and can talk about your inner world in relation to such a paper, it'd go a long way to convincing me that math can be great art.
lr4444lr 10y ago
There's an interest point: He dismissed Waco Resurrection, Braid and Flower as “pathetic,” and sternly predicted that “no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.” People still watch movies made over 40, 50, 60 years ago and still derive aesthetic appreciation from them for camera work, direction, acting, score, and don't just use the relative judgment of being "great for its day" (which isn't without merit) but as absolute recognition of artistic prowess. Will video games ever match movies' longevity, or will they be doomed to a more secular estimation, and eventually fade into obscurity?
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Most games definitely fade, and deservedly so. Others, from various incarnations of Mario, to various "Tycoon" games probably will stay around for at least as long as some classic movies. I would still happily play SMB on a NES right now... and I think a lot of people would. It's not just nostalgia, it's a good game, it looks good, it sounds good. I say this, and I'm not generally into retro for the sake of retro.
  - lr4444lr 10y ago
    Right, and you played it in your formative years. I can watch a movie like "The Third Man" or "12 Angry Men" or "Scaramouche" in my adult years, made decades before I was born, even though I was reared on more flashy stuff, and find it as much as if not more satisfying than what I had encountered before. Could you get a 7 year old today who's had a couple of years of XBox 360 and Wii under his belt to enjoy SMB on the NES more than just to play it for 3 minutes to examine it as an artifact of another age? Even when he's older and can understand the evolution of video games?
    - hx87 10y ago
      Why not fire up an SNES emulator or DOSBox and find out?
      - M_Grey 10y ago
ajeet_dhaliwal 10y ago
Good article but I must disagree with the apology/defense. The comparison to sports touched up on something important but failed to follow through on the medium not being as important as the genre. Why can a novel be a work of art but not a magazine? Why can a Hollywood movie be a work of art but not some seedy porn film or TV commercial? Why is sculpture of a bust art but a road sign not? Why is a ballet art, ice hockey not and figure skating somewhere in the middle? It's all subjective but largely related to the genre - and nothing to do with the choice of a player as alluded to my Ebert. Call of Duty and other FPS games may resemble sports and not an art form, but Final Fantasy XV is closer to 'looking like' art. If all Roger Ebert was aware of when it comes to games was Doom or Fifa then it probably didn't look like art, he needed to have been introduced to Dragon Age, Japanese RPGs and more obviously artful efforts like Monument Valley and Child of Light.
fusiongyro 10y ago
The entire conversation says more about the bruised egos of gamers than art.
- hx87 10y ago
  "The entire conversation says more about the bruised egos of gamers critics than art" would be an equally correct statement.
lisper 10y ago
Oh for crying out loud, what difference does it make? If you want to call video games art, call them art. If you don't, don't. What's the point of quibbling over terminology, especially subjective terminology? It's like arguing over whether or not vanilla is a "great flavor."
- obstinate 10y ago
  This is absolutely the correct answer. Another take on the same idea: http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/
- metaphorm 10y ago
  it brings to mind some interesting questions for how we tell our own culture's story to ourselves and our descendants. we do, after all, spend lots of money enshrining in museums "great works of art". we write about them in history books and they come to represent symbols and meanings in our language and collective unconscious. I think it matters. I think that making room for new forms in the canon that we admit as "high art" has a significant impact on the present and future of our culture and society. As an example of why it matters. Vanilla is a great flavor and this is independent of whether or not an individual enjoys eating vanilla flavored foods. How do we know? Look at the language. Vanilla, as a metaphor, has meaning. It means "baseline" or "unaugmented". It matters. It's how we construct our language.
- crooked-v 10y ago
  There's a substantial number of people who complain when video games are called 'not art', but then also complain when video games are treated as art and used to explore 'not game' subjects (see the hubbub surrounding Depression Quest) or criticized in the same way that art is.
- Tenhundfeld 10y ago
  Eh, I disagree, mostly. Quibbling over terminology is a large part of how we define a collective culture. For an individual, sure, I agree with you. It doesn't really matter and is possibly a waste of time to contemplate. To use your analogy, if you like vanilla, eat it; if you don't, don't. But for a society, it matters how we think about things, how we label things, how we frame ideas, what we choose to venerate and what we choose to denigrate. It's a large part of how we distinguish cultures from each other and track changing attitudes over time within a culture. That's not to argue that you and I and every Joe and Jane on the street need to endlessly debate subjective terminology, but I think it can be worthwhile for critics, anthropologists, historians, etc.
woopwoop 10y ago
From Paul Graham's "How to Do Philosophy": "Most philosophical debates are not merely afflicted by but driven by confusions over words. Do we have free will? Depends what you mean by 'free.' Do abstract ideas exist? Depends what you mean by 'exist.'" Are video games art? Depends on what you mean by "art". I realize that this is not a particularly insightful comment, and that anyone who thinks about this issue for more than 15 seconds must understand this. What I don't understand, and what I hope someone can explain to me, is why it is fruitful to continue this discussion after having this realization.
- maldusiecle 10y ago
  Most important ideas have various definitions. "Beauty" or "virtue" or "freedom" or "love." It seems a bit...misguided...to assume that none of those things are worth discussing for such a reason.
  - tdb7893 10y ago
    There's a difference between discussing ideas and discussing semantics. This seems firmly in the realm of a mere semantic argument.
    - ahelwer 10y ago
      Semantic arguments are wrongfully vilified. Philosophy requires precision, and imprecise definitions lead nowhere. At a meta level, it's an interesting question whether we can satisfactorily define any term at all; see the failure of philosophy to adequately define what is and is not science: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/
      - tdb7893 10y ago
        Understanding the precise meaning of words is obviously important to a discussion. My problem with semantic arguments is generally a practical one, not theoretical. I've found arguments over disagreements in definitions of words to either be resolved trivially or ultimately futile. There probably are situations where semantic arguments are worth it to really argue but they seem very seldom. This is just a value judgement on my part so honestly I expect people to disagree
metafunctor 10y ago
Art is art if it is called art.
smacktoward 10y ago
This is a brilliant presentation. Which is unsurprising since it's by Brian Moriarty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Moriarty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Moriarty), but still. I was especially intrigued by its placement of games in the context of kitsch. I hadn't heard of Tomas Kulka or his three properties of kitsch before, but they map to video games (especially successful video games) really well. Even a relatively simple game like Super Mario Bros. is built around "objects or themes that are highly charged with stock emotions": the game revolves around a damsel in distress, threatened by a menacing Big Bad. There's no subtext: no indication that Bowser is anything other than 100% evil, Princess Peach anything other than 100% innocent, or Mario anything other than 100% good. And because the player manipulates Mario to overcome Bowser, the game validates the player as being on the side of good. I was provoked enough by the comparison to try and think of a game that breaks out of Kulka's three properties, and I came up with exactly one: Spec Ops: The Line (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec_Ops:_The_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec_Ops:_The_Line), which goes out of its way to reject the idea that its function is to validate the player as a holder of Good, Correct Opinions. Which is not to say that Spec Ops is the "best game ever made," or anything like that -- just to say that it's the rare game that manages to be something other than kitsch. Are there others?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- isleyaardvark 10y ago
  KOTOR 2. It's mostly kitsch but the character of Kreia is decidedly not kitsch.
- astrange 10y ago
  Chris Avellone has written some worthwhile games like that. (or maybe just stories - the game is the part that happens when you're not reading the story) NieR and Ico games, for Japanese. I don't know, if you want to know war is bad you could also just play MGS.
dharmon 10y ago
After the intro, I was hoping that this essay would take the turn, "Games are not art... and that's ok." Maybe where Ebert should have been engaged is not on quibbling over the definition of Art, but on his implicit claim that reading books or watching movies is a better use of time than video games. I don't really play video games any more (nor do I watch many movies or read much fiction), but playing the original Zelda on NES as a little child was as formative an experience as reading Of Human Bondage.
- DanHulton 10y ago
  The latest Zelda may prove to be such an experience for a whole new generation of players. It's essentially the go-anywhere, do-anything of the first game, writ even larger.
- Chathamization 10y ago
  > Maybe where Ebert should have been engaged is not on quibbling over the definition of Art, but on his implicit claim that reading books or watching movies is a better use of time than video games. Ebert did in fact say that in his essay: > Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form. Nor did Shi Hua Chen, winner of the $500,000 World Series of Mah Jong in 2009. Why aren't gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? They have my blessing, not that they care. The response to Ebert's essay showed the vapidity of much of the "games are art" crowd. He was actually treating games seriously, and had thoughtful things to say about them (whether or not he agreed with them). He wasn't criticizing them, but giving his opinion about whether or not they should be considered art (not entirely different from art vs. design arguments). But it turns out many weren't really interested in deep conversation; they wanted cheap platitudes. They wanted the validation of their hobby by having someone call it art, more than they wanted someone to take their hobby seriously and approach it critically.
  - Frondo 10y ago
    This reminds me a lot of the "code is poetry" crowd. As a (former) coder and published writer/poet, I have an appreciation for both. But code is definitely not poetry, not by the meaning that you could expect to use anywhere in the world outside the "code is poetry" crowd. People want their craft to be lumped in with some "higher" aesthetic. I get that, they want to be afforded the respect (and the attraction from the opposite/same sex) of being "artists" and not just craftspeople. But you know how you do that? Make art. Write poetry. Don't keep on doing the thing you're doing and ask the world to make it into something it isn't, just to scratch your own ego itch. Do the hard thing instead.
deleted 10y ago
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cousin_it 10y ago
This part is key: > "I do not have a need ‘all the time’ to take myself away from the oppressive facts of my life, however oppressive they may be, in order to go somewhere where I have control. I need to stay here and take control." The idea is that great art should lead you back to life, not pull you into fantasies. Ebert clearly felt that authorial control is the only way to achieve that, but I think he might have agreed that video games are art, if he saw even a single example where player choice was used to lead the player back to life. That's a very tall order though.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  Shadow of the Colossus has always, to me, felt like that sort of game. It's one of the few I've seen/played that felt like something other than just an escape into fantasy. The consequences of the actions, the tragedy of the circumstances and outcomes, lend itself to introspection and contemplation for the player/audience.
  - rrauenza 10y ago
    I believe my wife (as did many others) responded to Ebert's blog entry years ago with that exact example. He mentions Shadow of the Colossus it in a response: http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/okay-kids-play-on-my-lawn http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/okay-kids-play-on-m... It's funny, Ebert said that games aren't art because they give you choices... and in a way, Shadow of the Colossus gives you none.
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      > It's funny, Ebert said that games aren't art because they give you choices... and in a way, Shadow of the Colossus gives you none. I think his outsider perspective made it difficult for him to appreciate that these things, examples of what he wanted, already existed. Myst is another (sort of) example, where the number of choices are actually more limited than it immediately appeared. I'm not really certain that they'd actually be great art, but they're demonstrations that the medium is capable of it. Which he later admits, though I think his timeline for when it will happen (if it hasn't happened yet) was way off.
shuntress 10y ago
Undertale? The Stanley Parable? Doom? Bloodborne? It's quite hard to come up with nominees for consideration as 'Sublime Art'. It seems so hard to really find the difference between "Sublime Art" and "A Really Good Game" The end bit of the article states: "But when I feel the need for reflection, for insight, wisdom or consolation, I turn my computers off. These needs are the ambit of the sublime arts, which are inspired and informed by philosophy, and by faith." But this immediately brings my mind to games like Proteus, No Man's Sky, or Breath of the Wild.
- cholantesh 10y ago
  I think that, if Doom 2016 wasn't so checklist bound, it'd qualify as sublime art - it's the best answer I've seen to the question "What would Aliens look like if it were a video game?" LeChuck's Revenge is up there, too, IMO - both versions.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    I haven't played that version of Doom. But I have to ask, is Aliens sublime art?
    - cholantesh 10y ago
      I presumed that that was the version which GP was referring to because the other ones are also dated to 2016. And I chose to mention it because Ebert rated Aliens highly, at 3.5/4. In retrospect, that may not qualify it as sublime art as opposed to a really good film. I'd have to refresh my memory of Ebert's scale.
      - shuntress 10y ago
        I was actually trying to tacitly refer to both the original and 2016 version because they both can apply to this discussion for different reasons. I think my main take away from 2016 is that it is nearly flawless execution of an equally well-understood concept with an attention to detail that can rival anything to which it may be compared. What I actually consider most impressive about the original is the marvelous ingenuity of its 'construction' which I think is more deserving of comparison to architecture than film.
ideonexus 10y ago
A major disconnect here comes from a lack of gaming literacy among critics. I read a great paper recently, Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming as a Constellation of Literacy Practices, where the author talks about how RPG games are actually quite literary in the sense of reading and writing than people give them credit for [1]. But what really impressed me about the essay is that he presented a screenshot of an RPG video game and pointed out that few critics could explain what was going on in the image, even though it was instantly familiar to me despite not having played the game. Critics are not game-literate, so they can't appreciate them. They know nothing about mechanics like strategic imbalance, the Skinner box, achievements, power creep and other concepts I myself am only becoming familiar with thanks to the thoughtful folks at ExtraCredits[2]. They don't know anything about how video games tell stories, challenge players with moral choices, or the brilliant innovations artists have had to come up with to work around hardware limitations in both graphics and music over the decades. If you aren't literate in gaming, then of course you can't appreciate the many many layers of artistic expression from algorithms to writing to graphics to music and mechanics that go into making a game. Video games are more profitable than films now. Critical theory surrounding video games simply needs to rise to the level of other mediums before more people will respect it. Remember, films were originally considered such a waste of time no one bothered to preserve 75% of silent films[3]. As the new generation of game-literate kids grow up, I trust that games will get the respect they deserve. [1] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2304/elea.2007.4.3.297 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2304/elea.2007.4.3.29... [2] https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lost_films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lost_films
- oconnor663 10y ago
  For the curious, I think this is the image from [1]: https://i.imgur.com/OOlZexh.png https://i.imgur.com/OOlZexh.png
- AlexandrB 10y ago
  > Video games are more profitable than films now. Critical theory surrounding video games simply needs to rise to the level of other mediums before more people will respect it. This was one thing particularly frustrating to me about #gamergate. Much of it seemed like a backlash against serious game analysis (feminist or otherwise). It's one thing to personally ignore any deeper meaning baked into games (intentionally or not), but it's another to ask that no one even try to root it out.
adambmedia 10y ago
In defense of Roger Ebert, the dude wrote the screenplay to Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
ranprieur 10y ago
I think it's obvious that some of the descendants of today's games will be art. Comparing games to movies is a distraction. The important thing is to compare games as they are now to games as they could be.
barrkel 10y ago
The closest thing video games are to what is normally accepted as art is theatre; specifically, interactive theatre[1]. There's many components to what makes good art, but if I could sum it up in one word, it would be broadband: not a thin narrow channel of effect, but impacting the observer on multiple levels. Emotion, reason, the senses - being hit all at once, or in waves. Games are still a bit lopsided, due to being marketed mostly to not particularly introspective young people and frequently focusing on visuals over everything else. I think things could change, but it may require different market expectations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_theatre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_theatre
xutopia 10y ago
I can't believe no one has mentioned Journey. To me this is closest to Art you can find in a video game.
- astrange 10y ago
  It certainly does feel like a rich man commissioned someone to put it on their wall.
planetmcd 10y ago
Is dance an art? Is jazz? Is improv? How do they differ from a game like chess or basketball?
- vlunkr 10y ago
  Yes people seem to think that video games are art when they tell a story like a book or movie. I think that's boring. This is a new medium, let's drop the inferiority complex and stop acting like the old mediums.
btschaegg 10y ago
I've not yet finished reading the whole essay (still intend to), but I already have found two points in which I find the whole side of the discussion to be rather flawed. The identity of a game emerges from its mechanics and affordances, not the presentation that exposes them. Translated to paintings, this would equate to the statement that the defining aspect of paintings like the Mona Lisa are that they consist of dried dirt on canvas. If you're not willing to consider a piece wholistically, you don't even need to start a discussion like this. Also, with one of the first quoted statement, namely: As long as there is a great movie unseen or a great book unread, I will continue to be unable to find the time to play video games. Ebert pretty much disqualifies himself from the whole debate he created. If you willfully choose to be ignorant on the subject you're talking about, you have no say whatsoever in my book. Also, one thing that struck me as strange so far is the idea that the addition of something should remove the art-ness from a medium. At one point, there was an agreement that painted pictures could be art, but photography couldn't. Then, those were included, but moving pictures weren't. Now, certain moving pictures aren't, because they interact with the audience? I fail to see the reasoning there. The whole argument somehow reminds me of a text I once read, which explained that unwritten fashion rules about which dress colors should be worn during which seasons were used by nobility to "unmask" new-rich in their ranks. Sadly, I'm unable to find the source on that. Edit: As for the mechanics-based comment: I could agree with that when applied to go or chess. But this statement fails to see the merit of many video games: They are no longer limited to being a simple battle of wits, but have the possibility to convey messages, insight, emotion, impressions etc. without the need for an actual "opponent". Edit2: Thinking of it, a far more interesting point for me lies in the debate itself and where it stems from. I would be very much interested in the number of great artists that actually cared if their work was perceived as art. I would guess this number to be rather low, although I've got no evidence either way. That's why I find the more zealous participants in the discussion on the game-making side to be rather strange in an art context.
EnFinlay 10y ago
I'm far from an expert on art, but I would argue that "The Stanley Parable" is art. Ironically, there is also debate about whether it's a video game at all.
- natosaichek 10y ago
  I would put anti-chamber in a similar genre as a subversion of traditional gaming expectations, and of course the stanley parable's creator also made "Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and the Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist" which is its own weirdness, and might also not be considered a game, but game-themed art.
tps5 10y ago
I believe that these kinds of debates necessarily boil down to an argument over the definition of art. One essay on a similar subject that I always think back to is Orwell's essay, Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool: http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/english/e_ltf http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/english/e_ltf Orwell's argument is somewhat hard for me to swallow (because I tend to be opinionated about what constitutes good writing), but I agree that "Ultimately there is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion." I think that same concept can be applied more broadly to question of the definition of art.
- sundvor 10y ago
  "Elite" was one of the best things to come out of 1984. Docking my Sidewinder into the stations will stay forever etched into memory. It is very hard for me not to describe it as art; it brought me, as the gamer, into space, matching my rotation with that of the station - and being able to perform interstellar travel. Sure the graphics were crude by today's standards, yet the memory of the experience stays strong - as it was cutting edge by the standards of that day. Rewatching an old movie often feels disappointing for the same reason - the memory of the experience staying far stronger than what the movie judged by today's standards. Which is exactly the same as for those classic computer games. And now we have Elite Dangerous, which offers a jaw droppingly beautiful universe of grand scale, with VR, fantastic visual FX and sound stage design. And, essentially, the same experience as the original game. Remakes happen all the time in movies as well. So yes, to me, computer games are most definitely art.
khedoros1 10y ago
Every time something like this comes up, I think about "games" like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_%28video_game%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_%28video_game%29 I think that the argument is stronger that it's not a "video game" than that it isn't "sublime art". And if having a goal is considered to be an essential element of gamehood, and being without a goal is an essential element of arthood, then fine, games can't be art. But I think there can be art-like games (maybe like Braid), as well as game-like art (maybe like Passage).
itazula 10y ago
It's only rock 'n' roll but I like it ...
_cairn 10y ago
RE: 'games are not art because they give you choices' This is a really unfortunate argument to make in my opinion, it's pretty misleading and essentially an unfalsifiable claim. Music, film, poetry, literature - also all give you 'choices' in various forms. I personally look at it this way - one thing about 'art' that sticks out to me is the fact that the portion of it (across all mediums) that I find the most compelling is the section that makes no presuppositions about deeming itself 'art' or 'great art'. As the audience I only come to the realization that something is 'art' once I've experienced it for myself. Music, film, literature and video games (also not an exhaustive list of mediums) alike can all have this effect in my experience.
- rhino369 10y ago
  There is some choice I guess: how to interpret it, whether to view it, how to view it, etc. But you don't really change the work. However, I'm not really sure why that would disqualify video games as an art-form. You can't just find a difference and then use that as a rationalization.
  - cromwellian 10y ago
    What about interactive modern art sculptures? Why are exhibits which let me plot my own path through a physical space experience "art", but doing the same through a virtual space with risk/reward, not art?
tyingq 10y ago
How many years passed before movies were considered seriously as art? My google-fu failed to unearth anything that looked authoritative.
cromwellian 10y ago
I wonder if most films can even be considered art under some of the definitions being used. Is Michael Bay's Transformers art? Was _The Phantom Menace_ art? There are video games that are completely "on the rails", effective interactive movies that provide little choice. Some of these are basically like modern art exhibits that invite people to walk through and interact with sculptures or animatronics, only it's virtual, instead of physically real. I have seen kids cry over the writing in Undertale. Games like Journey, The Last Of Us, Firewatch, the Bioshock series, either provoke emotion, or thought. There are indie games that let you experience what it's like to have a child with cancer, or be a subsistence farmer in a developing country, transformative experiences that IMHO are more powerful than static art. Art doesn't always have to be abstract, photojournalism can be deeply artistic, merely by capturing perspective on the world that are real, but ignored. Virtual reality experiences in games could extend that to actually allowing people to experience what it is like from the perspective of the photojournalist, or those affected. This could have greater impact on one's thoughts than just visiting a museum and looking at paintings or pictures removed from context. I'm willing to bet that this whole argument is swept under the rug in one or two decades, when a new generation of artists who are extremely digitally savvy supplant the current establishment, and new forms of media will eventually come to be seen as art.
- Tossrock 10y ago
  If you were to read the article, you would see that your initial question is covered: "So, what does the tasteful, expert connoisseur Roger Ebert have to say about the relationship between the cinema and art? Just this: “Hardly any movies are art.” Here’s what the late Pauline Kael wrote about the relationship between movies and art. Listen carefully. “There is so much talk now about the art of the film that we may be in danger of forgetting that most of the movies we enjoy are not works of art ... Movies are so rarely great art, that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have very little reason to be interested in them.” So, here we have two of the world’s most highly-regarded film critics, sadly assuring us that most movies are not great art."
habitue 10y ago
There are a few things I'd point out to summarize the article: 1. The prevailing wisdom now (and at the time the article was written) was that Ebert was dead wrong about games being art. This was a settled issue and not controversial. This article takes a contrary stance, and I think does as good a job as you can to make sense of Ebert's statements. I wouldn't bother writing up a comment if you're under the impression you're in the minority in thinking Ebert is wrong: this is a deliberately contrarian article. 2. Unfortunately, by trying to see Ebert's point of view, it turns out the only chartable course is through "definitional waters". That is, it hinges on the definition on what Art is. The article summarizes some of the existing thought on this, but spoiler alert it's not very interesting. Art is a very fuzzy concept, and has been redefined over and over so many times that nailing down a correct definition and saying "this is" and "that ain't" is like trying to grab hold of a greased eel. It's one of those activities you can spend reams and reams of paper talking about, it's a high concept topic that makes the speaker sound intelligent, but in the end it inevitably devolves the same way discussions about whether gifs are videos devolve. There's no substance, there are better things to set your brain cells thinking about.
- ziotom78 10y ago
  > Art is a very fuzzy concept, and has been redefined over and over so many times that nailing down a correct definition and saying "this is" and "that ain't" is like trying to grab hold of a greased eel. So true. And yet, the idea of "art" seems so innocently easy to explain, until you try. I remember St. Augustine's definition of time, which could apply to art as well: "If no one ask of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not." (Confessions, Book XI, Chapter XIV)
- fenomas 10y ago
  For me, the question was never "are games art?" - the question was: "can someone who's never played a video game and never plans to say anything meaningful about whether games are art?" Ebert's implicit answer of "yes" to that question is what I found mystifying.
  - deleted 10y ago
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erikpukinskis 10y ago
I think a lot of why games struggle to reach the stature of a film or a novel is that both films and novels are massive undertakings that can be prototyped in their entirety by a single person. The reason a great novel can be written with tens of thousands of images and ideas is because written fairly cheaply. And film can be shot fairly simply. You can write several pages, or film several scenes in a single day. Video games are slowly getting there, but historically it requires days and days and days just to get a single facet of a game on a screen. You can't create a fully realized scene in a day the way you can on a page. This isn't going to be true forever. We refine our programming toolkits every year. We draw ever closer to the time where you could sit down and write a page of prose-like code with dozens of references, and have all of those references appear fully realized on a screen. We're just not there yet. It's like we were trying to make a great film but we haven't even invented the video camera yet, so we need to build a mechanism that makes every change in the frame by moving around animated elements. Basically, our current video games are the software version of the Zoetrope: https://jellygraph.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/early-moving-image/ https://jellygraph.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/early-moving-ima... And actually, the vast majority of programmers don't even believe that rapid, short-hand programming is even possible. Whenever the idea of regular people programming comes up there is a stampede of programmers claiming that programming is so complex and arcane that it will never be as accessible as writing or shooting video. I disagree, but that gives you a sense of how far we are from parity with film and print.
acjohnson55 10y ago
What about immersive theater? If you've ever been to Sleep No More, the entire experience is a work of art. As the viewer, you have a lot of choice in how you experience it. Almost like a video game, in the sense that there's a fixed storyline. It's very hard to put a box around what is or isn't art, especially from the standpoint of what a given medium is capable of. You can't tell me that Final Fantasy III (Japanese VI) isn't a tremendous work of art. But I can't convince you otherwise either.
mcguire 10y ago
"Flow is painless effort. But pain management is not the business of art. "Entrancement is not insight. "Flow is an-aesthetic." Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. At every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee - zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music. "Ah, this is marvelous!" said Lord Wen-hui. "Imagine skill reaching such heights!" Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, "What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now - now I go at it by spirit and don't look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint. "A good cook changes his knife once a year-because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month-because he hacks. I've had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I've cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there's plenty of room - more than enough for the blade to play about it. That's why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone. "However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I'm doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until - flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away." "Excellent!" said Lord Wen-hui. "I have heard the words of Cook Ting and learned how to care for life!"
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no1name 10y ago
There's nothing here to debate. Ebert clearly says that video games are not art. As does this article. This is because video games and art are fundamentally different, and there is no question of video games being art. It seems the video gamers are not ready to accept this. In trying to seek validation for the time they spend playing these games, they are building arguments which are of no use. This may be because they want to improve their perception among public who tend to dismiss time spent playing video games as wasted. It also works best for the video game industry to have its clients believe that they are purchasing art when they are buying video games. I think that's why Roger Ebert gave up arguing after a point of time. Video gamers can believe whatever they want to, that does not change the fact that video games are not art.

113 points by filipmandaric 10y ago

ouid 10y ago

"no one confuses mathematics with great art" This is where I stopped reading. Mathematics can be true, beautiful, compelling, creative, unique, etc. He has failed to define art except by exclusion, which makes his argument pointless. I could not read on.

fizwhiz 10y ago
Aye.
olavk 10y ago
> Mathematics can be true, beautiful, compelling, creative, unique, etc. Yes, but that does not mean it is art. Art literally means something created by humans, which is distinct from the natural sciences which is studying nature. Both are worthwhile, but it's not the same.
- IanCal 10y ago
  I really don't think art has such a clear definition, but nevertheless looking at definitions, here's the first thing on Google: > the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. Can you find no space for mathematics there? No definitions or creations produced simply because they are beautiful? Maybe some later found uses, but that feels like discounting Michelangelo's David because it could be used to hold open a large door.
  - olavk 10y ago
    Maybe the word "art" have such positive connotations that it seems disparaging to state that something is not art. But that is not my intention at all. I'm just noting that in the usual sense of the word, math is not art just like say sociology or software design or sex is not art. Of course you can make a definition of art which does include all those activities and everything else for that matter, nobody owns the word.
    - IanCal 10y ago
      I didn't make up a definition though. That's an OED definition of art. Perhaps "doing maths" is often not art, but then neither is writing. Both can serve specific uses that wouldn't easily fall under definitions of art, but that doesn't mean they can't be. Software engineering isn't but then is it really a stretch to describe this spinning globe quine as art? https://github.com/knoxknox/qlobe https://github.com/knoxknox/qlobe or this 100 language quine https://github.com/mame/quine-relay/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/mame/quine-relay/blob/master/README.md
- mrob 10y ago
  "God made the integers, all else is the work of man." - Leopold Kronecker Mathematics is also something created by humans.
  - olavk 10y ago
    So is astronomy, but that does not make it art. Of course you can define art however you want, it just not how the word is usually used. (Unless you take it in the colloquial sense of "something to appreciate", like in "that ass is a piece of art".)
- hx87 10y ago
  Mathematics is not a natural science. Its structure and content is obtained strictly from axioms and logic.
  - olavk 10y ago
    I didn't intend to claim it way, just using examples.
- ouid 10y ago
  Then video games qualify. This is an article which argues that something does not satisfy the criteria for art. So when he he invokes his ability to exclude mathematics from the definition without any justification, or at least without appealing to any reasoning whatsoever, and then using that conclusion to assert that games aren't art, all he is doing is demonstrating that his essay should have been much shorter. The same unqualified assertion that applies to mathematics would apply to videogames, and he needs go no further than the thesis.
  - olavk 10y ago
    I happen to agree. Video games definitely qualify as art in my opinion. Math does not. I don't buy his argument either. But the underlying mistake is thinking "art" means "valuable and worthwhile" (and "not art" means "bad"). There is lots of crappy art.
- NoahTheDuke 10y ago
  > Art literally means something created by humans Mathematics are created by humans. Math is the map, not the territory.
fusiongyro 10y ago
Later in the article, he says one of the hallmarks of art is that it is a celebration of the ineffable. Your objection seems to be that his definition of art is not sufficiently mathematical to be sensible to you. This tells me that you are more interested in reasoning about art than appreciating it. Well, ... I'm glad you enjoy math more than art. But I don't think that art needs to bow down to math by confining itself to a definition that fits your criteria.
- ouid 10y ago
  my objection is that his definition of art appears in no part of this essay. I don't need it to be "mathematical", I just need it to exist. As for the claim that I am more interested in reasoning about art than appreciating it. Do you actually think priorities are exclusive like that? May I not both reason and appreciate? Is this not an essay which itself attempts to reason about art, should I not appeal to that in a response to the article? The argument you make against my response to the article could be equally applied to the article itself, yet you take the author's side, which seems dishonest to me.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Various definitions for types of art follow in the latter half of the article. Discussions on kitsch, sublime, great, etc. Which is essential to be able to put the whole thing into context, seems to be what you want. It's right there.
  - fusiongyro 10y ago
    > my objection is that his definition of art appears in no part of this essay. I don't need it to be "mathematical", I just need it to exist. Yes, you need everything you read to be structured like a mathematical argument, so you can pick it apart. So you need a definition followed by proofs. You're annoyed that every article doesn't have this structure, especially argumentative articles like this one. You are acting as a natural language proof checker, not a person. > Do you actually think priorities are exclusive like that? May I not both reason and appreciate? I think if you bail out after a few minutes on an article for failing to supply you with the structure you demand, then yes, your priorities are basically exclusive. Now, I don't have a proof in hand for that, which I'm sure you'll fixate on. > The argument you make against my response to the article could be equally applied to the article itself, yet you take the author's side, which seems dishonest to me. I value articles over comments, especially obnoxious, entitled comments. I am not here to merely compile text and type check it. The accusation of "dishonesty" only reinforces that you are more interested in the structure of what is being said than what the words are saying. The accusation itself, what a preposterous idea, that there are some rigid rules about what I read and how I choose to respond to it which you can apply to me and constrain me with. Do you think you could berate me into agreeing with you?
mrec 10y ago
OK, I'll bite: yes, "Mathematics can be true, beautiful, compelling, creative, unique, etc", but those qualities are generally only discernable by other mathematicians working at a roughly comparable level. Same for code; I've talked to promising-but-junior programmers who couldn't understand at all what people meant when they talked about code being "ugly". "Art" in its various forms, on the other hand, is widely appreciated by people who are not artists, or art critics, or art dealers, or art students. (I'd exclude an awful lot of modern art from this, but that's probably a flamewar for another day.)
- setr 10y ago
  >"Art" in its various forms, on the other hand, is widely appreciated by people who are not artists, or art critics, or art dealers, or art students. Warning: I don't know shit about the arts That's not really true. Much of the high arts is intended to be appreciated by those with sufficient background to do so. For example, when a piece makes a joke on another artist's trademarks. In Chicago, the IIT campus is mostly done by Mies; A more recent building on the campus (MTCC) was designed by Rem Koolhaas, and features Mies's iconic I-Beams. But for no real purpose as far as I can tell. I'm quite positive he did it in jest (he also placed extremely ugly victorian-style furniture made of excess metal from the construction, also I think, for humor). Of course, anyone unaware of Mies's work would entirely miss this. The building is obviously still useful even if you do not appreciate this facet, but its easy to imagine a work the ceases to be appreciable without any background. Interestingly, Russian abstract art was originally intended to avoid this; they attempted to remove reference from everything in the real world, to be purely emotional and evocative, and could thus be appreciated by even the most uninformed of persons. It was then rejected by the proletariat, interpreted as only being appreciable by those with a background they did not have; pretentious, masturbatory works only for those educated, useless artists. I imagine you're thinking more of like the realist styles, which often feature technical skill immediately appreciable; but it's not hard to see The Birth of Venus is depicting a scene, with particular emotions and characters that can only be appreciated to a lackluster degree if one has no knowledge of the mythos behind it (as I do). In the same way, near-anyone can appreciate the immediate benefit of a computer; but without sufficient background, appreciate ends at the screen. The deeper you understand the machine, the better you can appreciate the complexity underlying it.
mrob 10y ago
It's true that there's some aesthetic judgment involved in writing proofs, but it's heavily constrained by the problems you're trying to solve. I think this prevents it from being great art, even when it's great mathematics. It's similar to writing puns, which nobody claims are great comedy, or lipograms, which nobody claims are great literature.
- hx87 10y ago
  Architecture, especially before the advent of reinforced concrete, is heavily constrained by mechanics, and yet few would claim that architecture cannot be great art.
- IanCal 10y ago
  Pure maths is not particularly constrained, is it? You don't even really need to have a certain actual problem you're trying to solve. That feels like saying a book can't be great art because it's heavily constrained by the story you're trying to tell.
  - mrob 10y ago
    A book doesn't have to be heavily constrained by the story. What's the mathematical equivalent of Finnegans Wake?
    - IanCal 10y ago
      Would you accept no books "constrained" by their story as art?
      - mrob 10y ago
        I don't think there's any hard cut-off where you can say something is art or not art. But even the most formulaic genre fiction gives more freedom to the author in how they can arrange their words. English language doesn't have a formal grammar and rules are more like suggestions. But if mathematics breaks the commonly accepted rules then it's just plain wrong.
Frondo 10y ago
I'd be curious; can you describe the emotional reactions you've had to reading a mathematical paper? Have you experienced joy, sorrow, loneliness, kinship, heartache, lust, tenderness, guilt, hope from reading a math paper? Could you tell us which paper inspired various emotional reactions in you? Honest questions all. If you've experienced a variety of emotions from a maths paper, and can talk about your inner world in relation to such a paper, it'd go a long way to convincing me that math can be great art.

lr4444lr 10y ago

There's an interest point: He dismissed Waco Resurrection, Braid and Flower as “pathetic,” and sternly predicted that “no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.” People still watch movies made over 40, 50, 60 years ago and still derive aesthetic appreciation from them for camera work, direction, acting, score, and don't just use the relative judgment of being "great for its day" (which isn't without merit) but as absolute recognition of artistic prowess. Will video games ever match movies' longevity, or will they be doomed to a more secular estimation, and eventually fade into obscurity?

M_Grey 10y ago
Most games definitely fade, and deservedly so. Others, from various incarnations of Mario, to various "Tycoon" games probably will stay around for at least as long as some classic movies. I would still happily play SMB on a NES right now... and I think a lot of people would. It's not just nostalgia, it's a good game, it looks good, it sounds good. I say this, and I'm not generally into retro for the sake of retro.
- lr4444lr 10y ago
  Right, and you played it in your formative years. I can watch a movie like "The Third Man" or "12 Angry Men" or "Scaramouche" in my adult years, made decades before I was born, even though I was reared on more flashy stuff, and find it as much as if not more satisfying than what I had encountered before. Could you get a 7 year old today who's had a couple of years of XBox 360 and Wii under his belt to enjoy SMB on the NES more than just to play it for 3 minutes to examine it as an artifact of another age? Even when he's older and can understand the evolution of video games?
  - hx87 10y ago
    Why not fire up an SNES emulator or DOSBox and find out?
    - M_Grey 10y ago

ajeet_dhaliwal 10y ago

Good article but I must disagree with the apology/defense. The comparison to sports touched up on something important but failed to follow through on the medium not being as important as the genre. Why can a novel be a work of art but not a magazine? Why can a Hollywood movie be a work of art but not some seedy porn film or TV commercial? Why is sculpture of a bust art but a road sign not? Why is a ballet art, ice hockey not and figure skating somewhere in the middle? It's all subjective but largely related to the genre - and nothing to do with the choice of a player as alluded to my Ebert. Call of Duty and other FPS games may resemble sports and not an art form, but Final Fantasy XV is closer to 'looking like' art. If all Roger Ebert was aware of when it comes to games was Doom or Fifa then it probably didn't look like art, he needed to have been introduced to Dragon Age, Japanese RPGs and more obviously artful efforts like Monument Valley and Child of Light.

fusiongyro 10y ago

The entire conversation says more about the bruised egos of gamers than art.

hx87 10y ago
"The entire conversation says more about the bruised egos of gamers critics than art" would be an equally correct statement.

lisper 10y ago

Oh for crying out loud, what difference does it make? If you want to call video games art, call them art. If you don't, don't. What's the point of quibbling over terminology, especially subjective terminology? It's like arguing over whether or not vanilla is a "great flavor."

obstinate 10y ago
This is absolutely the correct answer. Another take on the same idea: http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/
metaphorm 10y ago
it brings to mind some interesting questions for how we tell our own culture's story to ourselves and our descendants. we do, after all, spend lots of money enshrining in museums "great works of art". we write about them in history books and they come to represent symbols and meanings in our language and collective unconscious. I think it matters. I think that making room for new forms in the canon that we admit as "high art" has a significant impact on the present and future of our culture and society. As an example of why it matters. Vanilla is a great flavor and this is independent of whether or not an individual enjoys eating vanilla flavored foods. How do we know? Look at the language. Vanilla, as a metaphor, has meaning. It means "baseline" or "unaugmented". It matters. It's how we construct our language.
crooked-v 10y ago
There's a substantial number of people who complain when video games are called 'not art', but then also complain when video games are treated as art and used to explore 'not game' subjects (see the hubbub surrounding Depression Quest) or criticized in the same way that art is.
Tenhundfeld 10y ago
Eh, I disagree, mostly. Quibbling over terminology is a large part of how we define a collective culture. For an individual, sure, I agree with you. It doesn't really matter and is possibly a waste of time to contemplate. To use your analogy, if you like vanilla, eat it; if you don't, don't. But for a society, it matters how we think about things, how we label things, how we frame ideas, what we choose to venerate and what we choose to denigrate. It's a large part of how we distinguish cultures from each other and track changing attitudes over time within a culture. That's not to argue that you and I and every Joe and Jane on the street need to endlessly debate subjective terminology, but I think it can be worthwhile for critics, anthropologists, historians, etc.

woopwoop 10y ago

From Paul Graham's "How to Do Philosophy": "Most philosophical debates are not merely afflicted by but driven by confusions over words. Do we have free will? Depends what you mean by 'free.' Do abstract ideas exist? Depends what you mean by 'exist.'" Are video games art? Depends on what you mean by "art". I realize that this is not a particularly insightful comment, and that anyone who thinks about this issue for more than 15 seconds must understand this. What I don't understand, and what I hope someone can explain to me, is why it is fruitful to continue this discussion after having this realization.

maldusiecle 10y ago
Most important ideas have various definitions. "Beauty" or "virtue" or "freedom" or "love." It seems a bit...misguided...to assume that none of those things are worth discussing for such a reason.
- tdb7893 10y ago
  There's a difference between discussing ideas and discussing semantics. This seems firmly in the realm of a mere semantic argument.
  - ahelwer 10y ago
    Semantic arguments are wrongfully vilified. Philosophy requires precision, and imprecise definitions lead nowhere. At a meta level, it's an interesting question whether we can satisfactorily define any term at all; see the failure of philosophy to adequately define what is and is not science: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/
    - tdb7893 10y ago
      Understanding the precise meaning of words is obviously important to a discussion. My problem with semantic arguments is generally a practical one, not theoretical. I've found arguments over disagreements in definitions of words to either be resolved trivially or ultimately futile. There probably are situations where semantic arguments are worth it to really argue but they seem very seldom. This is just a value judgement on my part so honestly I expect people to disagree

metafunctor 10y ago

Art is art if it is called art.

smacktoward 10y ago

This is a brilliant presentation. Which is unsurprising since it's by Brian Moriarty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Moriarty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Moriarty), but still. I was especially intrigued by its placement of games in the context of kitsch. I hadn't heard of Tomas Kulka or his three properties of kitsch before, but they map to video games (especially successful video games) really well. Even a relatively simple game like Super Mario Bros. is built around "objects or themes that are highly charged with stock emotions": the game revolves around a damsel in distress, threatened by a menacing Big Bad. There's no subtext: no indication that Bowser is anything other than 100% evil, Princess Peach anything other than 100% innocent, or Mario anything other than 100% good. And because the player manipulates Mario to overcome Bowser, the game validates the player as being on the side of good. I was provoked enough by the comparison to try and think of a game that breaks out of Kulka's three properties, and I came up with exactly one: Spec Ops: The Line (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec_Ops:_The_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec_Ops:_The_Line), which goes out of its way to reject the idea that its function is to validate the player as a holder of Good, Correct Opinions. Which is not to say that Spec Ops is the "best game ever made," or anything like that -- just to say that it's the rare game that manages to be something other than kitsch. Are there others?

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isleyaardvark 10y ago
KOTOR 2. It's mostly kitsch but the character of Kreia is decidedly not kitsch.
astrange 10y ago
Chris Avellone has written some worthwhile games like that. (or maybe just stories - the game is the part that happens when you're not reading the story) NieR and Ico games, for Japanese. I don't know, if you want to know war is bad you could also just play MGS.

dharmon 10y ago

After the intro, I was hoping that this essay would take the turn, "Games are not art... and that's ok." Maybe where Ebert should have been engaged is not on quibbling over the definition of Art, but on his implicit claim that reading books or watching movies is a better use of time than video games. I don't really play video games any more (nor do I watch many movies or read much fiction), but playing the original Zelda on NES as a little child was as formative an experience as reading Of Human Bondage.

DanHulton 10y ago
The latest Zelda may prove to be such an experience for a whole new generation of players. It's essentially the go-anywhere, do-anything of the first game, writ even larger.
Chathamization 10y ago
> Maybe where Ebert should have been engaged is not on quibbling over the definition of Art, but on his implicit claim that reading books or watching movies is a better use of time than video games. Ebert did in fact say that in his essay: > Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form. Nor did Shi Hua Chen, winner of the $500,000 World Series of Mah Jong in 2009. Why aren't gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? They have my blessing, not that they care. The response to Ebert's essay showed the vapidity of much of the "games are art" crowd. He was actually treating games seriously, and had thoughtful things to say about them (whether or not he agreed with them). He wasn't criticizing them, but giving his opinion about whether or not they should be considered art (not entirely different from art vs. design arguments). But it turns out many weren't really interested in deep conversation; they wanted cheap platitudes. They wanted the validation of their hobby by having someone call it art, more than they wanted someone to take their hobby seriously and approach it critically.
- Frondo 10y ago
  This reminds me a lot of the "code is poetry" crowd. As a (former) coder and published writer/poet, I have an appreciation for both. But code is definitely not poetry, not by the meaning that you could expect to use anywhere in the world outside the "code is poetry" crowd. People want their craft to be lumped in with some "higher" aesthetic. I get that, they want to be afforded the respect (and the attraction from the opposite/same sex) of being "artists" and not just craftspeople. But you know how you do that? Make art. Write poetry. Don't keep on doing the thing you're doing and ask the world to make it into something it isn't, just to scratch your own ego itch. Do the hard thing instead.

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cousin_it 10y ago

This part is key: > "I do not have a need ‘all the time’ to take myself away from the oppressive facts of my life, however oppressive they may be, in order to go somewhere where I have control. I need to stay here and take control." The idea is that great art should lead you back to life, not pull you into fantasies. Ebert clearly felt that authorial control is the only way to achieve that, but I think he might have agreed that video games are art, if he saw even a single example where player choice was used to lead the player back to life. That's a very tall order though.

Jtsummers 10y ago
Shadow of the Colossus has always, to me, felt like that sort of game. It's one of the few I've seen/played that felt like something other than just an escape into fantasy. The consequences of the actions, the tragedy of the circumstances and outcomes, lend itself to introspection and contemplation for the player/audience.
- rrauenza 10y ago
  I believe my wife (as did many others) responded to Ebert's blog entry years ago with that exact example. He mentions Shadow of the Colossus it in a response: http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/okay-kids-play-on-my-lawn http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/okay-kids-play-on-m... It's funny, Ebert said that games aren't art because they give you choices... and in a way, Shadow of the Colossus gives you none.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    > It's funny, Ebert said that games aren't art because they give you choices... and in a way, Shadow of the Colossus gives you none. I think his outsider perspective made it difficult for him to appreciate that these things, examples of what he wanted, already existed. Myst is another (sort of) example, where the number of choices are actually more limited than it immediately appeared. I'm not really certain that they'd actually be great art, but they're demonstrations that the medium is capable of it. Which he later admits, though I think his timeline for when it will happen (if it hasn't happened yet) was way off.

shuntress 10y ago

Undertale? The Stanley Parable? Doom? Bloodborne? It's quite hard to come up with nominees for consideration as 'Sublime Art'. It seems so hard to really find the difference between "Sublime Art" and "A Really Good Game" The end bit of the article states: "But when I feel the need for reflection, for insight, wisdom or consolation, I turn my computers off. These needs are the ambit of the sublime arts, which are inspired and informed by philosophy, and by faith." But this immediately brings my mind to games like Proteus, No Man's Sky, or Breath of the Wild.

cholantesh 10y ago
I think that, if Doom 2016 wasn't so checklist bound, it'd qualify as sublime art - it's the best answer I've seen to the question "What would Aliens look like if it were a video game?" LeChuck's Revenge is up there, too, IMO - both versions.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  I haven't played that version of Doom. But I have to ask, is Aliens sublime art?
  - cholantesh 10y ago
    I presumed that that was the version which GP was referring to because the other ones are also dated to 2016. And I chose to mention it because Ebert rated Aliens highly, at 3.5/4. In retrospect, that may not qualify it as sublime art as opposed to a really good film. I'd have to refresh my memory of Ebert's scale.
    - shuntress 10y ago
      I was actually trying to tacitly refer to both the original and 2016 version because they both can apply to this discussion for different reasons. I think my main take away from 2016 is that it is nearly flawless execution of an equally well-understood concept with an attention to detail that can rival anything to which it may be compared. What I actually consider most impressive about the original is the marvelous ingenuity of its 'construction' which I think is more deserving of comparison to architecture than film.

ideonexus 10y ago

A major disconnect here comes from a lack of gaming literacy among critics. I read a great paper recently, Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming as a Constellation of Literacy Practices, where the author talks about how RPG games are actually quite literary in the sense of reading and writing than people give them credit for [1]. But what really impressed me about the essay is that he presented a screenshot of an RPG video game and pointed out that few critics could explain what was going on in the image, even though it was instantly familiar to me despite not having played the game. Critics are not game-literate, so they can't appreciate them. They know nothing about mechanics like strategic imbalance, the Skinner box, achievements, power creep and other concepts I myself am only becoming familiar with thanks to the thoughtful folks at ExtraCredits[2]. They don't know anything about how video games tell stories, challenge players with moral choices, or the brilliant innovations artists have had to come up with to work around hardware limitations in both graphics and music over the decades. If you aren't literate in gaming, then of course you can't appreciate the many many layers of artistic expression from algorithms to writing to graphics to music and mechanics that go into making a game. Video games are more profitable than films now. Critical theory surrounding video games simply needs to rise to the level of other mediums before more people will respect it. Remember, films were originally considered such a waste of time no one bothered to preserve 75% of silent films[3]. As the new generation of game-literate kids grow up, I trust that games will get the respect they deserve. [1] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2304/elea.2007.4.3.297 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2304/elea.2007.4.3.29... [2] https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lost_films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lost_films

oconnor663 10y ago
For the curious, I think this is the image from [1]: https://i.imgur.com/OOlZexh.png https://i.imgur.com/OOlZexh.png
AlexandrB 10y ago
> Video games are more profitable than films now. Critical theory surrounding video games simply needs to rise to the level of other mediums before more people will respect it. This was one thing particularly frustrating to me about #gamergate. Much of it seemed like a backlash against serious game analysis (feminist or otherwise). It's one thing to personally ignore any deeper meaning baked into games (intentionally or not), but it's another to ask that no one even try to root it out.

adambmedia 10y ago

In defense of Roger Ebert, the dude wrote the screenplay to Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

ranprieur 10y ago

I think it's obvious that some of the descendants of today's games will be art. Comparing games to movies is a distraction. The important thing is to compare games as they are now to games as they could be.

barrkel 10y ago

The closest thing video games are to what is normally accepted as art is theatre; specifically, interactive theatre[1]. There's many components to what makes good art, but if I could sum it up in one word, it would be broadband: not a thin narrow channel of effect, but impacting the observer on multiple levels. Emotion, reason, the senses - being hit all at once, or in waves. Games are still a bit lopsided, due to being marketed mostly to not particularly introspective young people and frequently focusing on visuals over everything else. I think things could change, but it may require different market expectations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_theatre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_theatre

xutopia 10y ago

I can't believe no one has mentioned Journey. To me this is closest to Art you can find in a video game.

astrange 10y ago
It certainly does feel like a rich man commissioned someone to put it on their wall.

planetmcd 10y ago

Is dance an art? Is jazz? Is improv? How do they differ from a game like chess or basketball?

vlunkr 10y ago
Yes people seem to think that video games are art when they tell a story like a book or movie. I think that's boring. This is a new medium, let's drop the inferiority complex and stop acting like the old mediums.

btschaegg 10y ago

I've not yet finished reading the whole essay (still intend to), but I already have found two points in which I find the whole side of the discussion to be rather flawed. The identity of a game emerges from its mechanics and affordances, not the presentation that exposes them. Translated to paintings, this would equate to the statement that the defining aspect of paintings like the Mona Lisa are that they consist of dried dirt on canvas. If you're not willing to consider a piece wholistically, you don't even need to start a discussion like this. Also, with one of the first quoted statement, namely: As long as there is a great movie unseen or a great book unread, I will continue to be unable to find the time to play video games. Ebert pretty much disqualifies himself from the whole debate he created. If you willfully choose to be ignorant on the subject you're talking about, you have no say whatsoever in my book. Also, one thing that struck me as strange so far is the idea that the addition of something should remove the art-ness from a medium. At one point, there was an agreement that painted pictures could be art, but photography couldn't. Then, those were included, but moving pictures weren't. Now, certain moving pictures aren't, because they interact with the audience? I fail to see the reasoning there. The whole argument somehow reminds me of a text I once read, which explained that unwritten fashion rules about which dress colors should be worn during which seasons were used by nobility to "unmask" new-rich in their ranks. Sadly, I'm unable to find the source on that. Edit: As for the mechanics-based comment: I could agree with that when applied to go or chess. But this statement fails to see the merit of many video games: They are no longer limited to being a simple battle of wits, but have the possibility to convey messages, insight, emotion, impressions etc. without the need for an actual "opponent". Edit2: Thinking of it, a far more interesting point for me lies in the debate itself and where it stems from. I would be very much interested in the number of great artists that actually cared if their work was perceived as art. I would guess this number to be rather low, although I've got no evidence either way. That's why I find the more zealous participants in the discussion on the game-making side to be rather strange in an art context.

EnFinlay 10y ago

I'm far from an expert on art, but I would argue that "The Stanley Parable" is art. Ironically, there is also debate about whether it's a video game at all.

natosaichek 10y ago
I would put anti-chamber in a similar genre as a subversion of traditional gaming expectations, and of course the stanley parable's creator also made "Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and the Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist" which is its own weirdness, and might also not be considered a game, but game-themed art.

tps5 10y ago

I believe that these kinds of debates necessarily boil down to an argument over the definition of art. One essay on a similar subject that I always think back to is Orwell's essay, Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool: http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/english/e_ltf http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/english/e_ltf Orwell's argument is somewhat hard for me to swallow (because I tend to be opinionated about what constitutes good writing), but I agree that "Ultimately there is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion." I think that same concept can be applied more broadly to question of the definition of art.

sundvor 10y ago
"Elite" was one of the best things to come out of 1984. Docking my Sidewinder into the stations will stay forever etched into memory. It is very hard for me not to describe it as art; it brought me, as the gamer, into space, matching my rotation with that of the station - and being able to perform interstellar travel. Sure the graphics were crude by today's standards, yet the memory of the experience stays strong - as it was cutting edge by the standards of that day. Rewatching an old movie often feels disappointing for the same reason - the memory of the experience staying far stronger than what the movie judged by today's standards. Which is exactly the same as for those classic computer games. And now we have Elite Dangerous, which offers a jaw droppingly beautiful universe of grand scale, with VR, fantastic visual FX and sound stage design. And, essentially, the same experience as the original game. Remakes happen all the time in movies as well. So yes, to me, computer games are most definitely art.

khedoros1 10y ago

Every time something like this comes up, I think about "games" like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_%28video_game%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_%28video_game%29 I think that the argument is stronger that it's not a "video game" than that it isn't "sublime art". And if having a goal is considered to be an essential element of gamehood, and being without a goal is an essential element of arthood, then fine, games can't be art. But I think there can be art-like games (maybe like Braid), as well as game-like art (maybe like Passage).

itazula 10y ago

It's only rock 'n' roll but I like it ...

_cairn 10y ago

RE: 'games are not art because they give you choices' This is a really unfortunate argument to make in my opinion, it's pretty misleading and essentially an unfalsifiable claim. Music, film, poetry, literature - also all give you 'choices' in various forms. I personally look at it this way - one thing about 'art' that sticks out to me is the fact that the portion of it (across all mediums) that I find the most compelling is the section that makes no presuppositions about deeming itself 'art' or 'great art'. As the audience I only come to the realization that something is 'art' once I've experienced it for myself. Music, film, literature and video games (also not an exhaustive list of mediums) alike can all have this effect in my experience.

rhino369 10y ago
There is some choice I guess: how to interpret it, whether to view it, how to view it, etc. But you don't really change the work. However, I'm not really sure why that would disqualify video games as an art-form. You can't just find a difference and then use that as a rationalization.
- cromwellian 10y ago
  What about interactive modern art sculptures? Why are exhibits which let me plot my own path through a physical space experience "art", but doing the same through a virtual space with risk/reward, not art?

tyingq 10y ago

How many years passed before movies were considered seriously as art? My google-fu failed to unearth anything that looked authoritative.

cromwellian 10y ago

I wonder if most films can even be considered art under some of the definitions being used. Is Michael Bay's Transformers art? Was _The Phantom Menace_ art? There are video games that are completely "on the rails", effective interactive movies that provide little choice. Some of these are basically like modern art exhibits that invite people to walk through and interact with sculptures or animatronics, only it's virtual, instead of physically real. I have seen kids cry over the writing in Undertale. Games like Journey, The Last Of Us, Firewatch, the Bioshock series, either provoke emotion, or thought. There are indie games that let you experience what it's like to have a child with cancer, or be a subsistence farmer in a developing country, transformative experiences that IMHO are more powerful than static art. Art doesn't always have to be abstract, photojournalism can be deeply artistic, merely by capturing perspective on the world that are real, but ignored. Virtual reality experiences in games could extend that to actually allowing people to experience what it is like from the perspective of the photojournalist, or those affected. This could have greater impact on one's thoughts than just visiting a museum and looking at paintings or pictures removed from context. I'm willing to bet that this whole argument is swept under the rug in one or two decades, when a new generation of artists who are extremely digitally savvy supplant the current establishment, and new forms of media will eventually come to be seen as art.

Tossrock 10y ago
If you were to read the article, you would see that your initial question is covered: "So, what does the tasteful, expert connoisseur Roger Ebert have to say about the relationship between the cinema and art? Just this: “Hardly any movies are art.” Here’s what the late Pauline Kael wrote about the relationship between movies and art. Listen carefully. “There is so much talk now about the art of the film that we may be in danger of forgetting that most of the movies we enjoy are not works of art ... Movies are so rarely great art, that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have very little reason to be interested in them.” So, here we have two of the world’s most highly-regarded film critics, sadly assuring us that most movies are not great art."

habitue 10y ago

There are a few things I'd point out to summarize the article: 1. The prevailing wisdom now (and at the time the article was written) was that Ebert was dead wrong about games being art. This was a settled issue and not controversial. This article takes a contrary stance, and I think does as good a job as you can to make sense of Ebert's statements. I wouldn't bother writing up a comment if you're under the impression you're in the minority in thinking Ebert is wrong: this is a deliberately contrarian article. 2. Unfortunately, by trying to see Ebert's point of view, it turns out the only chartable course is through "definitional waters". That is, it hinges on the definition on what Art is. The article summarizes some of the existing thought on this, but spoiler alert it's not very interesting. Art is a very fuzzy concept, and has been redefined over and over so many times that nailing down a correct definition and saying "this is" and "that ain't" is like trying to grab hold of a greased eel. It's one of those activities you can spend reams and reams of paper talking about, it's a high concept topic that makes the speaker sound intelligent, but in the end it inevitably devolves the same way discussions about whether gifs are videos devolve. There's no substance, there are better things to set your brain cells thinking about.

ziotom78 10y ago
> Art is a very fuzzy concept, and has been redefined over and over so many times that nailing down a correct definition and saying "this is" and "that ain't" is like trying to grab hold of a greased eel. So true. And yet, the idea of "art" seems so innocently easy to explain, until you try. I remember St. Augustine's definition of time, which could apply to art as well: "If no one ask of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not." (Confessions, Book XI, Chapter XIV)
fenomas 10y ago
For me, the question was never "are games art?" - the question was: "can someone who's never played a video game and never plans to say anything meaningful about whether games are art?" Ebert's implicit answer of "yes" to that question is what I found mystifying.
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erikpukinskis 10y ago

I think a lot of why games struggle to reach the stature of a film or a novel is that both films and novels are massive undertakings that can be prototyped in their entirety by a single person. The reason a great novel can be written with tens of thousands of images and ideas is because written fairly cheaply. And film can be shot fairly simply. You can write several pages, or film several scenes in a single day. Video games are slowly getting there, but historically it requires days and days and days just to get a single facet of a game on a screen. You can't create a fully realized scene in a day the way you can on a page. This isn't going to be true forever. We refine our programming toolkits every year. We draw ever closer to the time where you could sit down and write a page of prose-like code with dozens of references, and have all of those references appear fully realized on a screen. We're just not there yet. It's like we were trying to make a great film but we haven't even invented the video camera yet, so we need to build a mechanism that makes every change in the frame by moving around animated elements. Basically, our current video games are the software version of the Zoetrope: https://jellygraph.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/early-moving-image/ https://jellygraph.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/early-moving-ima... And actually, the vast majority of programmers don't even believe that rapid, short-hand programming is even possible. Whenever the idea of regular people programming comes up there is a stampede of programmers claiming that programming is so complex and arcane that it will never be as accessible as writing or shooting video. I disagree, but that gives you a sense of how far we are from parity with film and print.

acjohnson55 10y ago

What about immersive theater? If you've ever been to Sleep No More, the entire experience is a work of art. As the viewer, you have a lot of choice in how you experience it. Almost like a video game, in the sense that there's a fixed storyline. It's very hard to put a box around what is or isn't art, especially from the standpoint of what a given medium is capable of. You can't tell me that Final Fantasy III (Japanese VI) isn't a tremendous work of art. But I can't convince you otherwise either.

mcguire 10y ago

"Flow is painless effort. But pain management is not the business of art. "Entrancement is not insight. "Flow is an-aesthetic." Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. At every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee - zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music. "Ah, this is marvelous!" said Lord Wen-hui. "Imagine skill reaching such heights!" Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, "What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now - now I go at it by spirit and don't look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint. "A good cook changes his knife once a year-because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month-because he hacks. I've had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I've cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there's plenty of room - more than enough for the blade to play about it. That's why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone. "However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I'm doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until - flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away." "Excellent!" said Lord Wen-hui. "I have heard the words of Cook Ting and learned how to care for life!"

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no1name 10y ago

There's nothing here to debate. Ebert clearly says that video games are not art. As does this article. This is because video games and art are fundamentally different, and there is no question of video games being art. It seems the video gamers are not ready to accept this. In trying to seek validation for the time they spend playing these games, they are building arguments which are of no use. This may be because they want to improve their perception among public who tend to dismiss time spent playing video games as wasted. It also works best for the video game industry to have its clients believe that they are purchasing art when they are buying video games. I think that's why Roger Ebert gave up arguing after a point of time. Video gamers can believe whatever they want to, that does not change the fact that video games are not art.