How about I propose that they are one-in-the-same and that the only difference is what society has restrictively imposed on yet another thing?
I have been advocating that games are just as much art as a Picasso painting for as long as I could make a decent argument. The greatest purpose, in my opinion, of art is to enact an emotion within the viewer. Weather that emotion be rage, tears, joy, or an epiphany is irrelevant so long as it was brought on by the work. Games enact all of the same emotions but threw a different mean. Games allow the viewer to become a participant of the work, another voice within its creation and perception. Some of the most beautiful, enjoyable, profound and influencing games I have ever played would have been easily allowed in a gallery if they were a series of images. But instead of being mear records of what the artist envisioned, they invited you to journey through their world and moved you in ways that traditional art could only dream of.
Every artist has a distinct style; a specific flare to their work that makes it obvious who created it without even needing a name tag and the same is true for both the creator and the consumer when the art rises to games. Every studio has a style; every game has a feel to it that can only be created by its creators and no one else. Every artist also creates what he loves and creates according to what he wants to see. The same holds true for the designers of games, who are just as passionate for their game as any artist could ever be for their painting.
But the most special quirk of games comes from its change of rolls for the viewer. If you give a hundred artists a camera and tell them to photograph the same still life, they will all come back with similar but different takes on the same thing. This very nature of humanity holds true for the player, now given the opportunity to be the photographer of the still life. Rather than merely the viewer of what another person has created, they are invited to give it their own sprite and style.
You make some interesting points about the power of gaming to illicit emotion in a traditional art sort of way. In the bulk of the post you seem to be referring to video games, specifically. I agree with you to a certain extent, video games can take the gamer to a specific place in same way that traditional art can take the viewer. But I disagree in parts were you seem to be pitting them against each other.
ReplyDeleteFor me, what makes video games such an immersive and emotional experience (the last game that I really played was Condemned: Criminal Origins) has a lot to do with it's implementation of "traditional" art, specifically the environment design. In the case of video games, I think that the two compliment each other.
yeah, i tend to find my self stuck in the video games rut when i get talking about games. didn't really intend to pit them against each other, my entire intent was to point to their similarity's. (there's better was to have right'n what i rote)
DeleteEnvironmental design is actually where i would like to specialize in if i do end up in the industry. i have been building levels for games sense i was 12. your linkage of it to a more traditional sense of art is interested as i'm not all to impressed by most contemporary/post-modern art however quite deeply drawn by more traditional subjects and style. (i am however quite a fan of Modernism in architecture, and a bit art)