Games as a New Predicate for Art: What can Arthur Danto's Theory Reveal about the Role of Games in Art? (original) (raw)

Art as an Innovation for Games: A Closer Look at Role of Art in Games

This article presents a methodology to decipher and explore this question: is Art a new predicate, a new way to introduce creative innovation, for games? Examining Art as a new way to innovate for Games introduces the idea that there are low and high games, signified thusly: games and Games. The process exposes, through an examination of Games that are Art, there are currently six (6) Art predicates for Games. This study also reveals that these newly found predicates are, indeed, defining traits of Games that are works of Art. In discovering these traits this article identifies the boundaries of an already existing "Gameworld" as Arthur Danto might have seen it, if he had been inclined to conduct such a study.

The Incompatibility of Games and Artworks

Journal of the Philosophy of Games, 2018

Recent debate has focused on whether videogames are art. Whatever the answer, the debate has largely taken it for granted that videogames are games, and that this is unproblematic for the art status of videogames. This paper argues that something being a game is incompatible with it also being an artwork, and thus insofar as videogames are games, they cannot be artworks. This incompatibility arises out of the different attitudes that are prescribed for engaging with games versus those for engaging with artworks. Citing a modified definition of games from Bernard Suits and commonly held conditions of artworks, I show that for an artist to intend something as a game or an artwork is to intend essential constitutive conditions of the object that preclude the object from being both a game and an artwork. This requires a reconsideration of several contemporary theories about games and art while also providing an analysis of games that calls for them to be appreciated as what they are wit...

The Tragedy of the Art Game

Proceedings of DiGRA 2020, 2020

Computer games have come a long way in terms of being considered a creative practice, even an art form. Apart from dedicated festivals, also established electronic art institutions have embraced computer games. Previously separate practices of computer games and interactive art (Wilson 2008; Leino 2013) are slowly converging. However, I argue that this has been possible only because a fundamental conflict ‘built in’ to computer games as a “medium” (cf. Sharp 2015), between the artist and the player, has been conveniently overlooked. The game artist wants to express themselves through their creations, while the player wants a new instrument to play (with). Apart from either side compromising on their interests, there is no reconciliation in sight; hence the “tragedy”.

Game as Art: a matter of Design

(Published at Videojogos 2010) As claimed by Chris Crawford in 1984, games must evolve to a potential form of art. Over 30 years later, the discussion demands a more mature state of the art, since games are still seen mostly as entertainment products. Considering them as a direct heir of cinema, in terms of language and dispositive parameters, games may be seen as a new form of media, and thus a vehicle both to entertainment activity than to artistic expression. To explore such possibilities, it is necessary to re-think the means of production and to purpose a new model of collaborative work that involves technicians, scholars, and artists.

The art of games Machinima and the limits of art games

A s a genre drawing on games, new media, and art references and techniques, machinima has not only become a rich source for commentary upon these areas, but also a melting-pot for rethinking the convergence and boundaries between the disciplines. With its non-interactive and analog soundscapes, machinima suggests that " new media " cinema in the twenty-first century—like the twentieth-century—is haunted by old media (Manovich 2003; Chun 2005). Although some choose to explore machinima's relationship to film, this chapter is concerned with its relationships to art, new media, and games—an association that can expose as much about these disciplines' limits as their potentialities.

When Art Is Put Into Play: A Practice-based Research Project on Game Art

ArtMonitor, 2017

When Art Is Put Into Play: A Practice-based Research Project on Game Art is a practice-based research project that aims to contribute to the understanding of the relation between play and art from the specific perspective of computer-based Game Art. This is done firstly through the production of nine works of art that through their means of production all relate to Game Art as it has come to be known in the last twenty years or so. Secondly, the relation between games, play and art is discussed from a Game Art perspective. This project as a whole aims to map and exemplify cases where Game Art successfully inherits rule-systems, aesthetics, spatial and temporal aspects from computer games. This work has in turn resulted in a provisional response to the question of the possibility for Game Art to successfully create a state of play, whilst still maintain agency as a work of art. The claim is that the friction between art and play makes it doubtful that art can maintain its agency as art through play. This claim is made as a result of the artistic process leading up to the works of art that were made as a part of the thesis. It has been strengthened through the study of the concept of play and how it relates to artistic practice.

Gaming in Art: A case study of two examples of the artistic appropriation of computer games and the mapping of historical trajectories of 'art games' versus mainstream computer games.

2005

Unpublished Masters Thesis under maiden name - Phillipa Stalker. This essay will explore the existing definitions of art games that are currently being used in the art game/art mod genre. It will identify the leading theorists within the field, and take into account their definitions whilst at the same time establishing a set of categories within which can be defined the dominant trends in the development of the field. It will also situate art games within an historical context, both within the commercial computer game field as well as the digital art field and attempt to establish some sort of timeline within which we can see the development and emergence of art games in relation to these two disciplines. Two examples of art games, both from different categories will be examined and critiqued in the context of Artistic Computer Game Modification – A 3D game called Escape From Woomera and an art mod or patch called SOD. The art game as an entity will be examined in relation to ideas of the ‘interactive’ and ‘play’, and the implications and potential for fine art practice will be investigated.

Playing distressed art: Adorno’s aesthetic theory in game design

Replay. The Polish Journal of Game Studies, 2022

The discussion on games as (not) art has been raging for decades without reaching a consensus. It is argued here that the ontological status of games is irrelevant for the perception and development of aesthetic experiences in videogames. Instead, game design should be regarded as ripe to convey the experience of art according to established aesthetic theories. The essay presents Adorno’s aesthetic theory and highlights its reflections in the games Papers, Please and Observer. It then describes how they were synthesized into a critical gameplay experience in the author’s game Distressed. The latter may be regarded as an example of a method in game studies in which the aesthetic potential of games is explored by creation rather than analysis. Arguably, this reveals the importance of epistemological approaches towards games and art instead of the predominant ontological ones.