Presentation - Video Game: Are they art?

What is the definition of "Art"?

Accroding to Adams, he said that" literary arts: writing and drama, which are characterized by the presence of narrative. Film and television also belong to the literary arts. Then there are the fine arts: sculpture and painting, music and dance. There are also the decorative arts: wallpaper, fabrics and furnishings. Architecture is regarded by some as a form of art, and industrial design, is not really art so much as it is an aesthetic applied to utilitarian objects. The boundaries between art and non-art are not hard and fast; there is a grey area."


- literary arts: writing and drama; film and television
- fine arts: sculpture and painting, music and dance
- decorative arts: wallpaper, fabrics and furnishings
- form of art: Architecture
- industrial design: aesthetic applied to utilitarian objects

Art has an Aesthetic
-There must be variety of aesthetic for games and gameplay.
-Judging all elements of the gameplay itself according to the variety of aesthetic : is it smooth ?natural?
Art has content
-The videogames must has some message and content to say.
-It can have the capacity to express ideas.
-Not only provide fun.
-Game developers express something through gameplay

Art challenges the Viewer
-challenge the viewer to see and hear things in different way.
-Achieve a new kind of understanding.
-The game force the player to experience new ideas ,to see things in new way.

Art need critics
-Need critics to recognize artistic merit
-Critics brings discussion of the game context
-Critics also brings judgment, maturity, understanding, wisdom.

Case studies - Quake 4 U

-Created by Feng Meng bo
-Feng Meng bo is a China's leading new media artists
-He changed and modified the version of Quake 3 to create his own “Quake 4 U”
- Released in 2002
-It is a popular Internet game
-First person shooting game
- The plot of this game is talking about killing people or killed by other people.
- Feng Meng bo use his self-portrait into this game.

-This is a shooting game and make people exciting during the game.
-Although I have not try this game ,I try some similar game before, though that this kind of game make people relax and vent their emotion during the game. People will forget the real world at that moment
- It is quite interesting that Feng Meng bo use his self-portrait to be the character of this game. I never heard that before!QUATE 4U IS A GAME OF Art

1. Exploration of formal and aesthetic possibilities eg perspective, line, colour, rhythm
-Quake 4U takes a perspective from slightly behind the character, allowing the player to control the direction in which the character looks and moves.
-The line and colur are sharp
-It contain music in the game

2. QUAKE 4U has content and make people feel something
-According to
-He inform the viewers on an ironic version of his self-portrait into the game.
-his self-portrait is a new languages on the creation of media. Not one use this character before. So that we can regards this game as an art.

4. Quake 4 U challenges the viewer:-According to Lucien King, The History And Culture Of Videogames (New York: Universe Publishing, 2002), 85
Lucien King stated, “Videogame character design is potentially a very deep and difficult art.”

-It is a unique figure that he is taking a video recorder and some weapon.
-using the self-portrait of artist as the character is rare in the digital games history.
-Thus, Feng Mengbo has challenged the viewers to see NEW things that have not been seen before ,that is introducing a new idea of forming character.

Video games=art?

Puzzle---Tetris
•Without content, message,aesthetic……

•Formulaic game

•Without role in this game,players are pure mind, engaged in a purely symbolic struggle

Pong(1972)
 •This game was modeled on simple physics: the way the ball bounced off the bat obeyed the basic law “angle of incidence equals angle of reflection”.
 

•Although, there are some games that have been calculate as art(like those introduced by my

group mates)

•Video game actually is an art from but not equal to art(just like photography)

•Some video games are totally not related to art that they just simulating the reality, not only

character, but also the laws/some video games just show the science, the law……without

aesthetic or message

•Therefore, video games are not necessary a work of art

•But it could be an art form

•Just like the nature of film, it can be both art or entertainment, or either one.

Technologised Bodies

Which artist’s work do you find the most interesting?

I think Stelarc’s work in the most interesting.

Stelarc,(Stelios Arkadiou) is a Greek-Australian performance artist whose works focuses on extending the capabilities of human body.
Stelarc's idiosyncratic performances often involve robotics or other relatively modern technology integrated with his body somehow. In 25 different performances he has suspended himself in flesh hook suspension, often with one of his robotic inventions integrated. In another performance he allowed his body to be controlled remotely by electronic muscle stimulators connected to the internet. He has also performed with a robotic third arm, and a pneumatic spider-like six-legged walking machine which sits the user in the centre of the legs and allows them to control the machine through arm gestures. His works have been heralded for their abilities to embrace a wider audience, the best example of this was his allowance for the worldwide audience to log into the exhibition and thus access or control the electrodes his own body was hooked up to.

Why I think this work is most interested?

The man with three hears

Stelarc's work change the traditional concept of human bodies. As we may think our body may only replace by prosthetics arms or legs. Now we can replace them by wires, wheels or other materials. It encourages medicine improvements of human bodies and gives new approach for us to think of what is human body.

In the first sight to the documentary video of Stelare's work, it is only a kind of "shocking oriented" work. Indeed, it is really awful that the body become distorted in an unnatural way,
esp, he implanted a third ear into his arm, what is the big mean to do such thing?

However, after watched the video and having a deep thought, I understanding Stelare's motivation, he is reacting and inventing.
In his work we can have a reflection that how is technologies used, if human still have their free will?

I think his works are creative and thoughtful.
(Though they are awful and a bit not humane)

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stelarc