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asimo77 wrote:Only reason I thought the pic might be for me was because I come from a Muslim background.

The good news is that the internet is blind to everything except a person's prejudicial assumptions and what you are willing to give a person in terms of background information.

For instance, I did not know up until now that you were of the Muslim faith. I apologize if the image was too threatening to your beliefs or viewpoints regarding depictions of the Prophet or how others view a stereotypical view of your world view.

Well I wouldn't call myself muslim but my family more or less is, hence the background. But regardless that's a totally different topic.

Not trying to put you into the spolight or anything though so don't worry about it.

asimo77 wrote:Well I wouldn't call myself muslim but my family more or less is, hence the background. But regardless that's a totally different topic.

Not trying to put you into the spolight or anything though so don't worry about it.

There is something to be said about respectability on a forum. Sometimes humor can cross lines that shouldn't be crossed. I do my best to be entertaining and also respectful at the same time.

Can paintings one day be art? Yes. Are they art yet? No.

Manchu wrote:Can paintings one day be art? Yes. Are they art yet? No.

Can there be a transitive paradox condition where they become half-art, half-not art?

Maybe one day. When LordofHats and asimo77 give the okay.

Manchu wrote:Can paintings one day be art? Yes. Are they art yet? No.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here. Though I'm glad you finally accepted me and Lordofhats as masters of all that is arty. It's about time really.


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WarOne wrote:

Manchu wrote:Can paintings one day be art? Yes. Are they art yet? No.

Can there be a transitive paradox condition where they become half-art, half-not art?

Schrodinger's painting perhaps?

asimo77 wrote:Though I'm glad you finally accepted me and Lordofhats as masters of all that is arty. It's about time really.

What's the alternative? I came to the internet looking for the experts. Should I complain now???

In my infinite wisdom I allow you precisely 1 and a half complaints.

As for alternatives there's always Zuul

Manchu wrote:Maybe one day. When LordofHats and asimo77 give the okay.

No. A question must be valid to be okay'd

Something can be too immature to be art. Painting is an established form that has been around since before civilization. You're comparison fails to address the current question. You're definition works for a dictionary but fails in a proper discussion of the subject because it is to broad (as many dictionary definitions are). One of the things that separates a film like Lake Placid from one like Rebel without a Cause is that Lake Placid doesn't give us anything of significant cultural value. It means nothing, as do almost all video games if not all. Art is defined less by what it is and more by what it does. Video games don't yet do what art does. Art encourages deeper thought of the world or an examination of what the world is.

When I play Halo, I don't think about the meaning of life. I think about killing aliens. Video games thus far are incapable of effecting society in a meaningful way, though they are getting closer and closer and some have had huge cultural effects. What video game has said something meaningful about the world that goes deeper than a shallow puddle or a sound bit from a bumper sticker?

I disagree with Ebert, as he is of the position video games will never be art, which I disagree with. I think they can be. It's actually ironic a film critic says such a thing, cause there was a time when film was in the same position. The medium just hasn't developed enough to reach that point. Video games contain art, but are not art themselves as the medium has nothing artistic to offer us yet. Give it time. Video Games will have their time, and then the paintings and the sculptures that mocked us shall pay!

I just used the corner of a framed painting to scratch my back.

I think I have made a positive contribution to art- adding functionality.

WarOne wrote:I just used the corner of a framed painting to scratch my back.

I think I have made a positive contribution to art- adding functionality.

Sorry, this guy already did it. His name is scrapper.



Now, if we could make art intelligent, and get it to to make more art...

Is it just me or does his pointing hand look like a foot?

asimo77 wrote:Is it just me or does his pointing hand look like a foot?

He got a little busted up... Poor scrapper can't scrap no more

LordofHats wrote:EDIT: Master Chief is a very interesting character but I'd never call him strong. He speaks just enough to make him feel alive and endear him to the player as a character in the universe, but not enough to really make him feel like a character in himself without the player there (there really was a book written on this believe it or not). Even in the expanded universe, Master Chief is very shallow compared to some of the other characters in the series (most of the Spartans are the only exception jumping to my mind being Kurt).

I think Master Chief is a good example of exactly how much character I want out of the main, next to none. The reason is simple, when I play the game I am the main character. I control their every action. So to have some of that control taken away by someone else trying to give them personality is jarring. Even worse when they take actions or make statements that are completely contrary to how I see the character. It brings all immersion into the game to a screeching halt and can ruin and further investment I make in the perception of the character as I'm now waiting for the next stupid things the devs will have them say. Now there's nothing wrong with simple statements like the Chief's that are humorous, and at appropriate places they can have dialogue, but let me select it. Let me control the character from start to finish.

Nurglitch wrote:Braid is a fantastic example of mixing the story, graphics, and game-play. These aspects of a game need to be harmonized, not prioritized.

I can't speak to Braid specifically but I agree that you don't need to prioritize one element over the others. Amazing graphics won't sell me a game if the game itself sucks. An excellent story can be totally mucked up by gakky game play. A great and solid game can stand alone (the Sim City series) but that's largely outside the genres I think we're discussing. The moment you start injecting characters into the experience you'd better be ready to give them something interesting to say.

Wraithlordmechanic wrote:I don't understand this point of view. If I was the main character I would be doing more interacting than nodding my head or looking surprised. The communication from your end is completely insufficient in most RPGs. it always annoyed me when I was playing some RPG and an NPC would say "so you don't talk much huh?" when the designer could have made the character say something the he or she would understandably say given the circumstances. It would also be nice to be addressed as something other than "you" or "hero" or "lieutenant".

I would rather have the game supply a personality (like in brutal legend) then play a character that has none. Until a game comes along that lets you choose a demeanor to begin with and makes your character follow it in dialog I would rather have my personality supplied.

I can see your point of view but I just can't share it. Either give me the ability to shape my attitude as I chose or give the character none at all. Supplying me with a personality and no way to change it is to me the worst solution to the problem.

asimo77 wrote:Most games don't have a message, and so are mostly mediocre at best. A good video game story might be engaging, have interesting characters but you havent changed the way you think about the world at all in the end. Something that can do that would have a good story, and I suppose could be considred art. It's more entertainment than anything else, so I'd say that games are great for entertainment, and have entertaining stories, but not meaningful ones.

Deus Ex, full stop. Great (for its time) graphics, amazing game play, and a story that was top notch.

LordofHats wrote:And the story isn't what made Bioshock and Half Life 2 good. They were supplements to a strong gameplay aspect, that along with those decent "at least they don't suck" stories made the games stronger.

Oh please. HL2 is a FPS, full stop. The gravity gun is the only thing that even breaks the standard FPS mold even a little bit. Purely considered as a game HL2 is completely unremarkable. It's only after you add in the story that it stands out and anyone cares about it.

Half Life 2's story: shoot the aliens

Deus Ex's story: shoot the conspiracy theorists.

"Shoot the aliens" is half-life 2's gameplay, not it's story. But I think you know that already.

Ok maybe it's shoot the aliens and their naughty Combine friends. Oh and you're part of rebellion and the extra ugly aliens are actually on your side this time, because why not.

HL wishes it was 1984

The problem is that people are still confusing elements of a video game with the video game itself. HL2 isn't just a story. It has visuals, sounds, and gameplay. It's a bloody good game, but those variables just don't come together in an artistic fashion (Still fun a bojangles).

What does HL2 have to say that has real meaning? Absolutely nothing.

LordofHats wrote:What does HL2 have to say that has real meaning? Absolutely nothing.

"In the face of adversity, persevere."

Most art doesn't say anything, it just looks pretty-- and even then only sometimes.

Art isn't about things which have meaning. That's philosophy.

Melissia wrote:

LordofHats wrote:What does HL2 have to say that has real meaning? Absolutely nothing.

"In the face of adversity, persevere."

Most art doesn't say anything, it just looks pretty-- and even then only sometimes.

Art isn't about things which have meaning. That's philosophy.

You don't know many artists, do you?

Melissia wrote:"In the face of adversity, persevere."

And how does this help us in a real world sense? It doesn't, because it's a bumper sticker statement. It sounds nice but it doesn't have much practical meaning.

Most art doesn't say anything, it just looks pretty-- and even then only sometimes.

Take an Art History or an Appreciation of Art class... Or say that to an artist (have some insurance).

Art isn't about things which have meaning. That's philosophy.

...

LordofHats wrote:Take an Art History or an Appreciation of Art class... Or say that to an artist (have some insurance).

Take a game history or an Appreciation of GAming class... oh wait, they don't exist.

Just because the art community is too stuck up in its own backside and too behind the times to realize that gaming is developing into its own art form does not mean that it is so.

Melissia wrote:Just because the art community is too stuck up in its own backside and too behind the times to realize that gaming is developing into its own art form does not mean that it is so.

This is true, but just because someone is a snob about something doesn't make them wrong. Sadly I see a lot of people with Ebert's opinion, which seems very narrow minded.

Melissia wrote:

LordofHats wrote:Take an Art History or an Appreciation of Art class... Or say that to an artist (have some insurance).

Take a game history or an Appreciation of GAming class... oh wait, they don't exist.

lolwhut?

I'm sitting in a school that offers one right now.

And there are people that will not refer to comic books as "sequential art" because they oppose the idea of comics as an art form. Because as we all know, it's impossible to combine writing and visuals in a way that makes for actual art. Hell, there's people that refuse to call anything art except for "high art", stuff which was produced decades or centuries ago.

Screw those people.

While I admit to being a bit clumsy in expressing this opinion, I firmly believe gaming is an art form. Certainly, it's not perfect, it's young and developing, but that also means it's more exciting to participate in. And I never said all games were works of art, but certainly quite a few are.

The one that immediately springs to mind is The Path. The Path is a great piece of sequential storytelling, using images, mood, and music to tell a story in place of words to retell the story of Little Red Riding Hood in a completely new way, and how the old story can apply to the modern world.

Penumbra is another one, though it is a series of three games. It is a great horror game based on a FPS style control system, but it has no real weapons (the first game does, but they're weak enough that you're obviously not intended to actually go around killing enemies but to avoid them and use the weapons as tools rather than weapons) and very few "jump out of a window and bite your face" type horror moments. It is a more subtle horror, and even at the end when the wool in front of your eyes starts to unravel... it only becomes more terrifying, not less.

Meanwhile, other games are artwork not because of their storytelling and visuals, but because of what they do with their interactive elements. Trine, Portal, World of Goo, Doc Clock and the Toasted Sandwich of Time, and to a lesser extent Red Faction Guerrilla are all examples of this. It is not a visual or storytelling medium which they take to an art form.. it is their interactive medium that they do. The first four because they do lots of interesting and cool things with the limited resources they have-- portal is the most obvious example of this which most people would know of, due to its popularity. The last one I mention because of its physics engine, forcing the designers to make real buildings because buildings have materials w/tensile strengths and etc, and this means that the art form is that of blowing things up and seeing how they react.

It's a different medium, and its artform is different than other mediums. That does not make it non-art.

Melissia wrote:And there are people that will not refer to comic books as "sequential art" because they oppose the idea of comics as an art form. Because as we all know, it's impossible to combine writing and visuals in a way that makes for actual art.

I forgot about comics. They have been in this situation in the past. They kind of still are. We've had many comics (V for Vendetta, Sandman, Watchmen) that for sure are artistically valuable. The weekly issue of Superman though? Meh. Nor so sure.

Hell, there's people that refuse to call anything art except for "high art", stuff which was produced decades or centuries ago.

Screw those people. Yeah. I'm not a fan either.

It's a different medium, and its artform is different than other mediums. That does not make it non-art.

That's not what I'm arguing (though some people have made that argument against games and film alike). I'm merely arguing that the medium isn't mature enough.

No, it's not, but that doesn't mean that some of the early stuff isn't art.

LordofHats wrote:

Melissia wrote:And there are people that will not refer to comic books as "sequential art" because they oppose the idea of comics as an art form. Because as we all know, it's impossible to combine writing and visuals in a way that makes for actual art.

I forgot about comics. They have been in this situation in the past. They kind of still are. We've had many comics (V for Vendetta, Sandman, Watchmen) that for sure are artistically valuable. The weekly issue of Superman though? Meh. Nor so sure.

I'd argue that the average issue of a comic is a hell of a lot more artistic than many people would give them credit for. Batman in particular is a very good example of this, with it's dark undertones and notable links with the Gothic. Superman? Maybe. I don't read enough of Supes to make a judgement on that.
All I know is that, as I've stated before, art is a very subjective medium, and as a result I'm having to stick to my own guns here.

All comics are art. They all have hand drawn pictures. A comic may not be good but that doesn't invalidate it as art.