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http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/nov/30/moma-video-games-art

His attitude of "these people are too old and dignified to even be playing games, shame on them" gave me a few chuckles, but other than that, I'd really prefer not to give people like this any attention and hope they just go away.

Masterfully designed, interacting sets of rules are art, and this guy can kiss my ass. :3

I like how he says this


Which pretty much proves games are art because they are inherently an act of personal (or collective) imagination.

What does it matter if games are art or not? Or are they accepted to MoMA or not?

I'm sorry I didn't realize that games and their characters can't be related to my personal life I guess I can't like characters anymore because the quintessential "likable" character has emotions and experiences shared by most humans.

I went to the MoMA.  They had an exhibit on interactive art and digital art, and a few video games were present.  There was a playable Passage, a trailer of Little Big Planet, and wall-sized print out of a screenshot from Dwarf Fortress.  If someone who knew nothing about video games saw this, I would have no qualms with them concluding that video games are not art.

Of course this guy is just King Douche.  I mean, just look at the title.  'Sorry MoMA'...  Wow, are you a fucking Karate Kid villain?  This sort of opinionated shit is the sort of thing I'd expect from one of those political cartoon faggots.  Like, video games would be a crying baby, MoMA would be the Mom feeding it with a bottle labeled ART.  And then he'd have a little cartoon version of himself in the corner saying something smug at his little drawing table like 'looks like this artform is still in it's infancy' or some shit.


But this shit.  I agree with this shit.  I emailed him a very lovingly composed letter where I suggested he gives the term faggot a spin.  Artfag works.  Belt that out at your next symposium, bro.  I do have to admit that the old farts probably just aren't in the right mindset to play good video games and walk away with a real conclusion that someone who's fucking smart might get.  Someone who actually plays video games.  The way this guy talks it's like popping a disc into a console is like spending a few years among the Zulu.  Grats, you played a few hours of Katamari Damacy and you thought it looked p.cool and wasn't a waste of your time.  Someone break out the big rubber stamp that says ART and smash that shit down on the cover of Katamari.


And you never say why that's a problem.  This guy goes full plebeian when he talks about those paintings.  Hey dipshit, every single one of those works, or the style they represent, had to fight tooth and nail to be accepted as art by a stuffy collection of what I can only assume were Statler and Waldorf in period costume.  Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Minimalism...  Are you so fucking dense to think that these people hung this shit on a wall in a museum right after their completion, probably walking through the halls of the fucking Louvre with the painting held high over their head while they walk between a parted crowd of applauding onlookers?  You fucking idiot, you fucking idiot.  For every word of praise we might be speaking now, I'd like you to know that  there was some curmudgeon who was appalled that we are giving these paintings the time of day.


And it looks like you've actually managed to slip in a fucking argument somewhere in your rambling.  Hey man, I agree, that's pretty much the way you have to do it.  Puff out your chest and bang your first against your pectorals and then tell them off.  Except you're dumb as dirt.

All art requires someone to dance around in the artists magical little fairyland of whimsy.  It's called the viewer.  If artists put shit out, told us what it meant, and that was the end of things why do other people need to be part of the equation?  I'd like to propose that this guy has a pretty shitty understanding of art, and I know this because I'm a B- art student with a degree hung so freshly on my wall that the dust the nail caused as I pounded it in still lingers on my carpet.  But I do know that viewers take shit away from experiencing art, even shit that the artist might not have intended.  And then you're saying that video games are wrong because this happens?


Also, really, they're showing off Vib-Ribon?  They're probably only doing it because of the way it looks, but still, you're accidentally chosen something cool to show people.  Overall the MoMA is probably showing off a kind of okay assortment of video games in a way that will not communicate any reasons about why these games are art to the viewer other than 'they look cool, huh?'.

(http://i.imgur.com/NB7cp.jpg)

Wow you are really taking this personally.

I don't think it does too much. I have issue with people who pursue these arguments, and what bad influences they may have on the rest of the world.

Believe me, articles like this has zero importance.

I dunno man, I think the way that someone who is an actual art critic can so flippantly dismiss video games as art is problematic.  Maybe the guy is just hoping that it'll catch fire like every article who said that video games aren't art.  I mean, think about, when has that not ever just meant an influx of hits for the respective website.  It'll get passed around and get more hits than any other article put out in weeks.  So, success!  But if this guy just isn't fishing for hits than I think it just shows how acceptable it is to be ignorant about this shit. 

I mean, I require an Ebert-level of 'wrong for the right reasons' before I'm going to take anything this guy says seriously.

I love the dig at Dwarf Fort in particular at the end.

I love how his Definition of Art rules out the entirety of the performing arts.  Take that definition to a theatre or music department, see how far that gets you.

"the inappropriate elder's interest in the newest games" sounds like he's trying to paint them as pedophiles or something.  The only good Art is old Art, clearly.


Especially because...  it's (effectively) one person's work, which is exactly what he's criticizing games for not being.

your moma is so fat, they found indie games inside

Just want to say aye! have fun, thanx bye

This guy apparently has a gripe with the entire concept of modern art. He's just a silly geezer who probably thinks 1700s Europe is the pinnacle of world's culture. No need to sweat it.

It's the natural fear that adults have when they have finally become comfortable and in control of their world, only to discover that world is changing.

Some choose to embrace the future to stay relevant. Jonathan Jones chooses to tear down the future in a desperate, futile, and embarrassing bid to keep everything just the way it was.

I don't care too much about trying to define games as art, but I really hate it when people give examples to Picasso as art. Not that Picasso was bad or anything, but it's a bad example of what art should be.

It's kind of like referring to ASCII Dwarf Fortress as a symbol of gaminess (who knows, some day people will be writing articles about why a sport is not a game). Picasso's works and DF are both self-indulgent and a poor example of what their medium should really look like.

These pretentious 'art critics' are the kind of people who are scaring away normal people from real art. Their notion of art is simply what people tell them is expensive.

Picasso did a lot more than cubism fyi.

"Art isn't really supposed to look like that!!"

Yeah, I mean, cubism is what comes to mind when people say Picasso. Or money. Stuff like abstract is a generational thing, sort of like a middle finger to what others recognize as art.

Art is like a meme, something everyone gets and understands without explanation, but once you start to study and explain why it's good, it stops being good. If you start to replicate it, it loses its meaning. Academic art reminds me something about the otakus who like to throw around jargon to show off that they understand and appreciate that stuff more. It makes them feel smarter than everyone else that they understand some inside joke that's centuries old, and when other new people invent their own inside joke and culture, they feel left out and defensive.

"academic art"? just out of curiosity, can you even define cubism?

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

Hahahah yeah then explain DeviantArt you goofball

Oh it is ON now

Well he gave credit to for example Picasso and Pollock, so your argument is invalid.

the world is really missing its art game blog. rip.

I've had the flu all week and it's stopped me from being productive.  Even now, trying to watch a television show, my eyes are tearing up and I can't enjoy the show.  Regardless, I am not in a bad mood, because I am able to remain content with the basic requirements for life (moderate food, clean water, education).  I fare better than the vast majority of Earth, even in my decrepit state.  So to see this argument between what is and what isn't art, and to see Dwarf Fortress, a game my friend makes and does for a living, called out specifically, is somewhat frustrating.  But still, I am calm.  And to see someone say "stop arguing, who cares" "no really, you are WAY too invested in this" and then getting louder and higher pitched, standing on their tip toes to loom over the reader "this doesn't mean anything!!" is like a scratch on the gorilla-glass of my placid mind.  It does not affect the function or feel of my mood, but I know it is an imperfection.  I am aware of the fretting, the contrarianism, the appeal to moderation; and I see it for what it is.

But I am still content.

Art game blog or game art blog?

There, you just toss about million years of human artwork, arabic art is abstract, celtic art have a great deal of abstraction, african art has plenty abstract pattern, well the great third of the world art is abstract ... before abstract was cool!

And cubism was inspired by african and so called primitive art, they kept their experimentation closed away for years before showing them, they feared the world would not understand them. The painting who give birth to cubism (les mademoiselles d'avignon was created in 1907, it wasn't until 1916 it was shown for the first time, it was the result of a long searching process. Wasn't just a middle finger as some would like to know as a kind of identity searching who span across many painting and author.

oh look it's this dumb thread again
go s*ck a d*ck

:wizard:

I haven't been following indie dev discussions until recently, but I can guess that this is a topic that's debated often and it always creates big discussions that go nowhere.

I think that's what happens all the time when the topic is something that is completely subjective, is partly about semantics, and people discuss it as if it was objective. And it gets tiring after a while, the topic dies out, until it resurfaces some time later, and repeat.

My opinion is: games are craft, games are creative. And I think "craft" plus "creative" means "art". I don't see how it could be otherwise.

i should go visit arn arnson of arn castle and tell him that df sure is a neat game