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[frabberjabber]

I thought this:
http://www.nea.gov/grants/apply/AIM/index.html
might be of interest to some people here. It's a grant of $10,000 to $200,000 available to US citizens producing media projects - including games - that qualify as art. Applications are due by September 1.

[Mipe]

Art games, huh?

[tergem]

  Nice to see the government of the current superpower making a decision such as this. I take it as art games then.

[moi]

I want to make a game about the life of obama ben laden and his struggles against the forces of oppressions, will that be accepted?

[Destral]

I want to make a game about the life of obama ben laden and his struggles against the forces of oppressions, will that be accepted?

 

[frabberjabber]

Art games, huh?

You know, I was going to push back at this and cite a bunch of exciting, innovative, accessible works that have gotten NEA funding, but it turns out that most of the media art projects they directly fund are pretty ponderous. A lot of past grants, though, have gone to organizations that house and support artists while they work, which seems like a model that would work as well for games as for anything.

[Klaim]

"Art Games". And why not "Art Music" or "Art Movies"?


This is bullshit.


In this precise case, it's only a qualification to tell "it's allowed to be in our official cultural pool of media".

Do you think a game like MineCraft could get this "Art Game" flag? Even if it's a worldwide cultural phoenomenon?


Anyway, if you can manage to get the money, please make at least a good game first.


(we have the same kind of thing in France, but they don't allow any help for non-company game developers.. like indies. After all, they are no "real business".)

[Zaphos]

This grant appears to be for non-profit orgs?  Or units of local government, or tribes?  Not individuals?  I don't know of any indies who have set themselves as nonprofits, units of local government, or tribes ...

Also, Klaim, this is a grant that has traditionally supported music and movies and is just now expanding to include games as well.  Looking at their previous winners it's a lot of documentaries, music programming, and NPR shows.  So, given the context I don't understand your "why not" question.

[frabberjabber]

This grant appears to be for non-profit orgs?  Or units of local government, or tribes?  Not individuals?  I don't know of any indies who have set themselves as nonprofits, units of local government, or tribes ...

This is as good an excuse as any for nonprofit indie studios, no? It seems like a pretty logical direction for a community with high artistic standards and limited commercial ambition. Game jams are essentially just very short-term, low-budget artists' colonies, aren't they?

This is all said, of course, as someone with literally zero experience or interest in designing games, so its total, nonsensical wrongness is expected.

[adam_smasher]

"Art Games". And why not "Art Music" or "Art Movies"?

Art cinema is a thing. And so is "art music" - stuff like John Cage for instance. And people doing these sort of things are far more more likely to get government funding than, say, some indie garage band, which I suppose is the analog to yet another fucking pixelly platformer.

[Mipe]

Which games qualify as art?

[Paul Eres]

"Art Games". And why not "Art Music" or "Art Movies"?

those exist too. art music and art film are both real things, and predate art games.

[adam_smasher]

Which games qualify as art?

What movies qualify as "art"? It's hard to say or lay out guidelines that'll appease everyone,  but it's pretty clear that "Transformers 2" is doing something different from "The White Ribbon" which is doing something different from "T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G".

This may come as a surprise to some people, but there's no litmus test for "art", in any medium. But the lack of a clear-cut distinction doesn't necessarily entail the lack of a distinction whatsoever. Court cases have revolved around deciding whether some obscene novel or another is "art", and in that latter case I'm still not sure. That doesn't mean a taxonomy isn't, at least on some level, valuable or insightful or valid.

Generally speaking, being permissive about what constitutes art is probably a pretty good idea - especially if your reason for dismissing it is because it shocks or offends you. If someone says it's art, it probably is - unless the people saying it are simply nerds without any conception of the historical or cultural significance of the word trying to justify their recreational activities.

[Klaim]

"Art Games". And why not "Art Music" or "Art Movies"?

those exist too. art music and art film are both real things, and predate art games.

Really?

Is there any definition of what it is?

[Christian Knudsen]

Dear god, not this again...