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[Corpus]

It's certainly more interesting and more enjoyable to come to personal conclusions about the significance of a work, but I think it can also be intriguing to learn about the artist's interpretation of it. It shouldn't be any more important than anyone else's opinions, though, obviously. EDIT: Alec posted while I was writing this and, uh... yeah, pretty much what he said.

Also, Alex, that looks really interesting. What's the name of your sister? Does she have a website, or anything?

[Alex May]

Her name is Lucy. Here's an interview with her: http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2009/01/art-space-talk-lucy-may.html

The exhibition I mentioned is here: http://www.wilsonwilliamsgallery.com/

[PGGB]

would anyone care to elaborate on why they think a statement made by the artist about his or her work (an artist statement) is a bad thing?

I draw a circle on a piece of paper in 2 seconds. Is it art? No.

Can be art already. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

I still value it when creators explain their work from their perspective, as long as they're not trying to force me to agree with it.

Well, ya but there's a difference in this and a work where the entire meaning comes from some artist's statement. In that thread where we wrote fake artistic statements, some could be believable had they come from the mouths of the creator. I could build meaning into anything I've ever done in my life with the right statements, but in my opinion it reduces the power of the work itself if this is the case. If it supplements the work then fine do it, but don't make the meaning come from what you say it should be.

Like the stank ass fart I let out last night. It symbolizes the initially strong, yet continually weakening, power of evil persons in power. Sure, at first someone might seem completely evil and horrid, and it may cause people to turn their heads to the whole thing. But in the end, despite some discomfort, the smell fades and the power weakens. That is, until another comes to take its place.

[Alec]

I said

"I still value it when creators explain their work from their perspective, as long as they're not trying to force me to agree with it."

Not

"I love it when creators fart and make up meanings for it"

[Ixis]

An interesting supposition: Create a work that exemplifies the relationship between a work, it's audience and the dynamic between them. Or, a work wherein the art statement/manifesto is a part of the work itself, or rather, a work that changes and is elevated to a new meta-artistic meaning by the inclusion of the artistic statement.

Example: I played AAOFAD and figured the creator was making something about war, violence and solitude. I then read a hypothesis that the work was actually about human gestation, this in turn changed the way I perceived the work.

So, what if someone made a game that could be interpreted any number of ways, but included an artistic statement that stated the work was about the treachery of artistic statements and presented this as the one and only way to view the work? <- Or something like that, I don't know what should be included in the artistic statement, just that it should introduce some kind of meta-statement so much so that the artistic statement itself becomes a part of the art, thus to hypothesize the importance of outside factors such as the artist and their perspective on influencing your perception of a work.

[Anthony Flack]

Also, on an unrelated note, art skepticism is one of the most boring things.

Oh hells yes. And it's already been played out so many times before. People are still bitching about "modern art" of the kind that Picasso was making before their grandmothers were born.

[nihilocrat]

During college, I discovered that the story and context of art is really the most interesting thing about it, and the actual pieces themselves are more like symptoms, side effects, or examples of what would naturally come out of that context.

[aeiowu]

Regardless, I still think statements can hurt more than help - one of the amazing things about any artwork (not just formal art, or Art-art, but general creative products) is how it can be interpreted in such a personal manner. Creates a real connection. When one figures out what it is they see, it can feel as if though the piece was made for them. Or they for it, I suppose!

Feels like there's a lot of truth in this...

I still value it when creators explain their work from their perspective, as long as they're not trying to force me to agree with it.

Yea, i'm still on the fence. I explained Gray in detail on a post on Newgrounds and i'm not sure it was the right move. I posted my intentions on there because I sort of feel the whole "no, i'm not telling!" is kind of hiding/a cop-out, especially after a bunch of people have already made up their own mind on the matter... In that regard I felt pretentious, like I was too good to join in on the discussion everyone was having or something. But, like I said, I'm on the fence and I'm not sure that was really the case. Jumping into it may have been more to serve my own worry of not wanting to come off pretentious than to actually bring something new to the ongoing discussion.

here it is: http://aeiowu.newgrounds.com/news/post/316496

I dunno, it's tough. Just do what feels right.

[agj]

Just played the game. It was more interesting than I anticipated, because I wasn't going to play it if I only thought it was a shooting platformer, but the front page hint at something more made me give it a try. I didn't expect the whole game to be something else, and that was surprising in a positive way.

I'm afraid that I never noticed the fish trying to guide me; the light rays were a clear hint, though. The first pit is a mysterious choice, because it makes the punch come too early, and also because it is later not present in the revisited first area!

I like the thematic mixture of mechanical and organic. It seems like the natural part is originally the evil part, in the game's world. Water is essential to life, so it is death to the mechanical side. The mechanical seed seems like some sort of self-destruct sequence: it floods everything with water so that life may grow back again. It's like a bomb that sprouts a tree. And then, it seems to me that the character is redeemed at the end, despite his mechanical heart.

[Alec]

I think if the game comes from personal expression, its not a bad thing to explain what you were experiencing at the time the game was made.

I often don't really understand what meaning I'm putting into the stuff I'm working on until after, and then I can understand the context and why I was inspired to come up with some of the ideas.

You don't really need to get in what you feel it means objectively, but a statement about where you were at emotionally at the time could shed light on the game while still leaving it open to interpretation. (plus fans of a game love to hear about the creation process and behind the scenes info)

(went into a bit about that in this interview)

[Anthony Flack]

During college, I discovered that the story and context of art is really the most interesting thing about it, and the actual pieces themselves are more like symptoms, side effects, or examples of what would naturally come out of that context.

Yes, I think if people understood the history better then perhaps modernism would make a lot more sense. It's over a hundred years old FFS! How can you hope to understand modernism without understanding how it fits in with things like: the industrial revolution, the development of photography, the Meiji Restoration in Japan, air travel, psychoanalysis, World War I, and the other elements that had such a huge impact on people's way of thinking at the time. Not to mention the fact that pretty much everything we know about graphic and industrial design NOW can be traced directly back to modernism. Don't like "modern art"? But it's all around you. That's like dissing on Shakespeare without realising that we use words and phrases invented by him in our regular speech every single day.

You know what I think is interesting? The Futurists, 100 years ago, were trying to solve the problem of expressing speed, power, noise and movement in their paintings and sculptures. These were the things that they really felt passionate about expressing (understandable, since we are talking about the period directly after the industrial revolution, but before WWI came along and smashed everybody's utopian dreams). But it's very difficult to create a painting that gives you the feeling of driving a racing car impossibly fast. But they tried, they really did.

Fast forward a hundred years, and here we are making video games, tying ourselves in knots trying to make games that express the feeling of a sad girl crying about her dead cat, because making games about cars going fast is not considered properly "artistic". What has changed? Just the fashion. It's nothing more than snobbery.

[Fuzz]

I don't like detailed artist statements. To simply say, "this is about my childhood", "this is about becoming god", "this is about the commercialization of appropriated First Nations cultural artifacts", is no problem for me. Statements like these are helpful because they draw attention to the mindset of the artist but allow the viewer/player to draw their own more specific inclusions.

[AdamAtomic]

Sorry to go back on topic but I finally did a writeup on the algorithm I use to generate the underwater labyrinth, you can read it on my EXPERT GAMA BLOG THINGY.  Just a heads up though; this is a blog for EXPERTS, not AMATEURS.  So, you know...haha I do not know where I am going with this I am tired and my maptop is burning my leg

but the article has pictures so check it out!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

it's such a trivial thing that i can't imagine someone lying over something like that, unless they are one of those people who think so little of lying that they lie about a great many other things as well, and lie every day about something or other.

Everyone lies.

But I wasn't saying people don't lie or something. I don't think everyone lies about what they've read though in order to seem less cultured. That's a particular type of lying that you have to be a particular type of person to do. Even if "everyone lies" were true, that doesn't mean that everyone lies about whether they've ever had a cat or whether they've ever eaten a raspberry.

[Gainsworthy]

...doesn't mean that everyone lies about whether they've ever had a cat or whether they've ever eaten a raspberry.

Not everybody lies about those kinds of things, but man, I'm always surprised about what people do like about. Folks would lie about eating raspberries if the situation calls for it.

I think lying about appreciating Media/Art to fit in is something a fair few people would do, on occasions. I try to avoid doing it at all costs, but, for example, I remember lying about "Team America" when it came out a few years back. Some of my friends thought it was greeeeeeeeeeat, and I said it was "alright, pretty good" and then sat through their renditions of the songs. What I should've said was "I thought it was a kind of entertaining a waste of my time, but I wouldn't watch it again, ever. By the way, your singing is awful".

But I digress.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah, but that's softening your opinion of the game temporarily so as to not dampen the enthusiasm of a friend. that's different than if he asked if you'd seen the movie, and you said 'yep, i saw it!!' when you didn't.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

Sorry to go back on topic but I finally did a writeup on the algorithm I use to generate the underwater labyrinth, you can read it on my EXPERT GAMA BLOG THINGY.  Just a heads up though; this is a blog for EXPERTS, not AMATEURS.  So, you know...haha I do not know where I am going with this I am tired and my maptop is burning my leg

but the article has pictures so check it out!

makes you wonder if a complete randomly generated metroid style game is possible

[Alec]

Sorry to go back on topic but I finally did a writeup on the algorithm I use to generate the underwater labyrinth, you can read it on my EXPERT GAMA BLOG THINGY.  Just a heads up though; this is a blog for EXPERTS, not AMATEURS.  So, you know...haha I do not know where I am going with this I am tired and my maptop is burning my leg

but the article has pictures so check it out!

Nice method, thanks for sharing. I'm an idiot, but I understood it! 

[Loren Schmidt]

Thanks for writing that up, Adam. What sorts of things do you do in the final step, where you jumble up your wall shapes and add little crevices and so on?