Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Things That Are Not Art

--A public service announcement--

It has come to my attention that a lot of people are bandying about the term "art" as if it could be applied to just any old thing that involves the conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium. Idiots.

I present to you, then, a list of things that are definitely NOT art:

Videogames

Please cease and desist from using the term "art" when referring to any of these products of human effort. They are singularly without any merit whatsoever, and it is certain that no person, anywhere, ever, has been moved to remark on such a product's beauty, manifested in any aspect of its design.

That would just be ridiculous.

5 comments:

Deacon said...

I was being very very facetious. Sorry if that didn't come through. Sometimes it's hard to ensure that the right words are dripping with sarcasm - an unfortunate characteristic of print. And for some reason online communication is particularly tricky when it comes to intent and sincerity.

But fuck yeah videogames are art.

I was attempting to point out how ludicrous it seems to me to claim otherwise, since there are many, many aspects of games that could be beautiful to people.

I, for example, love it when a game gets to a truly reactive point, when something so expected happens that it's surprising when it actually does.

Anyway, yeah. So much for my regulation of tone.

Anonymous said...

Is something that contains an "artsy" element Art ?

Because, let's a texture on the face of a monster in a Video game > a drawing > art.

SO is the video game art then ? or just a collection of a bunch of artsy stuff ?

same thing.
everything is art.

Anonymous said...

Okay, "Axl", let me address this one more time. Read the comment right above yours. Now read your comment.

Was it necessary to post your comment? Did you understand that my post was an attempt to be sarcastic? Please let me know if I'm still being unclear.

Yes, yes, everything is art. Very good. Read my lips, now: We . . . are . . . in . . . agreement.

Corvus, I appreciate at least your attempt to gain clarification, but people not understanding after that makes me wonder if they even read anything other than what gets their dander up.

Has anybody read anything else on this site? Have I said anything, possibly, in the past that might lead people to believe that I think videogames are not art?

Did anybody catch the wry way in which I gave the definition of art, which seems very much to be completely applicable to videogames, and then ironically stated that there was no way they could fall under that definition?

I hate having to explain things this much.

How was it not a tipoff when I solidly stated that videogames were without any merit whatsoever? Does that seem in character with a blog whose sole subject concerns the merits of videogames?

I'm completely serious here, was it that easy to miss?

Is it hard to tell when I'm joking?

Does this mean my "I Take It All Back" post was seen as a true and accurate account of an event that actually occurred?

Zounds. We are all doomed.

Anonymous said...

when i first read this post, i thought you were seriously saying a video game wasn't art. i haven't read much of your blog entries but from what i had read, you seemed worthy of a read and i looked for a justification to chew on. until i read the comments. i think the problem was your sarcasim was too suddle for a text. the only thing that hinted to me your were kidding was the last sentence, and i still wasn't certain and because i didn't see one, wanted to prod for a reason:

"That would just be ridiculous."

maybe try:
"That would just be ri-fucking-diculous."

Anonymous said...

I see that.

In fact, I get the same thing in normal conversation. I'll say something, and people will just look at me as if I were entirely serious.

My own wife sometimes still can't tell when I'm kidding.

I'm like a comedic Cassandra, cursed to be side-splittingly hilarious except nobody will ever realize I'm joking.