Sunday, May 2, 2010

You want games as art? I'll give you games as art.

Hatetris.

This is game-programming-as-sculpture, not "I want to make something that's fun to play" (sculpture equivalent: "I want to make something that looks pretty"), but an attempt to achieve a platonic ideal -- find the sculpture already in the stone. Everyone who's played Tetris has felt at some time like the game hates them. This is an attempt to program a version of Tetris that really does hate you, the pattern within the pattern made real.

It's not perfect. I don't think it quite works. It's a draft. But it's still art.

4 comments:

Pocket Nerd said...

My problem with any "Is X art?" discussion is simple: "Art" is a notoriously slippery word to define, and almost every such essay begins with the writer carefully delineating "art" in such as way as to include stuff he likes and exclude stuff he doesn't. Unless and until somebody provides an all-encompassing, nigh-universally-accepted definition of "art," I'm not sure there's a meaningful discussion to be had. (This will also be the day when United States lawmakers can conclusively decide what is pornography and what isn't, since du jure anything that is art is not pornography.)

For what it's worth, I think Ebert's a damned smart guy, but his recent monograph on the topic is nothing but this kind of word magic; he spends almost the entire essay quibbling over what "art" means, even admitting "we could play all day with definitions." Well, yes, he could; in fact, he does. The essay is clever, it's well, written, it's magnanimous to his ideological opponents, but ultimately the message is simply "Video games aren't art because my personal definition of 'art' excludes them."

Ebert's a famous critic of a medium that, less than a century ago, was frequently derided as not really art. He's certainly aware of this incongruity; why he can't learn from it, I've no idea.

Anonymous said...

Have you read Ebert's clarification drawing the distinction between "art" and "high art?" kind of makes the distinction you seem to be looking for.

I agree that as long as there are people who subscribe to the "everything is art; art is everything" or "art is defined by the observer" concept, it will be difficult for them to understand Ebert.

PS: A blogging application that is more mobile-friendly would probably increase your traffic.

Beth said...

Tetris in any version is amazing. I thought this was great. Gave the process a totally different persepctive.

Pocket Nerd said...

moar udpates plz

kthx