Video Games and Art- Part 1

At this point, I have read about 120 pages of the approx. 150 we were supposed to have ready for tonight.... but I am going to go ahead and post a blog post. I may add another once I have finished reading the last part of what I have to read or maybe just modify what I have. I might even just leave it as it is and wait and see how the discussion unfolds this evening in class.

First let me start by saying I was very interested the introduction, in most part, because of her discussion of video game art in the realm of art and art history. In undergrad I took many art history classes... enough to get a second minor that I never declared. Anyways, I found it interesting from an art history perspective where Mitchell and Clarke write "video game art is one of the most postmodern of art forms because it brings together such extremes of high culture (art) and low culture (the video game)." (p.9) Wow.... so true. It was not something I had every really thought of before, but definitely something that resonated with me when I saw it written here in our book. They go on to discuss how not only does video game art fall under postmodernism, but also pop art. Wow.

In Axel Stockburger's From Appropriation to Approximation, he adds to this idea of video game art in the greater realm of art history. Early on in the essay, he says "Johan Huizing... posited play and games at the roots of all cultures and clarified that they permeate various sectors of society such as art, philosophy, law and politics." (p. 25) He goes on to say that "every profane object that is transported into the museum at some point in time is thereby valorized and transformed into a work of art." (p.26) At that point, in the margin of my book, I wrote "The Fountain" which is a piece of art by Marcel Duchamp. (image to right is a replica of the original as the original was lost shortly after its completion in 1917- Image from: http://arthistorian.files.word%20press.com/2007/08/duchamp_%20fountain.jpg_) On the top of the next page, he actually talks about Marcel Duchamp. Ge says "Groys relates to Marcel Duchamp as one of the most important artist, who have directly addressed the process of transformation from non-art to art. The concept of the ready-made challenged the differentiation process itself and has thus also transformed the rules of art itself."(p.27) I never would have liked video games to art and it never would have crossed my mind, until now that is, that this new medium of video games as art is an equivalent movement of the ready-mades in early 20th century art. Finally... something I understand!!!

On page 28, Stockburger goes on to discuss Game On. He says it was "an interesting example for the shift of perception that has been taking place in the last decade." He goes on to talk about how Henry Jenkins and Kurt Squire "promote the notion of computer games as the "art of contested spaces" believing we "should consider viewing games as spatial art with its roots in architecture, landscape, painting, sculpture, gardening, or amusement park design." I can think of several examples that come to mind in relation to architecture, landscape, and amusement park design... below are a series of images relating to the games I thought of...

Amusement park design.... Roller coaster tycoon.....

The Sims 2.... both for architecture and landscape....

(from http://www.pimp-my-sims.com/)

From Google Images