Ebert and Barker "Feud" Continues

[Morbid]

It's not that I agree with Roger Ebert, compeltely, but he continues to make Clive Barker look like an idiot.

For those of you who are not aware, Roger Ebert and Clive Barker have been in a minor feud of sorts stemming from a comment made by Ebert in which he commented that video games could not be art. Of course, he was attacked by the gaming community. He did not back down, but expanded on his statement, especially after Clive Barker made some choice comments (who, conveniently, was promoting a new video game). It can be found here:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/COMMENTARY/70721001

Well, Clive Barker made another statement on a gaming website and a reader asked Ebert about it. Here is the short Q and A

Play on, Mr. Barker, by all means!

by Roger Ebert / October 4, 2007

Q. The latest blast in your war of words about video games with the British horror writer Clive Barker has been reported on the Gaming Today Web site, which relays that on a Digital Trends podcast, Barker said, "Ebert's a pompous, arrogant old man, and he's not going to stop us from making games or enjoying them or making them art." Your thoughts?
Greg Nelson, Chicago

A. Dear Mr. Barker: I have much to be pompous and arrogant about, having just been declared America's No. 1 pundit by Forbes magazine. But I cannot deny my advanced age, which makes me fully nine years older than you. What strikes me about your comment is its poverty of imagination. My broadside was fired on July 22. You have pondered it for more than two months, and this pathetic bleat is the best you could produce? The British were once known for their rapier wit, but I am afraid bandinage of this caliber will not get you into the Leatherhead and Dorking Debating Society, let alone the House of Lords.

Heavens, Mr. Barker, I would never dream of stopping you from making video games or enjoying them, and if you can make them art, I applaud you. To show my heart is in the right place, I am accompanying this reply with the same photograph of you that I used on July 22. Your self-effacing modesty is apparent.

Here is the original article:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071004/ANSWERMAN/710040314/1023/

[Count Dragula]

Something may be excellent as itself, and yet be ultimately worthless. A bowel movement, for example.

His dry wit does have its charms.

[dop]

Ebert is indeed making Baker look bad but his initial point about videogames not being capable of being art is definatley wrong, he migth be wining a battle of wits but not at all the original argument.

[swivel]

Ebert is indeed making Baker look bad but his initial point about videogames not being capable of being art is definatley wrong, he migth be wining a battle of wits but not at all the original argument.

Hmmm. I have to agree with Ebert on this one. As much as I love videogames, I would have to say that they "Contain Art", but are not "Art".

When a designer sits down and draws the background for an adventure game, that the main characters will traipse across, there is no denying that this is art. Sometimes, in the case of games like Myst, these backgrounds could even be considered "High Art", and stand on their own, in a nice oak frame, with no other context.

Same goes for the guy making the score for the game, the 3D modelers (how are their creations different from the sculptors?) etc...

The problem comes from the interactive nature of the medium. As soon as you get my clumsy paws on the controller, there is no way the groupings of art, even if they qualified as high art, would remain so. Now it is amusement. Entertainment. The story can not be told the way the original artist intended. I can run around bumping into the back of the other avatars while making *fart* noises. Only fans of "found art" and "interpretive dance" would consider this art.

Now, for the really zany part of my game-as-art philosophy: While the game consists of art, but isn't art, the PLAYING of it can be art!

Confusing, I know. Let me show you some examples:

fTnT66LGrdY

xt1HISCHkmI

What makes these instances of video-game playing art? For me it is the brilliance required for their creation and the difficulty required to turn the imagination into reality. (this is why most modern art is not art to me, if I can produce it, and the idea is not mind-shatteringly genius that only a few would ever conceive it, then it isn't art)

Imagination + Ability = Art. That is my formula. It has to be hard to think up, or hard to do, or both. And the reason that part of a videogame qualifies is self-evident. The reason that the entire videogame fails as a whole, is because the precise output of the imaginative process is unknown. Imagine if we made movies with flip-cards, and before the showing we randomly shuffled the cards. The movie that the director put together might have been art, but it surely isn't now. And finally, the reason that any individual game being played CAN be art is just as self evident, the person playing might be a genius, or expertly skilled, or both. The key is that we can't know when the game is in the box, we have to see it played out before us before we can decide.

The shuffled flip-cards work as a great analogy here. Each person plays the game differently, just as we all finger-paint with varying degrees of imagination and talent, and just as each shuffled deck would display some random staccato of movement. Calling a boxed game "Art" would be to say that the shuffled-card-movie is art before we watch it, no matter how skilled and beautiful each card looks when analyzed on their own. The art can only be taken as a whole when an imaginative and talented user carefully arranges the cards to fulfill their particular whim.

[dop]

Cant really agree with that reasoning... There are tons of interactive displays and "instalations" being presented in important art galeries all around the world, im sure many displays similar to the example of the shuffled cards you give have been presented as art in some of this places.

But regardless, most games would hardly be comparable to this shuffled cards explanation, the mayority of games have a linear narrative that resembles that of a movie, a medium wideley considered capable of being high art... You may apear to have a wide interaction but in reality you are following a very predetermined path wich is chosen by the game designer(s) and you really cant avoid it further than not compleating the level or missionsor insome cases do something to pull out a diferent outcome yet one that was still chosen and designed by an artist, there is a plot and you are forced to follow it in a comprehensive manner as most games wont allow you to jump from point a to point c, you have to go trougth b first.

There is an order in wich the diferent forms of art like music, the various graphics and even camera angles in some cases are presented, all this are concious creative choises made by an artist(s) not unlike a movie director, there may be parts where you could momentary break to an extent from the narrative and dry hump the other characters as you make fart noises like you mention but that level of interactivness shouldnt detract from the designers original expression any less than if you use the rewind and fast forward buton from your dvd back and fort to make actors dance...