How you frame things matters
“Ok, one wild take deserves another right? So to try and get to the heart of my point most art work i would argue is I'll suited for galleries. Like, what is the purpose of a gallery, it's to display art but the framed pictures on white walls, as mentioned earlier, is bottom of the barrel of what a gallery is or could be. The white space is meant to separate the art to be viewed by its own merit. A truly great gallery exhibition takes into account the other art the art is displayed with, the themes of the exhibit, and the space used. There is a very famous art work that is just candy piled in a corner and people are allowed to take a piece. Its commentary on the aids crisis and the death of a loved one. It would not work outside of a gallery, it would lose meaning. There is another work, kids died in a building collapse, an artist took the rebar(sp) and straightened them, put them in a gallery and an audio recording of the names being read out played. This piece also wouldn't work outside of a building or without all the pieces displayed with it. The greatest example of a gallery is meow wolf.
You can argue that it's just one gigantic art piece but I really don't think that works because it is set up like an exhibit. Each area has its own themes and displays and purposes, they are just so well curated they make an interconnected whole. On to the next concept, number of people involved. There can be innumerable people that work on a piece of art but once you start taking individual pieces and considering how to display them together that is gallery thinking that I believe video games are subjected too. Im not saying it's a 100% proof of concept, after all lits of people work on movies too but the gallery frame work doesn't work much at all there but I do think it's something to hold consideration for. [Though I think even movies have parts of them that can be removed from them and still stand alone as art work, Star Wars painted backgrounds for example] The thing I think makes video games much closer to gallery exhibits than just an art piece is how the viewer needs to be guided by a physical, albeit virtual space. Its the thinking of how the pieces are created and displayed for the viewer that befits this lens. I think a fantastic example of this is the first resident evil. Yes, the artists and programmers were thinking about hardware limitations for their choices but it comes down to how they wanted a player to move through the space. The fixed camera angles are thinking like a curator. Sorry, none of this has to do with AI but I do think it could be.” -Excerpt from a conversation
This conversation I had stayed in my mind enough I wanted to share. I’ve gotten push back a lot from questioning the view of video games as art, as if that is insulting. Maybe it is but to not question it’s is or isn’t ness of art means maybe you didn’t consider the question enough to give respect either. The same way people hate group projects in school and therefor miss the point/opportunity of the situation.
Framing matters
I’m sure in a few days I’ll have thoughts on marketing and algorithms in relation to this concept but for now I’ll leave it here.
