Notgames Forum

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Herzog on Herzog, p. 139

Even though I'm not a fan of Herzog's films, I agree with this quote to some extent. Back in the nineties, choosing to create art on the internet was a way of escaping the art world in which we couldn't find our place. These days what passes for "great art" just seem like pathetic clever ironic gestures to me. I much prefer the not-so-great art we find on Deviant art and Flickr. Fine, gallery- and museumbased art seems to have disconnected from society and wallowing in the vacuum it created by promoting the revolution to the new canon, the rebels to the new bourgeois, the avantgarde to the salon.

This doesn't mean I'm not nostalgic for a time of "pistol duels at dawn"...

I guess I disagree because to me, those people on Deviant art and Flickr are the artists.  I guess I'd rather reclaim the word for good use than abandon it.

I suppose some people don't like the idea of notgames for the same reason?  They'd rather just reclaim the word games with experiences that follow the same intentions instead of adopting a new one?

If they are, what do we call Velasquez, Bernini and Van Eyck then?

Unknown people :)

But seriously. "Artist" equals "draughtsman" is what I dislike. "Artist" equals "sophisticated weirdness as a result of thinking and looking too deep in the emptiness for too long" is what I dislike, too. Finally, "artist" equals "man who wants to call himself an artist for whatever reason" is what I dislike as well.

People seem to fight (in more or less polite way) over art and artists all the time and I don't really understand what's their problem. Isn't most important that one man or a group of people is capable of creating something that is moving? That makes us cry, contemplate, meditate about? Something that has what intellectualists call 'deep emotional impact on one'. I know that I might be alone in my belief here but the way I create things and I enjoy the creation to the fullest is the same way I was doing them when I was 14 years old teenager. I look for something beautiful and something touching. Something that, I believe, every man is capable of. Not every man can be equally sensitive and not every man had the opportunity in his life to meet people or their creations that changed him but sensitivity is what I find most important for a man who wants to express something. Or even tell a story. Although story also requires insightfulness, that not ironically has something to do with sensitivity.

Godh, seriously. Talking and reason doesn't bring as closer to joy of creation than emotions and way of feeling things, not describing them.

I like how Mr. Herzog is sentimental here but if I would be a conductor behind the endless symphony known as ManMadeWorld I would abandon "art" long time ago. For it's just a label and blindfolds those who want to see.

That's me ^_^
Chu-chu!

I suggest you visit a museum of contemporary art. I think you will find that your definition of art does not apply to most pieces on display. Which is why we end up discussing what is art and what not. It's a direct result of the avantgarde turning into establishment.

What do you mean by that?

Out of curiosity I have googled contemporary art musueum in UK but all I have found were galleries.

I got to admit that from time to time me and my partner stop by a gallery with contemporary art in Edinburgh looking for something interesting and no matter when or where we go I always have a feeling like I'm experiencing grand emptiness disturbed by particle of chaos. Which is not exactly inspiring :)

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

In the early 20th century, there were many movements that were critical of the established (figurative, classicist) art (Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, Expressionsism, etc). In the beginning, these movements were not accepted as legitimate art but over time they were and by the end of the century the art styles that they were criticizing had all but disappeared. So these once revolutionarty movements now took their place as the new establishment. But since they have nothing to rebel against anymore they often feel empty and devoid of meaning.

Nice summary!

I think another thing happened.  Modernism became the establishment (which is what post-modernism is rebelling against), but then also art galleries themselves started to lose their meaning.  Art started to move out into the rest of the world due to advances in mass communication and mass reproduction.  So they have become more like museums displaying artifacts of the culture of art history instead of spaces devoted to showing something new.  That makes certain modernist meta-statements seem less meaningful because what they're making a statement on - the gallery - has changed.

In this context, my point earlier was that modernism has something to rebel against again - that being the tendency for so many videogames to take on a renaissance-style philosophy to 3d space.  It is several modernist movements' conceptions of space that would be quite meaningful right now when used in a virtual, fictional, interactive medium.  Cactus is doing some good work in this vein - he seems very modernist to me.

Plus, I think too many people simply don't understand certain modernist movements.  Maybe they didn't stick around long enough for people to really get it - or more likely they didn't do a good enough job communicating their philosophies.  So it seems like an opportunity to show people something new in a different sense, too.

Let's just take both the renaissance and constructivism and see if we can make something interesting! :) There's no need to reject anything (except game rules ;) ).

I am happy to hear you say this, it is exactly what I have been thinking. It reminds me of a recent lecture I watched, in which someone from the audience asked if Objectivists 'live on bread alone' (i.e., only on reason, never emoting); the speaker answered rather expressively that emotions are the most important thing but they cannot guide us, only indicate what we want; then he continued to say how important he considered art... paused... then said, with a cynic grin that 'of course we haven't had much art for the last hundred years...'

It is good to hear people take this approach. I am tired of the 'people have differing tastes' approach to art. If one plays fencing, one plays by the rules of fencing. That is how we can ennoble the sport - if everybody has a different taste as to rules we get nowhere. I think that is what the old establishment had - rules which, although perhaps at times ridiculous, were ennobling as a whole.

"Art is dead, long live art!" Or, "out of the ashes of art rose the phoenix."