Notgames Forum

This is a free iPad game I did during last year, in periods. Some extra polish went into it in the fall and now it's out with the exhibition over and all.

The 'press release' text says: "The work I am releasing today is called "Wrong?" and is a critique of married bourgeois life, done in the spirit of the classic game "Pong". With this I have wanted to create a bare-bones, accessible game taking a new but subtle view on the idea of a two-player game. "Wrong?" is free and is part of a series of perspectives I am taking within the medium to explore its possibilities, but also its limitations."

Get it at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wrong/id502309024  (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wrong/id502309024)

Are you in a "married bourgeois life" or did you just pick an easy victim, done to death -and highly underappreciated?

First of all, "Wrong?" was not intended to make any very-pretentious points (as opposed to some of the It's All Fun and Games stuff). I will try to answer what I gather, as I see some unclear points in your 'question' - like what is under-appreciated?

I myself am married, our life being pretty 'normal'. No artistic excesses really for my part, just hard work and dedication. She has a normal job. Do -we- have a bourgeois life? Not really, since we are too poor. We do not make any attempts at owning our home, don't drive a car and I own nothing more than I want to.

As goes for the game, and the representational layer, there is a pretty crude dynamism going on between keeping the marriage together and also doing work at the same time. In capitalist realism, this was about as simple as I could make life arrangements.

The thing, however, that I really am interested here is not the representation, but what goes on between two players. While play-testing and prototyping I saw more role-playing than I expected - in this context, a good thing. Actions did mean something, and a dialogue between players emerged. By also setting up an awkward social position (think Copenhagen Game Collective etc) - by standing/sitting close together with hands held - I want to emphasize the direct contact rather than the virtual event. Because of the title and subtitle, with this I wanted ultimately for players to stay in the game, but not to necessarily 'play' it. So it would only be a game as long as you keep it up (after some capital accumulation you no longer have a reason to actually work other than to satisfy your base instinct to rack up scores). I am trying to put the role of rest and leisure/enjoyment at odds with the grind of permanent debt and expenses.

Obviously there are/or may be criticisms to the system and what it presupposes, but this physical + dialogue thing was what I wanted to make something about, rather than the 'game'.

Maybe a more abstract presentation would serve your goals better then. Now it risks to appear very cliché. I guess a lot of people like clichés, so maybe, commercially, that's good choice. But commercial success should always only be of secondary concern.

Interesting that you refer to Copenhagen Game Collective. I feel the same about their abuse of Bach's music in JS Joust. Don't use existing themes if you're not going to seriously engage with them. Keep things simple and abstract so the audience can enjoy the play mechanisms you've designed without being bothered by any shallow use of themes they might feel strongly about.

Games that are about the effects of their mechanics should be as abstract as possible.

Also, why choose subject matter you disapprove of and then reject it in your work while you could also find subject matter that pleases you to sing the praises of?

I think, in the long run, beauty is the strongest persuader, if not the very essence of life.

I agree with "Games that are about the effects of their mechanics should be as abstract as possible." At the same time, I cannot other than imagine that the effects of representation (perhaps to some extent, procedural narrative) in this case is what makes it possible to situate oneself as a player in the role of an agent, that is, to properly understand the conditions and expectations in the situation, so it needs some rigging. What I am not saying is that "representation" in the broad sense is 'totally' unnecessary, but merely that I hope that any efforts in reading the game, as it were, will not simply be a matter of looking at it and saying "Aha! I have masterfully deconstructed this piece of software-cum-game!".

The subject matter is not being disapproved of, by the way. My hope is that players will find the finer details unlocked by playing/discovering along the way in proper proceduralist fashion. A major one of those is, again, how the system allows to being stopped played with if you wish (only a game if you see it as one, just like real life). Using the metaphor of games, we can create "bad", "oppressive" or otherwise negative systems to engage with. It is my firm belief that only something dysfunctional can carry over a qualitative player-generated critique. I may change this opinion over time, obviously, but that kind of negative reinforcement (I guess?) at least I think is both interesting to work with, for my part, but also one that puts the player in the role to NOT accept circumstances. This is usually lacking in games today. Using a normal "positive framework", where the player does not have reason to challenge the system underlying the game, I believe then is usually one of laid-back curiosity without the edge to cut into what is being served with quite the same effect.

Summary: it is a matter of angle. I am not saying this is a manifesto, but a way of making a (simple) re-orientation of player expectations.

I hope I am being clear with what I mean :)

The problem with interactive work as opposed to conventional contemporary fine art, is that the player needs to be persuaded to actively engage with the system. You can only "subvert their expectations" after you have lured them in. And given the audience for games, I have learned that it's not always easy to predict the expectations of the player. This is another reason why an interactive piece should limit itself to presenting a situation, and leave the interpretation and opinions up to the player. Irony does not work well in interactivity, I find.

But, as an artist, I came to games in search of an alternative to the contemporary fine art salon, whose irony, pseudo-politics, impotent subversion and lack of sincerity (not to mention beauty) I loathe. I'll take the naivite of games over the cynicism of art any day.

I am not sure why the player needs to 'challenge' the underlying system, or 'not accept circumstances'. Especially when the system is symbolic rather than representational.

You may have a different goal, I think, but I have never learned anything from art wilfully trying to 'challenge' me or tries to subvert my expectations. When it comes to contemporary art I have no expectations left to be subverted and experience nothing but nihilism. This is quite personal, but when I can choose between a touching story about a realistic event or someone subverting my opinion about something, I will chose the former. The former has life, beauty and wisdom to offer me because the artist is crafting a world by around me of his own positive creation. The other tries to knock down a house which is not even its own.

It really comes down to my own orientation, but I never can feel any investment in logical systems representing abstract things - let alone if these systems are trying to pull the rug out from under me. I reason that I want to feel what something is like, rather than interpret related symbols into abstract 'universal' meanings. I like how narrative games like film continue a classical tradition (of sorts), like film music is continuing the Wagnerian tradition. Connecting abstract concepts like 'married bourgeois life' to abstract game mechanics seems to me even more lifeless because now you are taking a theme which is not even explored in sincerity in games. It feels like you are subverting something which does not exist within the medium, and then 'question' it without actually exposing yourself. What do you feel our lives should be like? And can you show us interactively? Or will you just question lives as expressed in symbolic mechanics without any human life to it, seeing 'mechanics' as yet another tool to question something you do not artistically contribute to?

I would not describe (as Michaël does) showing a real universe as 'naivete' of games. I would rather say that being constructive (rather than ironic) and expressing a singular view (rather than questioning all views) as the only intellectual way forward in a post-pluralistic era, and games (and a lot of culture outside of the contemporary art circles) are lucky enough to have maintained it, even if it lacks the consistent refinement it once enjoyed. If we live in a world of multiple contradictory opinions, let us at least find reason and beauty in it.

This post is reaction and essay in one - apparently your work evokes this :)

Thanks for all the comments. I am glad there is something arising from my work, and I appreciate the dialogue. Let me also serve a few more personal tidbits along the way.

Regarding "The problem with interactive work as opposed to conventional contemporary fine art, is that the player needs to be persuaded to actively engage with the system." - I think the case is quite the opposite, games are always actively engaged with. The question of communication and living is vital to me, as it seems to be to you both as well. Again, I think much of our differences in view are just that - a question of positioning. The common aspect for my works have been, and likely will continue to be, these matters of communication or rather how they clash with expectations. These expectations then are quite possible often vague at best as Michäel has pointed out, but simply ignoring the designed (intended) experience seems a bit rash to me. Also, as Ghostwheel recently stated, the term 'subversion' is one that makes him (and me, and you guys probably) nauseous. While I try to create awareness around the construction/scaffolding of events, subversion may be a stronger word than I'd like to use, especially in Wrong?.

@ "...an interactive piece should limit itself to presenting a situation, and leave the interpretation and opinions up to the player". There seems to be a certain degree of undistanced trust you place in the medium, something I feel is at the moment not to be placed so firmly just yet. Why do I think so? Because a game/digital work of the kinds we do here are always created (hence, manipulated) experiences. They are less "possibility" than they are hard-edged "restrictions". In my case I just embrace these restrictions. I don't think my approach is directly cynical, sarcastic or otherwise misleading, but I don't disagree it may feel that way for players/interactors. Look at Molleindustria who use similar tactics, but coat it with a veneer of agitprop and (unintentional?) humor. The pedagogy of pure propaganda is also something I try to distance myself from. In this project I have not been interested in "saying something", being hand-pointing or a manipulative bastard. But I do like putting people in a situation of uncertainty.

"This is quite personal, but when I can choose between a touching story about a realistic event or someone subverting my opinion about something, I will chose the former." Again, let's not make manifestos of opinion, but understand that I deeply respect your way of entering and looking at games and art.  I am (personally) not inclined to the romanticist ideals being heavily supported here, as I don't believe in universality (even if Jeroen put the abstract-universal idea to the test with me) and the concept of ancient beauty. Of course I also share some interests in "beauty"-to-some-degree and a hunt for sublime experiences. Similarly as you, I create those things that are closest to heart. What is closest though is something very different: I feel an urge to deal with (cognitively and psychologically, to become sane) with the tragedies and miscommunications of current world affairs and lived life. Some of these things are mere curiosities, but towards some I feel utter, vehement hate. Thus the main concern turns yet again to this constant groundlessness (pulling the rug out, as Jeroen wrote). To act against this, one must necessarily mean to emulate the circumstances that makes one blind to its consequences and initiations into it. A problem of representational, utopian art is that there is a strain of escapism involved. Escapism as a means of pure escape I see as flight or retreat, a sign of cowardice, an unwillingness to face the beast that is 'non-art'. That is not to say that things of beauty and utopian passion mustn't exist. But I am not in the business of making those things as it stands right now. Again, this is only a matter of artistic inclination/perspective - no need to erase validity of one another. Let's see where the road leads, so to speak.

Jeroen wrote "Connecting abstract concepts like 'married bourgeois life' to abstract game mechanics seems to me even more lifeless because now you are taking a theme which is not even explored in sincerity in games." And this is my point, also above. See it as a critique from my side not towards the efforts in this forum, but towards the fallacies of the medium AS IT STANDS CURRENTLY (sorry for all caps - only emphasis). That's why I am not trusting pure mechanics to carry all of the weight: I desire framing, some degree of narrative, the physical reality and so on. These have all been incorporated in my work. Mechanics are important - but not everything, would be a way of looking at it. Indeed a fairly non-revolutionary idea.

I hope I have provided feedback to most of the exciting comments!

Hahaha!  :D

Not when one doesn't play them. Or stops playing very quickly.

Yes! I agree that being critical and conscious is important. But without trust, life is not worth living. We need to trust something. If only for form. I'd rather trust and be betrayed than be suspicious of everything, always.

I once gave a con artist money when he asked for it after a rather unlikely story about some misfortune knowing full well that he would most likely not come back and repay me, because of this very reason. It is more important to trust than to live in a world where trust does not exist. By trusting, even a liar, I am bringing trust into this world. And so the world becomes more beautiful.

Also, there really is no end to the spiral of distrust. Why stop at distrusting the medium? Why not distrust your own distrust of the medium? Maybe you are being manipulated! Maybe the idea that you are being manipulated is put into your head by some other external voice! Etcetera. For practical reasons alone, a measure of trust can be very productive.

More importantly, for me, such art, also, pushes our noses against the things that form the very essence of life itself. Is it escapist to love one's child more than to hate one's government? Is it escapist to believe in a better life while oppressed in slavery? Is it escapist to learn about noble ideas when the world is filled with distrust and hate? If so, by all means, take me there!

Touché! You are quite right, Mr. Samyn.

Let us consider what it is I am trying to say again - aside from a highly opinionated view on my own craft - from another angle: if art is the efforts of its creator to express/create/imitate/represent/etc through inquiry, form or concept, then it is no mere coincidence that what I have done is bring a personal 'language' of these artistic matters into play here. I've seen it crucial to bring the problems of our medium into the light, where you are more "illusionistic" in a manner, willing to create something (let us call it) 'new' that is yet pure into the medium. Aside from questions that may arise about that possibility - I am myself not sure what to make of it - it is something that I find a tactic, an artistic rhetoric that I haven't deployed. Is that not what it is? While I find this conversation interesting, it seems to me that what we are doing is defending positions. Do we have to?

Shit, don't take that ending as meaning something silly and banal like "let's all be friends!". But let's be! ^^

I think I (and Jeroen, and Shane, I'm sure) have become thoroughly impatient with the stranglehold that modernism still has on (fine) art. It has refused to learn from the postmodern criticism but it also refuses to die and make room for a new approach. As such, it is very much collaborating with the (bourgeois?) powers of capitalism and neoliberalism, which, as you know, are killing our culture and even our habitat. That is, in as far as what happens in museums and galleries and festivals for contemporary fine art, still has any impact whatsoever on contemporary culture. It's probably more the refusal to create art that matters that causes the harm than the creation of art that doesn't.

I think we recognize in your approach the methods of modernist/contemporary art. But we should not take our annoyance with this state of affairs out on you. And I don't think we are. In fact, I think I'm trying to brainwash you and convert you to my religion. ;)

^^

For all that it's worth, speaking of love, I really enjoy this forum and these discussions, rants, "reaction(s) and essay(s)", arguments.

I hope you will be pleased to hear that an upcoming series of works will relate closer to situations and spatiality in less 'modernist', anti-fashion.

For me, Modernism should have ended with Dada. They said all there was to say. I actually like Dada and can appreciate the motivation and humor. They are also an important influence on graphic design to this day. The Fountain was a joke. Modernist took it seriously. They put shit and piss in everything. Let's put shit in paint, in jars, varnish it and put it on a display stand. It's like 5 year olds took over the art world, except with a patina of academic self-importance. Modernism is scatological AND pretentious, a horrible combination. It's become a meme that hasn't figured out it's old and boring and no longer amusing.

I'm not saying this is what you do, I'm simply explaining where I'm coming from. I don't dislike YOU. In fact the more I find out about you, the more I actually like you. And I do appreciate what you are trying to say and what you have achieved technically. You're a very intelligent person. I do question your education and the institutions that provided it.

But there's hope. Like Michael said, maybe we can brainwash you. ;)

The modernist avant-garde is very welcome when it is in opposition to something, when it remains the underdog, the rebel. But now, the so-called avant-garde has been institutionalized, it itself has become the canon, the system.

I agree with Michael, literally, in the sense that until Michael pointed out that the 'rebellious avant garde' is the system it says it attacks, I had never actually noticed.

But something I would like to pick up on is the word 'escapism'. I keep thinking of the question what would happen if any of the ideologies or countries wins: when we have that 'final situation' and 'end of history'; when then? Will we not then sit around enjoying beauty and art? Are we not fighting wars to ensure we can sit in a park and enjoy some fresh air on a spring day?

In this sense, utopian art is not even my goal. I strongly feel there are many emotions, ideas and sensations which are pleasurable to us, which we never naturally encounter except through art - in the same sense that Bach is not found naturally. I do not therefore feel that Bach is utopia or escapism: if anything, for the sake of pleasure it should be our ultimately goal to see all our sensations as not inherently 'natural' and find ourselves able to finetune them. Anybody placing flowers in their house is practicing aesthetics. What scares me about modernism in art is that it purely attacks - it seems to me that once it sheds its poison it will find no other purpose in life.

I do not feel that utopic art is my strain, nor do I favour a return to the classic era. The former presents a singular view of the future and the later tries to find beauty and order by natural laws; neither takes into account the social context and malleability of human life. Their goals are right, but their methods are wrong. I want to see art which can cope with multiple contrasting worldviews, and which can speak to me on an aesthetic level about refinement and pleasure. That is not utopic or escapism, that is the very purpose of my life. I do not seek to escape the dread of the world, I seek to supplant it. When I sing, that is not an escape from life, it is finding a higher form of life.

Modernism's paradox, I presume from this, is criticising the world for being wrong, and art for being right.

What Jeroen said. I'm not interested in returning to the "good ol' days", whatever they are, or have some utopian vision of art. However, it's like Modernists said, "there are ugly things in this world, let's rub everyone's nose in it. Let's make everything ugly and dirty." And they never stopped. They've been smearing dirt all over art for the last 80 years. To accomplish what? There's nothing left to be shocked about, short of murdering people as art. Is that the next step? David Bowie thought so. Maybe I'm being hyperbolic (maybe) but I could make a VERY long list of modern contemporary art's excesses.

Also, I see nothing wrong with escapism. Escapism can be a useful filter for dealing with the problems of real life. It can also be fun. :)

Time to reply. Hope I remember my stuff after the ride home.

As we our now cleared-out of any personal matters, and now only seem to discuss in the abstract (all fine with me), let's get on with matters. I will address one personal item though.

Jeroen wrote: "I keep thinking of the question what would happen if any of the ideologies or countries wins: when we have that 'final situation' and 'end of history'; when then? Will we not then sit around enjoying beauty and art? Are we not fighting wars to ensure we can sit in a park and enjoy some fresh air on a spring day?" I am not sure if you are ironic. Personally, however, I am quite content with living with the notion that permanent crisis is our condition today. The 'end of history' is liberal bullshit and was only spoken as an incantation of this permanent failure we are witnessing.

Continuing, Mr. Stout writes that he "strongly feel(s) there are many emotions, ideas and sensations which are pleasurable to us, which we never naturally encounter except through art - in the same sense that Bach is not found naturally. I do not therefore feel that Bach is utopia or escapism: if anything, for the sake of pleasure it should be our ultimately goal to see all our sensations as not inherently 'natural' and find ourselves able to finetune them." This lead me to something I will likely write on more extensively in the coming month - in a straight match-up between Dear Esther and Battlefield 3, which do I find contains the most beauty? Undoubtedly, without any question what-so-ever I would argue BF3 is the more beautiful of them. Skipping the banal technical quality differences, as I hope you understand I am not using as the pure basis for my opinion, I want to point to a historical parallel for the war as art, Marinetti:

"War is beautiful because it establishes man’s dominion over the subjugated machinery by means of gas masks, terrifying megaphones, flame throwers, and tanks.
War is beautiful because it initiates the dreamt-of metallization of the human body.
War is beautiful because it enriches a flowering meadow with the fiery orchids of machine guns.
War is beautiful because it combines the gunfire, the cannonades, the cease-fire, the scents, and the stench of putrefaction into a symphony.
War is beautiful because it creates new architecture, like that of the big tanks, the geometrical formation flights, the smoke spirals from burning villages, the heaps of human bodies and many others."

I am not a fascist or Futurist. But BF3's excellence in the early-modernist geometry-architecture with the Deleuzian post-modernist rearrangement of space and performative choreographed movements of soldiers and heavy machinery is masterful, where DE is simply 4 moving paintings, sublime and evocative but never more than knee-deep. It is what I see - no more. BF3 manages to be both visually compelling, with debris and ash, blood and gas manipulating one's view, not being in an objective state of viewing, yet still it has the sense of liveness and time taking its toll on the landscape, a factor highly cherished on this forum. It is art in every sense, and still can be touched and reshaped, unlike DE which never allows you inside other than as an eye. Let me say that the game aspect here is totally irrelevant for both works. As regards the topic/theme/idea of art as being about refinement, beauty and emotion, BF3 awakes more and stronger feelings in me than almost any other interactive work. Let's skip the adrenaline part. What I mean is the fear, awe, scale, camaraderie and so forth.
I never underwent military training: Would it come to war, I would not be more than a mere civilian. It would all be something different also, because of its utter reality as opposed to the hermetics of the game-world. But in this state, the digital war is both beautiful (as form, movement, aesthetics) and compelling to interact with. When I start up BF3 it is not nearly as much to "play it" as it is to be in that temporary, temporal cacophony.

Finally, on this point: Don't misunderstand me - I think DE is essential (not)gaming, a masterpiece in its own right.

Further, Jeroen writes: "I want to see art which can cope with multiple contrasting worldviews, and which can speak to me on an aesthetic level about refinement and pleasure." I agree to the first part, and I yet contend that I am doing such things in my own work, but I really, really, really am not buying into the refinement and pleasure thing. See the Battlefield 3 point. I derive sensory pleasure when I play that. Sensory pleasure can also, of course, be the cognitive rewards in understanding complex systems/art. It has nothing at all to do with refinement. Now that I think of it, it actually may! How bizarre. But that refinement is then a question of 'openness' or understanding, having the preconditions to interface with a given work. Digital, interactive art does not relegate itself to only the visual. I would argue that DE is an almost un-aural work (compare to BF3 above).

Ghostwheel: "However, it's like Modernists said, 'there are ugly things in this world, let's rub everyone's nose in it. Let's make everything ugly and dirty.' And they never stopped." This is obviously extremely wide and general as a claim (I am not shooting it down, however). In our scope of things I hope to gain some agreement in that this discussion should not be relegated to simply modernism-vs-something-other. I don't see any happy end nor likely solution to that. Also I am not necessarily defending such a position myself.

"Escapism can be a useful filter for dealing with the problems of real life. It can also be fun." Indeed. But as others have said in other contexts, sometimes I don't have an issue dealing with my problems. As I wrote a few paragraphs earlier, conflict and problems are actually missing from so many lives (in an increasingly de-physicalized world) that these are 'exotic'. Ergo, it is not more strange to recreate problems (as exotic) as art than it is creating their solution(s) in the absence of an answer.

What I am then curious about is how you (all of you) would go on about dealing with serious (possibly real-world) matters in the games medium. Must we ignore them totally? Also, I am not familiar with how many of you are speaking of my work without having played any of it, so that would be an interesting entry point, but then perhaps in a dedicated thread.

I hope it all makes sense, anyway.

Art doesn't have to "deal" with problems. That is not the role of art, that is the role of politics. Art that deals with politics is no longer art, it is propaganda. Propaganda has it's uses but it is NOT art. There is historical precedent for "political art", plenty of it. I don't consider this art. Great art transcends it's time. Politics have a short shelf life. I won't argue this point. Sorry. I agree with Tolkien, applicability is more important than allegory, or in this case, advocacy. Or even political commentary.

Now, I do believe that the beautiful must have a certain element of the grotesque. I can understand your appreciation of BF3, I really can. But your appreciation is edging into our domain (muhahah!) because it requires immersion. You have to be pulled into that world. Art requires emotion, why fight it? If you want logic and reason, you should have gone into the sciences. You can try to dress it up with some academic justification (that's not necessary, really, it's not) but admit it, it has a grotesque, primal appeal. The fire, death and destruction is just the flip side of the saccarine beauty and colourful "kitch" of someone like Thomas Kinkade.

And I have played Don't Get Raped. I'm going to play "Equalizer I" next.

I haven't played your game, so I couldn't make a comment on it. I originally just came here to congratulate you on releasing something. Congratulations :)

Seems to have turned into an interesting conversation. I particularly found Jereon's quote striking and beautiful:

To some degree, this is my goal. Neo-neo-romanticism?


I thought it was fascinating that you used this wording. In my country, the opposite can be true, though mostly that kind of talk is tangential to any liberal/conservative political lines.

Also, I must say that I completely disagree with your talk about war. I think that war is honest, but ultimately false. The interest in exploring the subject matter is, to me, because of its honesty and not because of its truth. Question for you: Have you ever experienced war? Maybe not directly, but experienced its effects on people who have directly experienced it?

It seems to me that the only people who could have such views on war would be those who hold it at arm's length, or who consider it in some abstract, detached way. The only way for me to understand what you are saying is to think you are saying that the systems of war are beautiful.

I had no idea at first what ghostwheel was saying about the next step in contemporary art being that of murder. But now I understand completely. Following the line of reasoning put forth in this thread, I would conclude that modernism increasingly systematizes life until it confuses honesty with truth.

If there is a line being drawn here between some kind of modernism (I don't believe bob is fully on that side) and a neo-neo-romanticism, I now know with certainty which side I would take. Quite a productive conversation in the end...

(Bob I don't mean to discourage you from continuing to make more things. Please do!)

Ghostwheel: What if I don't care about, as has been argued by nihilists, anyone beyond my own life span? Why should/would I care about shelf life? I don't necessarily share these opinions but just being hard-line here. Further, how can we involve anything that is not just Rothkoesque (color fields) or Mondrianesque (lines and blocks of color)? What is representation good for? Anything at all? Of course this is rash. We use representation a lot. All representation is culturally tied. There is nothing that unites people and eras in this regard. Listen to biologists of recent, and other for example non-antropocentric research is also interesting in mapping ideas of culture and its spread. I have no idea what Egyptian heiroglyphs mean. Of course I may admire their visual quality, but it says nothing. Same goes for the wonderfully detailed painting of the 18th century. Yet I am not touched by it. Its hidden codes remain elusive - I care not. These codes and keys are what push people away from the equally obscure practices of today, but they are really the same thing.
Speaking of politics I am not interested in doing agit-prop as you know. So let's not make it sound like that. But if we are to do anything else than fantasy landscapes or illusionistic fantasy, we will always turn to the everyday, the real, lived life. That is never uncolored. I think there are good reasons why these lines of thinking have made people non-existant in notgames up to now (except Dinner Date). My fear is that the entire Notgames initiative gets more colored by artistic values than by making a broader platform. I don't feel personally attacked, but just saying if this is to ever become a truly grand operation.

God at Play: Thanks for dropping in, it has been a splendid time here, far beyond any simple concern about a petty game. Welcome in! The thing with abstraction is that it is a key evolutionary element of the human being. Saying that war is beautiful is not to say that I enjoy seeing people die, merely the ways in which it unravels. Systems as you say. That is part of the cognitive, pre-art making process I am keen on. Take Sol DeWitt's cubes: beautiful structures, shaping light and shadow. Adorable, and also the products of a chart, map, idea system. The same happens in artistic scientific visualization - a degree of abstraction forms a plan that is then executed. The result is equal parts visual and symbolic.
Regarding the "liberal" thing, liberal in Sweden means liberal right-wing, the furthest right we have besides the Nazis in suits, the Sweden Democrats. From over here, I can certainly say that the American two parties look a great deal like a mix of the worst we have here (not an attack) - yet I am displeased with things.

You don't have to care about anyone beyond your own lifespan. I wasn't suggesting that should even be your or anyone else's goal. However, 18th century painting is far more accessible than modernist art. I have virtually no respect for modernism and pluralist arguments for it don't move me. 99.99% of it should be dumped in the dustbin as far as I'm concerned. It's time for it to go. I'm not the first one to say this. Robert Williams has been saying it for decades. The art establishment shut out "kitch", "lowbrow", illustrators, underground art, comics, tattooist and all the others doing meaningful art. That is where real world art has and continues to thrive. That is where art that has relevance in the wider culture exists. Modernists can sit and spin.

Notgames uncoloured by artistic values is worthless. And I wouldn't be here.

Accessible. Now that is a good word. Too late to write anything more, but that will stick with me until next time.

Zak Smith says it better than I ever could: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150227315134696

Man, this subject gets me riled up. I need a cookie.

Sorry, I'm done with this conversation. I've got nothing left to say on the matter.

(@KnifeFightBob)

I certainly am not ironic - that a view of life's ultimately purpose as being pleasant is prone to be seen 'ironic' is almost my entire problem with the state of art.

We do not agree on BF3. I see your point about BF3 and I do get incredibly emotional seeing anything related to war. I might say that I experience a grief which I never quite can place; yes, and fear, awe, scale, camaraderie, and so forth. And there certainly can be a beauty in the depiction of war.

You take the elements of war, and you 'enrich the flowering meadow with the fiery orchids of machine guns', and you take that to mean the machine guns are, I suppose, powerful? More important? They are, yes, but they only are because they are so gruesome. It is powerful in the sense that a knife cutting me is more powerful than a hand caressing me. Perhaps our views differ because I have the distinct impression that my life would be better if we all focussed on the hand rather than the knife, and because you seem to find the gore awesome... for what purpose? Does it make you feel alive? Does it make you feel like you are seeing something true?

I get a similar experience of 'truth' when attuning myself to a horse; and I have a great moment of realization when I 'get' how the horse thinks. Understanding an animal in such a nature can work into my wider aesthetic enjoyment of sympathy and empathy, making it part of life to me.

To me pain, or grief or sadness is something I have to cope with. I do not relish in it. I do not see the death of a relative as something super-real, or some proof of the true nature of the world. The entire moment you describe in BF3 is, for me, eclipsed by the experience of seeing a young child discover the world and asking his parents questions - not because a machine gun to me is less 'real' than a child, but rather because I do not want my thoughts to hinge on what is materially more powerful; my whole idea of refinement is that I do not interpret the world in that vein. In a way, for me, refinement is about being able to concentrate on one sound over another for one's betterment.

In that sense I find in Dear Esther a kinder master than BF3. With BF3 mere imagery turns me off - because it is powerful, and it is, to my feelings, a powerful artistic weapon wielded by a group of barbarians. Dear Esther can reach emotions beneath fear, awe, scale and camaraderie. I can relate to Dear Esther in daily life through my own walking holidays and my own fear of obsession over things I am ultimately powerless over. Exactly because we can hear the flowers rather than the machine guns the flowers can reach us. When I am at ease, in pleasant company or in fine spirits, it is always easier for me to have grand experiences of beauty.

Perhaps this means I smother the 'true sounds' of death so I can remember flowers more fondly - so I smother the sound of traffic to listen to Bach. And when thus finely tuned, I can hear many things in Dear Esther which make it more relevant to me than BF3.

I am not sure how I am incapable of addressing serious issues. I am currently making a game about love and daring to be open about one's enjoyment of beauty. I would say that this is, within one aspect of human life, quite as serious as it can get.

First of all, I highly respect Dinner Date and your writings. You may remember that I e-mailed you in the early summer to thank you for it. The following is thus reflections on opinion, because there is very little objective report here.

Mr Stout, my concern is - at the very edge of the themes covered here - that notgames has become an indicator of opinion rather than a stance for a greater number of artists and developers. I grieve this fact. What you are serving is just that, a stance and opinion of your artistic expression. That is all fine. Also, yet another time, I think it is counter-productive to myself, but necessary, to again state that I am not interested in standing by either barbarian/crude or intellectualist positions myself. What I said in the referred post is that I can enjoy, revel in, and want to make things (art?) that moves between any individual such position. Battlefield is certainly one example that stands out as being far detached from what I've released myself. Yet, they exist as things I enjoy. Yesterday, at a death metal concert I had almost something of a classical sublime moment where that very physical reality of sound (as pressing against you) indeed became a manifestation of a corporeal, sensory reality far from a merely intellectual, thinking standpoint. That my work concerns the human being, in its communication with others and the systems in which we are contained, has this far been (at least for you on the forum) a very "detached" experience, very unlike that physical presence installations have taken. It has been much too easy to attack me, or my standpoints, as something different than what they have been.

I do not revel in gore, misery or irony. But like with the concert (and BF3, just as examples), those very tangible moments of overwhelming input become a space to transcend the most obvious qualities to which you refer. Those are essentially unimportant and mere fluff. You are looking at the wrong thing and letting the expression pass you by. The beauty, if I may say so, arises as the consequence and not the initial impression. This is the case from death metal (the rhythmic "dancing") and lack of distinct melody, and BF3 with its permanent impermanence of life and terrain. These are extreme things, I admit. They are not for everyone. However, I would say that true connoisseurship in these matters is to understand their life-affirming existentialism by way of total havoc. For a few brief minutes it all coalesces. The extreme is not a condition, but a temporary state. That flower is always there. But to see life is to face death. I find this remembrance of one's place on earth satisfyingly positivist.

Thus, truth is for me - as a somewhat relativist person - those moments when we are 'now', present as in meditation, in trance as with noise or ambient music, totally engulfed in erotics as in good sex, tasting the earth as with good wine or drinks. I don't see that as immediately oppositional to your flower metaphor/example. Instead I would propose that you have limited yourself to the representational, fooled by the sometimes dark and furthermost reaches of the human to truly explore and understand them. Those edges are what I look for. Otherwise there would have been no controversy on this forum, clearly.

As a last-minute EDIT: The betterment thing is extremely problematic, I presume you already know. However, I hope it is clear above that I mean there IS a hint of this more 'elevated', cultured approach to extreme matters. It is just not a property deducible to all. Finally, because my works are not at all extreme to the lengths of any of the above mentioned things I don't want to impart any such ideas on them specifically. You must understand, Jeroen, that we are not all doing neo-romanticism here. This goes to all of you. I still like your work, but I am not going to repeat your matters of concern any more than you will mine.

I certainly am arguing here from my own point of view, and mostly for the sake of argument, rather than representing any group :)

I see your point, and I think we simply have opposite delectations; total havoc gives me no life-affirming existentialism, havoc gives me absolute nihilism. For me to take BF3 serious would probably mean enticing myself to depression as I would be part of a world and an experience that has no meaning to me.

And equally, I do not feel the flower is always there; all flowers die. To me feeling alive is enjoying the flower while it is there, or revelling in realizing some mathematical equation, or to see a returning smile from a stranger; a moment that life may be appreciated, understood or shared, it may be thrilling and yet tranquil.

This is truly into 'how I experience it' territory - but meditation, trance, 'engulfment' in sex bore me to no end. Instead, I seek control over my voice in singing (which may in experience come close to trance), see sex as an artistic medium in itself (much like cooking) that, if anything, channels my thoughts. In reaching a gallop with a horse it is thrilling to exert control over oneself, one's fear of the speed, and yet also directly finding a way to comprehend, compliment and release the horse. The enjoyment of me comes from such understanding and mastery in myself or another, rather than being overcome.

But I think now that we simply have differing reactions. BF3 does not engage me because to me, there is no transcendental nature and I find my brain running out of fuel before succumbing to lethargy. And conversely, I do remember one scene in Swan Lake which comes close to transcending life; as-if for one moment I had in my mind perfect movement, the combination of control and elegance, like for one moment my whole understanding of the moment came together.

In that sense, I would not say I am fooled by the representational - far from it. Despite many dissuasions I have learned to enjoy the representational and see it as the goal of my life to enjoy. We use different lines of thinking to add to our lives. I do not think that on an aesthetic level seeing a depiction of a horse as I understand a horse is any less important than a depiction of war which overwhelms me. That I prefer things to 'come together in clarity' is clearly my preference; and personally, perhaps, I simply do not see 'edges' where you see them.

Beauty, the representational, the expression and the enjoyment of it is not fluff. Your attitude KnifeFightBob, is more of the same crap we've had to put up with throughout the 20th century. It's not truth, it's just a bad attitude.

Thanks for your clarification Bob, I do think it is very important to have a variety of perspectives here.

Other points of view are important. We don't want this to be an echo chamber. But I'm still going to argue about it. ;)

Agreed! Debate encourages progress.

KnifeFightBob, you know, all Metal music has always had a pretty damn big romantic streak. From the imagery to the lyrics. Sure, it tends to focus on the dark side of things but that affinity for the sublime is very strong and persistent.

Your argument that the consequence is more important reminds me of the process vs finished work argument. What is more important, the process of creation or the creation itself? Actually, you're going a step further; it almost sounds like you're saying the intentions of the artist are irrelevant to the audience. In your example, you didn't care about what the band was saying or trying to accomplish artistically, you were purely about your own personal experience. I've been making this argument here in an old thread. That the intentions of the artist are, ultimately, irrelevant.

Your mistake is that you're saying your experience is the only one that has any merit. That somehow, all other experiences are more shallow than your view of art. Everything else is "kitsch" and fake (fucking Greenberg). You can't make a pluralist argument then contradict it. That is exactly the mistake all contemporary art has made. You're chasing your own tail.

It's been a few days since I posted. I will briefly touch on some things that have come up.

@Ghostwheel: When I said "fluff" in that context, I didn't mean what you are implying I meant. I rather meant that the things, reduced to themselves, was not what the experience of BF3 was about for me. Looking at the particulars becomes uninteresting when the total sum is what I am after. That does not deny merit to individual elements, however.

Re: metal, you are quite correct Ghostwheel. Then there is of course metal and metal, where the things I am most interested in personally are lesser bedfellows with Romanticism than most things. Still your point is generally very, very valid. There is a classical conception of musical performance and setup involved as well, so much of what we think of metal is really just a smaller version of the classic orchestra. Bands like Angelic Process or even Atari Teenage Riot however contradict to small or large extent much of that.

In any complex discussion there are going to be moments where contradictions occur. 'The process of creation' is not without merit, but I think it is up to each work on its own to involve or not involve the legacy and story of it within its presentation. Often it bears no visible marks of that. The thing with game design is that "ideology" or at the very least, possibility spaces, are all that design does. It is structural work. Intentions are encoded in the design and (by other called 'gameplay') layer. In that regard I do NOT HAVE TO be intending anything (ergo, agitprop or idiot propaganda) because my intentions have already formed what you are playing, interacting with. That end has nothing to do with classical aesthetics. My problem here has probably been in the fact that I place much greater value in the design stages than in any other, so it seems we are at odds, although that is a difference only in what we are interested in dealing with. Notgames should not only vary, opposed to mainstream games, their look, but also the underlying presumptions. This is the only thing I think the initiative should concern itself with.

EDIT: I certainly do not wish to think that I am not a pluralist. Without breaking into a long-winded thing, it may help to understand in what context I do believe there to be a need for "deep" or "shallow" as terms when considering art appreciation. Remember that I have not used them, at least not extensively or that I remember at all actually, through the course of this thread. By a "shallow" appreciation I believe novice, new, or to some extent uninterested people can subscribe. This would involve acts of appreciation (looking, hearing, playing...) that involve immediate properties. This is not to say it has a qualitative difference. The work is just not "hiding" meaning or anything else. A broad range of people get into it this way, most probably.
A "deep" understanding understands 'short-cuts', the history of the artist/work/medium to a fuller extent than the novice, and a "deep" appreciator can find meaning or beauty or worth in details that are lost to one without the prerequisite understanding. By making dogma of certain art forms, expressions and laying value in socially conditioned categories we are back in Nazi Germany. No one wants that. What modern art has done has been building an increasingly intertwined network of connections, far too vast to be graspable for most, and likely any not directly involved in that scene. It is a form of "nerdship" (a fundamentally positive work in my vocabulary) that has, as a negative consequence, forced out a great many appreciators. In this I think that Ghostwheel is very much right. But I do not accept that art should only deal with a defined range of emotions, take a certain dogmatic stance against the positive effects of recent and modern culture and art, and it should not deny the possibility for this "deeper" appreciation. Essentially a deep understanding is formed around those things we cherish the most: in my life things like fine whisky and beer, art and other cultural artifacts and sexual encounters. All of these have evolved with me over a decade now. None of them came in a package deal. By only taking these things for face-value I believe we cannot truly merge with them or make them 'important' in our lives if they are placed in a system that is generic. Thus art must allow itself to be complex. The thing is just to remember that its condition ought to be equally susceptible to the open, the closed, the immediate and the metaphorical.

"Angelic Process"! You get happy drone metal fan points. :D

@KnifeFightBob

I agree with what you write in your last paragraph. Obviously I do not agree with your tastes or perhaps even the way you look at the world, but I am happy you are open about art as such - I want to be too. I hope you did not mistake my argumentation for 'we do not serve your kind here'. But obviously I argue for my taste; my taste would render me a solipsist if I did not engage others.

In fact, I think for culture to get any solidity it needs to have some form of dogma - though all in "this manner of looking". Only a chaos-appreciating culture would benefit from nobody being allowed to hold any claim to a truth larger than themselves ;) I am happy to always serve the guests at the table from the right if that pleases decorum.

My problem with contemporary art, to just underline, is that I do not commonly like it, that there is a lot of it, and that culturally it has laid mines for other forms of art. However: The moment neo-classical art rivals its popularity I will happily co-exist in the same sense that I am somewhat able to co-exist with people who think t-shirts are decent enough to walk the streets with.

I am merely disliking something out of lack of cultural power, in that sense. :) I have no problem with you personally, even if I will be tempted to bicker with you until the forum runs out of disk space.

(To illustrate this: I still think flowers are more potent than machine guns to an attuned mind :P)

I enjoy your different takes on flowers, Stout and KnifeFight. For me, both are valid, at different points in time, in relation to different experiences/discourses. I can submerge myself in the reality of both emotions (flower as always dying, appreciation, and beauty as always there, thus to be appreciated must be circumcised, stripped away).

I think concerning the matter of Fukuyamas end of history and whatnot, postanarchism is important for my understanding:

"The prefix "post-" does not mean 'after anarchism', but refers to the challenging and disruption of typically accepted assumptions within frameworks that emerged during the Enlightenment era. This means a basic rejection of the epistemological foundations of classical anarchist theories, due to their tendency towards essentialist or reductionist notions – although post-anarchists are generally quick to point out the many outstanding exceptions, such as those noted above. Such an approach is considered to be important insofar as it widens the conception of what it means to have or to be produced rather than only repressed by power, thus encouraging those who act against power in the form of domination to become aware of how their resistance often becomes overdetermined by power-effects as well. It argues against earlier approaches that capitalism and the state are not the only sources of domination in the moment in which we live, and that new approaches need to be developed to combat the network-centric structures of domination that characterize late modernity."

Or as Ian Bogost has said concerning Persuasive Games: "Games like these undermine the very idea of "social change," if change implies solution and resolution. Instead of social change, we may end up with something more like "social churn"—situations in which people and things constantly negotiate with one another in order to struggle toward a tentative conclusion, one that will always be swooped up again into another foam of swirling sea."