Wrong? A Project About Doing Things 'Right'

[KnifeFightBob]

^^

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.

[ghostwheel]

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.

[Michaël Samyn]

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.

[Jeroen D. Stout]

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.

[ghostwheel]

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.

[KnifeFightBob]

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.

[ghostwheel]

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.

[God at play]

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:

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?

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

The 'end of history' is liberal bullshit and was only spoken as an incantation of this permanent failure we are witnessing.

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!)

[KnifeFightBob]

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.

[ghostwheel]

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.

[KnifeFightBob]

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

[ghostwheel]

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.

[ghostwheel]

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

[Jeroen D. Stout]

(@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.

[KnifeFightBob]

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.