February 2009
The Archives
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Art, General
What a piece of work is man…
“What a piece of work is man”, the cyborg contemplates its humanity. Does stripping away our humanity, distilling it down to its barest essence, make us more human, or take something away from us? What is it to be human?
I’ve always had a fascination with the man-machine hybrid, there’s something about “making up” musculature and underlying bone structure of human beings that makes it enjoyable to draw. It’s breaking the rules while staying within the rules, and making things up as you go along.
Pencil, pen and ink. Colored in Paint Shop Pro. Title from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2
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Art, Video Games
PAIN As Art
PAIN is the much-maligned Havok-engine-driven Playstation Network (PSN) game . PAIN’s premise is simple: you throw people into an environment, and earn points for causing creative mayhem. Think JackAss with a slingshot. But can PAIN qualify as art?
Often, I see gamers turning up their nose at this game. “Pure” gamers consider the game boring, infantile, and asinine (these same gamers who hurl racial epithets at me or invite online female avatars to their virtual bedroom to “make it stink”. I kid you not.) They say “what’s the point?”
They interesting thing about this game is my girlfriend actually loves it. It’s a free-form expression of mayhem, a game that challenges you to see “what you can do next”. The game is the closest thing I can think of to gaming as art. Sure, it’s no da Vinci, perhaps not even Picasso (maybe more like Pollock), but how can you argue with a game that virtually argues back at you, challenges you: what can you do next?
My guess is that many of the gamers that complain about the game lack one component that the game encourages: creativity. While the people enjoy the game’s “what can you do next?” component, “pure gamers” desire to be lead by the hand in order accomplish their goals. Even in open world games, there are still goals to be accomplished. When a game presents no goal, just play and have fun, “pure gamers” miss the point. It’s sad that they won’t even give this game a chance.
So can games be art? I believe that Pain’s free form antics are as close to the “video games as art” argument as you are going to get. When a person is constantly vying for your attention for what you have accomplished, and you are constantly amazed, then you can’t get closer to art than this. PAIN as art, PAIN is art.
Anyways, how can you argue with a game that allows you to do THIS?
