Forbin

Roger Ebert rehashes old debate even indie hipsters are tired of

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I don't know, Forbin, I that is a great article. If a person holds to the Romantic notion of Art, then yes, games aren't and probably can't ever be Art.

I had never really seriously considered it from that direction before. There are a whole lot of people who think that the past 100 years of Art is a bit silly; an aberration that will hopefully pass so that we can get back to the real Art of the previous centuries. I am certainly sympathetic to that view, but don't really believe it myself (but I suppose i'm biased, in that I was trained at a relatively Modern Fine-Art school where most teachers held the opinion that the Romantic definition was at least 100 years out of date), but it was still an interesting article, well-reasoned and the most clarifying i've seen from that side of the debate.

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Ack, Forbin, dude. I was with you up until the point where you mentioned WoW. You just fell off the deep end and tarnished any point you may have made up to that point. No, not a one, none of those examples qualify WoW for any consideration as a transcendent/sublime anything. Maybe a sublime coffee shop or a transcendental bed and breakfast or any school.

Boy, that's a long article, I will read it later.

Math can be sublime, I will give you that—on the flip side, art is not some flighty dramatic pastime driven by raw, frothy id. Math and art can coexist and feed off of each other. The zeitgeist usually pushes all frontiers in a generation in a similar direction. We had Einstein and the height of abstraction and the height of utopian modernism all at the same time. Today's science is driven by processing sheer volumes of data, ditto for art. Etc.

My take on art, as appeared earlier in this very thread.

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I grew tired of this debate not-so-recently, but anybody's who's interested in the history of art, aesthetics and criticism should read the Brian Moriarty conf' Forbin linked to : it's full of information about the history of Art (most interesting stuff is at the end), has a very fresh analysis of kitsch as a real aesthetic movement and Moriarty's really articulate well his opinion. I don't agree with some of the stuff Moriarty says about choices/Will/etc ... and the end piles up a huge amount of reference and show-off quotes; but it's a damn interesting read.

It's decided : next year, I'm going to GDC. I'll sell my liver if I have to.

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A fascinating article, that leaves me with plenty to consider :tup:

My initial reactions, as I wrote them going through the article:

(Written in the form of a comment to Brian Moriarty.)

"By what right do games suddenly demand the status of great art?"

Because for the first time we're playing them against the _creators_ of the game, instead of against each other, or against a set of rules. A better analogy for modern gaming (at least the average 1 player game) is not chess, but Fantasy Role Playing, where you sit with a "Dungeon Master" who creates a world for you to interact in. New technology has allowed the greatest "Dungeon Masters" to create more sophisticated worlds to play in, and allowed them to add more interactivity (although never as much as someone sitting next to you, making things up depending on what you say).

The question is really: Can the type of game typified by Fantasy Role Playing ever be considered art? (I don't know the answer to this, but I would imagine that if the "Dungeon Master" were talented enough, then yes... but you make a compelling argument that choice is the enemy of art.)

Re: The Fountain. I think you may have missed the point of this work of art (perhaps deliberately). Without putting that bold decision in the context of art history, it is just a urinal. It's so much more than that, though.

Re: Stomp videos. You seem to deliberately distort the truth behind that story. The only reason those videos were not initially banned, was because the law was too broad and could be used against those that trafficked dog-fighting videos and hunting videos, because those videos may have been taken in a place were such things were legal. The Supreme Court agreed that sexually motivated stomp most likely did not fall under "free speech", and literally said that a new law, specifically aimed at these sexual-fetishist stomp videos, would likely pass their scrutiny (and I wouldn't be surprised if it already has).

Re: Clive Barker. To be fair to him, he said, if something moves you, "I think it's worthy of some serious study". He didn't say that it automatically qualified as art, just that it shouldn't be dismissed.

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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Read the article, in the Forbin camp. He makes valid points, but there's still something iffy about it. I guess the whole 'games aren't art' camp is so desperately trying to find a way for games not to be art, that they're deliberately making unfair claims about it or digging into rather oldfashioned ideas about what a game is or should be.

His view is decidedly pointed at the past, instead of the future.

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His view is decidedly pointed at the past, instead of the future.

This comment wins.

That attitude account for 95% of 'games aren't art' arguments. And it's the same age-old model of the old guard stubbornly but hopelessly trying to resist the uncomfortable march of progress, as happens in art, science and pretty much everything.

Can games be art? I would be surprised if not. Just about anything can be elevated to art if discovered by the right artist - not a popular view I admit. But people have touched on the fact that games are nearly as poorly defined as art. Building on Thunderpeel's comment; Video Games seem to be to be more akin to long-form improvisational theatre. Whatever they are we don't yet have the proper mental models to assess what we have created.

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Read the article, in the Forbin camp. He makes valid points, but there's still something iffy about it. I guess the whole 'games aren't art' camp is so desperately trying to find a way for games not to be art, that they're deliberately making unfair claims about it or digging into rather oldfashioned ideas about what a game is or should be.

His view is decidedly pointed at the past, instead of the future.

I'm not sure this is entirely fair. His point is really about what art is... and how any choice is an enemy of that. I still don't know how I feel about his definition of art, but it's an interesting point of view, and it's got nothing to do with how you define games.

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I guess my point on WoW was a bit of a leap in the post. In my head I was getting from mathematics, to architecture and other artistics feats of engineering. Pretty much every art game that's held up as an example severely lacks that aspect of game design.

And while they can be interesting, they're like artistic dollhouses compared to the skyscrapers that make up some modern games. Small scale and stylized, but easily accomplished by small teams of people who are new to the industry. But since they're so small, there's a more direct relationship between the author and the audience. There's very little altering what could be considered artistic vision. It's impressive to see what people Eskil Steenberg and Jason Rohr can accomplish on their own, I just don't think you're going to ever overwhelm a skeptic with something so small scale.

To me a game like WoW is a skyscraper like Burj Khalifa. It's design is impressive, but so is it's function. And unlike an indie game it's almost impossible to drawn an analogue to some classical work in a way that you can say it's better or worse than. Saying a game like Flower is an example of game art, is showcasing the spandrel, not the arch.

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I'm not sure this is entirely fair. His point is really about what art is... and how any choice is an enemy of that. I still don't know how I feel about his definition of art, but it's an interesting point of view, and it's got nothing to do with how you define games.

I've thought about this some more, pretty much against my own desire as this discussion is rather tiring.

One of the things that bothers me is that Moriarty says choice is the enemy of art, but he backs this up pretty much only by saying that Schopenhauer said so. I can understand why you might find a philosophical concept like that interesting or appealing, but just because he wrote it doesn't mean it's true. It's presented as an axiom, 'interactivity is antithetical to art'. Again, he might consider it so, but there's no reason why it should be so. Why should a carefully designed palette of interactivity not be able to evoke the same deep thoughts as any good bit of art might? Experientially it is able to go far deeper. Interactivity is more dangerous and wild than passivity, but that doesn't mean it's inherently not capable of being art. The many interactive installations in musea all around the world readily attest to that.

I stick to what I said, the apologists of Games Are Not Art use deliberately narrow and old definitions to exclude gaming. They become outraged when you question their logic, as Moriarty does when he scathingly writes that to search for new definitions of art is to 'dismiss the wisdom of the ages to flatter ourselves'. Not the words of a person who'll ever progress our thought himself. I bet Shopenhauer readily dismissed the wisdom of the ages! video games and Games in general are most deserving of reinterpretation, beacuase the wisdom of the ages has nothing to say about them. Because, you know, video games didn't exist back then.

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All in all im rather tired of the video games as "art" debate. Its 2011... video games are better than what we consider art now anyway.

All other "arts" are dead. Painting is irrelevant, sculpture has been irrelevant for a long time. Movies, which have only recently entered the art pantheon (100 years ?), and books - are the only things I'd even consider within the realm of art. Movies are at best preludes to the far more powerful medium of gaming. Books are perhaps the only medium remaining that I'd consider sufficiently different from video games to warrant comparison. Photography is interesting, but it lies just above encyclopedia on artistic merit - its a tool for documentation - interesting, evocative, but limited.

Music I'll put aside, its just its own beast really.This isn't to say all those mediums aren't valid, expression takes its own forms. sometimes you don't feel like playing a game, or reading a book.

Lets move on, the gaming industry needs : 1. The industry really needs an Ebert figure who can communicate to the 'general public'. 2. To really start asking itself the tough questions - "are we art ?" fuck that, thats so tired a debate. I'm talking about : can we make the world a better place, can we change human nature. As far as i'm concerned "art" as a term is useless.

We have a saying in Arabic "The dogs bark and the caravan moves on".

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I'm not sure where I can stand on BM's definition of art, but it is compelling.

One thing I do agree with is: There has been no single game that has reached the status of art.

Ebert puts it into perspective, perfectly: "I have recently seen classic films by Fassbinder, Ozu, Herzog, Scorsese and Kurosawa, and have recently read novels by Dickens, Cormac McCarthy, Bellow, Nabokov and Hugo, and if there were video games in the same league, someone somewhere who was familiar with the best work in all three mediums would have made a convincing argument in their defense."

It's true that I've yet to play a game that has touched me in the same way the best examples of a medium such as novels, painting, music, film, theatre, has.

As both Ebert and Moriarty admit: The majority of movies are NOT art. They're "mass-produced art" (aka kitsch art). Which isn't to say they're worthless trash, just that they're well made, highly crafted, often beautiful, but not as profound or as lifting as the best examples of their medium.

The ending of Braid

where things go backwards and reveal a different interpretation

, came damn close for me, but it was still a bit pretentious, as it didn't reveal anything to me about my life or life in general.

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All other "arts" are dead. Painting is irrelevant, sculpture has been irrelevant for a long time. Movies, which have only recently entered the art pantheon (100 years ?), and books - are the only things I'd even consider within the realm of art. Movies are at best preludes to the far more powerful medium of gaming. Books are perhaps the only medium remaining that I'd consider sufficiently different from video games to warrant comparison. Photography is interesting, but it lies just above encyclopedia on artistic merit - its a tool for documentation - interesting, evocative, but limited.

Are you high on drugs?

Less assholey edit: Why do you consider painting and sculpturing to be irrelevant as art forms? And photography? Your post makes me think you've either thought about these things a lot, or not at all.

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I agree with this

Ebert puts it into perspective, perfectly: "I have recently seen classic films by Fassbinder, Ozu, Herzog, Scorsese and Kurosawa, and have recently read novels by Dickens, Cormac McCarthy, Bellow, Nabokov and Hugo, and if there were video games in the same league, someone somewhere who was familiar with the best work in all three mediums would have made a convincing argument in their defense.

The problem is that Moriarity's definition of art doesn't include any of these, or any of the (traditionally highly valued) art I have ever encountered, based on:

  • "The pleasure we get from it lies precisely in the fact that it has no rules, no goal, no purpose."

Am I misinterpreting this to mean that Dostoevsky isn't art because he has a very clear message that he wants to convey about 19th century philosophy, religion, and humanity? What about Aristophanes, Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Thucydides, Tchaikovsky, Picasso? Every single one of these creators (to a lesser extent with Aristophanes since he mixes 'low' art and 'high' art) is highly regarded in each of their fields and are considered some of the greatest 'artists' ever. Even from Ebert's example, I'm very familiar with McCarthy and Kurosawa, and they fall into the same category of the artists I've mentioned above save only the greater name recognition. These works had purpose to their authors and the authors had purpose in that their works are supposed to elicit in you, what they are conveying.

I'm willing to buy into his idea of games as kitsch for the sake of his argument, but his definition of what 'sublime art' is is completely lacking and muddled.

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Wow, I didn't realize that this whole debate started with Ebert taking a dump on the value of video games as a use of time. I guess it's a good thing he brought art into, otherwise GDC talks would discuss whether or not you stop playing games forever because there are great books to read.

Anyhoo, I guess the debate is over. There's art and Art. Art is binary. There's no room for subjectivity. It's the environment in which the art/Art is made that determines whether it's a 0 or a 1. Games are a product so they'll always be a 0. Ebert wins. Never play a game again.

Sublime art is either always relevant, or not at all. It is never the subject of nostalgia, but often the subject of discovery.

I'd say that describes Chess and Go to a tee. And don't talk to me about the wisdom of the ages, morality has changed a great deal over the years, and so can definitions of art.

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Anyhoo, I guess the debate is over. There's art and Art. Art is binary. There's no room for subjectivity. It's the environment in which the art/Art is made that determines whether it's a 0 or a 1. Games are a product so they'll always be a 0. Ebert wins. Never play a game again.

I think you missed the point. Nobody is saying don't play games, or games are worthless, or it's a waste of everyone's time to play games.

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Even though it is probably true and easier to justify than the art hoopla. Art is a waste of time after all. Breathing is a waste of time for some (most?) people.

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I think you missed the point. Nobody is saying don't play games, or games are worthless, or it's a waste of everyone's time to play games.

I was just being sarcastic in reference to Ebert saying ""As long as there is a great movie unseen or a great book unread, I will continue to be unable to find the time to play video games." He later conceded the point that games can have worth, but that line definitely sounded like games aren't worth his time. Especially when he has great movies like Drive Angry to review. (I know it's his job, it's just a joke.)

I do understand and agree with some of his points, but I just think that Brian's thesis depends on there being two levels of art. Sublime and kitsch. Complete transcendental universal art and novelties for the masses. It's a great way to frame an argument, because if something doesn't meet those high standards, it's placed in the lowest rung automatically. It's why mathematicians love to prove by contradiction. He doesn't even make room for art that is made in response to certain cultural/political movements of a specific time (semi-related to Squid Division's most recent post). It reminds me of that discussion of difficulty versus accessibility in art in the icarus thread; if a book requires you to have historical context to read it, it isn't sublime according to Moriarty.

People have been making the high/low art distinction for a long time, but I'm not sure of the benefits. It usually seems to be a way to remove the low, rather than elevate the high. I'm not totally against some classification either. I think there are benefits to establishing literary canon, because it seeks to identify powerful and culturally significant works, allowing readers to experience the techniques, styles and motifs that make them unique. This doesn't mean that all works outside of those reading lists are kitsch, and definitely doesn't mean that they lose the status of being art.

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It usually seems to be a way to remove the low, rather than elevate the high.

And doesn't really seem to include something that mixes the two, such as most good comedy.

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Alright, first off - Toblix!?!? From the Arcanum Inn?

Alright, and secondly:

Cap't Fish wrote:

. I'm not totally against some classification either. I think there are benefits to establishing literary canon, because it seeks to identify powerful and culturally significant works, allowing readers to experience the techniques, styles and motifs that make them unique. This doesn't mean that all works outside of those reading lists are kitsch, and definitely doesn't mean that they lose the status of being art.

I'd have to agree with the argument for balance here. Classification has its use, but in a large way, I would argue "always" the art passes through the lens of yourSelf, and art is merely a mirror you can look into for a reflection, different art will bring out different bits of you. Now this definition risks inflating into one of these grand "art is all" arguments, which is fine and dandy, but it can be helpful to navigate through the vast archive of "art" produced as a byproduct of living, of expressing yourself as alive (i'd argue art is as natural as breathing and just as inescapable/essential).

So are video games art?

Certainly, they are artful. The visual style of a game has a lot to do with it, but what about RPGs that painted deep stories? MMOs are one thing, but an RPG that tells an elegant story can be so exciting.

Ask our critical friend, then, if choose-your-own-adventure novels have any merit whatsoever.... and then ask how are they different from video games.

And let me also say that art is of course chaos, for only art can settle the tension between the unity of all and the obvious individuality of experience.

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I would think it would be very difficult for any of us to agree full heartedly with Moriarty, or really any of the professionals he knows for that matter, being a very obviously contrarian position to take. This is my guess, but I would think the guy hasn't felt the energy of creativity in video games since he last worked on Loom. I can kind of see where the guy is coming from, all it takes is just a look at his Linkedin profile. He's done major work with Imaginenginehttp://www.imagengine.com the past few years on amazing titles as the creative director such as Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and titles based on American Girl (the expensive doll company). I e-mailed Moriarty once to see what his actual credits were on stuff at Imaginengine, as the credits for licensed garbage made on the cheap rarely make their way to Mobygames, but he was not having that.

I'm not really trying to be an asshole about Moriarty, since he's done some great games in the past and a few of the lectures I've heard are very interesting. I am just really not surprised of his viewpoint when he's been knee deep in fluff work for the past decade or so. When he hasn't worked on a game of much artistic value or merit for so long, I'm almost getting the feeling that he is leveling the playing field to act like games based on the Fairly Odd-Parents are just as important as Braid. This isn't being said of course, but this is what I'm personally hearing.

Since Braid has also been held up as the poster child for this Ebert discussion, I'm wondering if Jonathan Blow will have any comments towards Moriarty, as he's idolized the man for years it seems.

On the article itself, I think it's weird that he keeps bringing up chess and checkers, since those really don't have any attributed artist behind them. Chess personally seems like a lot of creative or artistic thought was put into it. The weird throwout notion that math doesn't get mixed up with art was somewhat odd as it seems he wouldn't be one to ignore the whole music being math thing. I also don't understand why a video game is the same as a novelty item, as he uses driftwood and the famous urinal, pieces which he qualifies took no time, as similar. Surely making a video game takes way more involvement by anyone than those pieces he's equating them with?

I also find it strange he says, "nobody needs art" and that it serves no purpose. I am really sick of this sort of viewpoint, as history would obviously show that humans expressing themselves through art has always been a part of humankind. For no one to need it or it to be counted as a sort of extra even though it's been ingrained in us from day one seems foolish. Sure, as Moriarty says, most great pieces of art from ancient times has merely been practical, but there is also tons of other stuff where we just done know as well as stuff that appears to be art for art's sake and all. Who knows?

When these sort of semantics come into play, I just lose interest. It especially sucks when you are getting kind of frustrated with someone like Brian Moriarty who is smarter than myself over many times over. I feel like he's just going to be right by default for that very reason.

I should shut my mouth though, as this was all discussed again and again last year pages ago in this thread as well as everyone basically in agreement that interactivity does not make something cease being art, etc...

I do fully support this notion though:

Why are some people in this industry so anxious to wrap themselves in the mantle of great art?

I figure if people stop arguing and moaning on both sides, a generation's worth of time will decide much of the factors of the argument on whether it can be considered art or not, even though to me the former has already been obviously established. I think the idea that game makers should worry much less about their status or merit in the world (since there's always going to be some jerk to put you down for what you do) and just getting back to trying to churn out the best games they can possible. This is happening anyway though...

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Brian Moriarty apologizes for Ebert

There's something about GDC that ensures this debate will be a more reliable annual franchise than Call of Duty.

I find that he really starts getting off topic in the bottom half, but in general I think his point can be summed up as:

Game's aren't art, because:

1) Games have been around for centuries. There's nothing special about video games. (except they are)

2) Games are pop-art or "kitsch". And while that's a fair assessment of the industry, I fail to see why movies are able to escape the realities of corporate investment and politics to create art, but games are doomed. In the end it's just another meaningless sub-classification that shouldn't exempt something from being "art".

3) This 19th century philosopher/professional dick would patronize you if you asked him if games were art.

There's a lot of hair splitting and labeling going on, that's really not that interesting. Who cares what one person declares meaningful or beautiful. But I think I've come to an understanding where some of the disdain for mechanics and choice comes from the Ebert camp:

This small paragraph sums up some left-brain right-brain bullshit that only people who were bad at high-school math believe. The idea that there are two diverging paths of human excellence. Either you're talented with mechanics and figures, or you're an artist with a critical eye and insight.

left-brain-vs-right-brain-25745-1298568348-10.jpg

Bullshit. Anybody who's made it through a few semesters of university in a math or science degree can tell you that it requires critical thinking, insight and creativity. Even the most basic formulas taught in high school math classes were once inspired leaps of logic. To say there's nothing artful about mathematics shows ignorance of mathematics. Math is about questions, problems, solutions and unknowns.

If you don't know anything about history, religion or artistic periods, you don't really appreciate the depth of a lot of classic art. But if you don't know the history of Chaos Theory, the mandelbrot set is just a pretty picture.

To me code is art. Even without a graphical component, or user interface, the code behind almost every game out there is artistic to me. There are extremely clever people finding ingenious solutions to unique problems, and some of it is just awe inspiring. And while that may be covered by the art + art + art = not art debate, I still think that coding is the driving force in any software project. If you don't understand programming and the technical challenges behind a game, you're missing out on a huge piece of the picture.

One other argument that Ebert and others have repeated, is that while people may offer up token indie games as artistically credible, they are not able to give an example of a game that could rival the classics in any other medium. And it's easy to shy away from that, and claim we've only had a few decades to get the technology to a point that it's possible. But screw it, I think there are a ton of examples. So here's my champion: World of Warcraft.

It's a game that is literally interpreted a million different ways by millions of different people. It's formed friendships, inspired murder, saved and broken marriages. It's brilliant social engineering, and elegant technological design. It may be difficult to come up with an example of a game that directly competes with Shakespere, Bach or Monet, but can you honestly tell me any movie, book or painting that compares directly to WoW?

I'm sorry for bumping this again :/

Nice post. And I love the pic, even if it is a kitchy Ad.

I agree with everybody on this issue.

:period::peace:

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I was just being sarcastic in reference to Ebert saying ""As long as there is a great movie unseen or a great book unread, I will continue to be unable to find the time to play video games." He later conceded the point that games can have worth, but that line definitely sounded like games aren't worth his time. Especially when he has great movies like Drive Angry to review. (I know it's his job, it's just a joke.)

I do understand and agree with some of his points, but I just think that Brian's thesis depends on there being two levels of art. Sublime and kitsch. Complete transcendental universal art and novelties for the masses. It's a great way to frame an argument, because if something doesn't meet those high standards, it's placed in the lowest rung automatically. It's why mathematicians love to prove by contradiction. He doesn't even make room for art that is made in response to certain cultural/political movements of a specific time (semi-related to Squid Division's most recent post). It reminds me of that discussion of difficulty versus accessibility in art in the icarus thread; if a book requires you to have historical context to read it, it isn't sublime according to Moriarty.

People have been making the high/low art distinction for a long time, but I'm not sure of the benefits. It usually seems to be a way to remove the low, rather than elevate the high. I'm not totally against some classification either. I think there are benefits to establishing literary canon, because it seeks to identify powerful and culturally significant works, allowing readers to experience the techniques, styles and motifs that make them unique. This doesn't mean that all works outside of those reading lists are kitsch, and definitely doesn't mean that they lose the status of being art.

I think you're being overly defensive about kitsch art, and taking that to mean it's an insult.

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My point isn't that Kitsch is any worse than he said it is, it's that any two definitions of art are bound to be lacking.

He describes Kitsch as:

"One: Kitsch depicts objects or themes that are highly charged with stock emotions.

Two: The objects or themes depicted by kitsch are instantly and effortlessly identifiable.

Three: Kitsch does not substantially enrich our associations relating to the depicted objects or themes."

It's about easily relatable ideas with clearly defined emotional responses, and it's consumption doesn't invoke any new insights about those ideas.

I think there is a gulf between that description and his description of sublime art. If you found an example that flipped one of the kitsch switches from on to off, Moriarty wouldn't call that sublime. It's not as simple as that.

And that's my point. The end point I get from Moriarty's talk is: there are two types of art, I've defined them and my definitions are gospel. I just keep picturing him at an art gallery, going up to each piece and artist and putting a tick in the sublime or kitsch column and it's an incredibly absurd idea.

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The end point I get from Moriarty's talk is: there are two types of art, I've defined them and my definitions are gospel. I just keep picturing him at an art gallery, going up to each piece and artist and putting a tick in the sublime or kitsch column and it's an incredibly absurd idea.

Haha, yeah, that's a great way to sum it up. Sucks hearing it from Moriarty, since besides Loom being one of my favorite LucasArts adventures (which I don't consider kitsch), I felt his Dig probably would have been amazing had he been left to his own devices. Ebert is just a critic, which I guess many hold high, but I myself don't really think of them as terribly important as individuals defining art and entertainment beyond finding one you can relate to specifically, especially since so many just repeat eachother after the head honcho critic in whatever medium has his say.

It's weird to me that Moriarty would just write such a long article on a rigid way of thinking eventually leading up to two subjective categories that almost no one is probably going to find any common ground on. Instead of separating the word art from bad (or unimportant) art, as discussed much earlier in this thread, which not just put the adjective in front? Art is such a tiny word anyway.

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