::scr Games as Jazz

[simon wistow]

A twist on the usual 'Games as Art' debate : from the Gamasutra message board
http://www.gamasutra.com/cgi-bin/connection/WebX?14@66.bCE2aCF1cTl^0@.ee6b303/25


Games can be jazz compositions?
OK, I was going to, and may yet, talk about games as a form of abstract
representation. As in impressionist/cubist/expressionist/abstract
expressionist art, Most games attempt to convey in some concrete form the
impression of experiencing an event/object/sensation. In that sense, a central
goal in game creation is the successful abstraction of that impression or
experience in such a way that the end user is able to identify or feel at
least some approximation of the intended event/object/sensation, real or
imagined. 

As I began thinking about that, though, the element of interactivity reminded
me of another great love of mine, jazz music. In many ways, a game designer is
like a jazz composer in that he or she does not create an inflexible set of
instructions for how his/her creation is to be experienced. Rather, a jazz
composer creates a framework and overall structure within which a successful
performer improvises, sometimes departing starkly from the imagined designs of
the composer, but usually remaining within the macroscopic guidelines. A
performer interacts in a composition in the same way that a user interacts
with a game, producing a work of art simultaneously belonging to the composer
and the performer. The difference in gaming, however, is that the user is also
the only observer, and so the experience is more akin to the legendary
late-night bebop sessions than to regular jazz performances. The user
simultaneously co-creates and experiences the work of art, making each
experience unique within the guidelines laid down by the designer and his
team. 

Of course, the fictional "designer" mentioned here is really a design team,
much like the legendary film "auteur" is seldom a real individual, but a
conglomeration of like-minded talents. 

I think videogaming as its own art form maintains a sophisticated balance of
elements from performing art, film art and representational static visual art
apart from combining examples from all of those media to produce the effect. I
think that may be why we're finding its unique merits so hard to nail down.
The experience of the end user does not conform completely to any other
sanctified artistic experience, and that alone could validate the medium as a
new art form. 

Of course, Hegel reminds us that the romantic notion of art most people
maintain is dependent primarily upon its death as a vital and challenging
element in our awareness. In that sense, museums are cemeteries for ideas, and
maybe we should stop trying to put videogaming into a mausoleum while it's
still kicking. 

I think that games as a medium have evolved exponentially faster than our
vocabulary for describing them, leaving us floundering to define them and
coming up short each time. Let the craftsmen creating the games (including us)
agree on a common language useful only to them, let the critics interpret and
try to reverse-engineer a vocabulary, and let everyone else enjoy and be
challenged by the incredible works of art being generated in this confused and
vital time in the evolution of the form. 

-Charles MacMullen 

-- 
: cheese, apparently, isn't scalable