The Gamer's Manifesto

A manifesto for games as art

My friend Zach and I have been thinking of a gamer's manifesto for some time now. The main aim of this writing is to show how games and literature are related. By doing so we may argue that literature and computer science are not exclusive to each other. It would be great to have a course in Literature and Computer science, agreed? Anyway...for 2009, this is our project. Hopefully every month we'd have something new for you!

I. Introduction

It came in a dream one Sunday morning; it was the theory of language’s relationship to art. I found a meaning in my dream, although Freud might say differently. There I was, Teetering on the edge of a mental cliff, afraid to jump to the next plateau to reach the door of my subconscious. Although literary scholars would argue that Freud’s subconscious is impenetrable, I argue that the subconscious is but only the final watchmen over the inspiration found in every human mind, art being the foremost.

As a first gate, a door to the garden of meaning, art is the first gate of human society and culture that must be kept in working order to be useful. While the gate metaphor of art equates representative arts like painting, sculpting, and music, art at the very best of interpretations is subjective and that’s the beauty of the practice, for art is a practice. The technique to handle a brush is just that, a technique. The artist, by the very definition, is a person who possesses the ability to turn the subconscious into a traitor and thus reveal the secrets of meaning in the human mind. It takes months, years, and centuries of practice in order to perfect any given number of artistic interpretations. Whether one is to study the appeal of a painting, the meaning of a text, or what a limerick’s tone does for the human spirit—if one believes in such things—a person who considers the arts as the first door into meaning, practices. This practice, writing, painting, or playing music, produces feelings, emotions, or even nostalgia. Art could serve the purposes of historical accounts, passing on of legends, or even contribute to theological discussions. An artist, to be successful, must not only open the door to meaning, but do it in such a way that his or her idea can be accepted by the society of their origin.

Each distinct region on the planet has a marker of what can be accepted as “good art” and each art form has its history. African art may have a different history then Indian art; however, each artistic impression has a value determined by the society an artist may be governed. Art is therefore a force that is governed and defining the terms of art from a singular perspective is a very difficult task. It is not surprising then that the discourse of the arts has been usurped by the absolutes of math and science.

Art has been reduced to the sum of its parts and art theory uses math and sciences in order to judge what is appealing, and therefore most profitable to the artist. Good art has been examined for the proportions of Pythagoras, and the proportional art has been marked as purely a science by the mathematicians, thus loosing the literary significance that literary theory can have on physical, representative art.

Project Offset...remember?It took me some time to think about what could be done with literary theory in terms of painting or complied arts. Compiled arts for me are things like orchestral music pieces, webpages, or videogames. In classical terms, compiled arts are mosaics, collages, or novellas. They are small bits of knowledge sewn together to create a master work. The different logos and Photoshpped images on a webpage are all placed together to create an appealing structure for the viewer to glean information from. What startles me about the rest of art and culture is that these artistic elements of technology are not viewed in the same way classical art or even the post modern. I am reminded of several instances where I would discuss the way a light hit a leaf in a videogame and how that light relates to the an Aristotelian notion of catharsis only to hear the scoffing of math majors and biologists, claiming that there is either a scientific explanation or that the way the light touches is a results of 1’s and 0’s, purely binary. But there is humanity in technology. There is a moment when memory and inspiration collide to create a scene, a graphic image or a sound in a game that reminds us of the roots of civilization, similar to what text can do.

Compiled ArtsWhat I hope this writing conveys, text can be used to unlock the doors into the subconscious mind of the reader so as to derive meaning from the possibility that art is relatable to literature theory. I feel that the electronic universe of language is not just tied to math and science but to the liberal arts as well. The implications of such a thought are this: Sciences will be reevaluated for the possibility of including language into the study of computer science. Language can then be applicable to math and science and also equitable. Language (i.e text, writing, art) supplies the reader with a heavy understanding of what the implications and applications of science means to the structure of society. Language would be once again included in the school curriculums as important vital parts of education that must be taught as rigorously as math and science has been proposed.

The first location in thought to begin discussing the relationship of literature (i.e. language, art, writing, music) to that of computers and electronics is in the power that literature possesses within itself; to first define what literature can do. The second phase, describing how computer science is similar in scope and power, as well as demonstrate how technology borrows from the concepts of literature. The third is to put the belief into practice, participating in the unlocking of meaning. Art and technology are inseparable, thus critical theory and technology are also inseparable. 

Were the electronic worlds we have created only the compilation of 1's and 0's and the rigorous use of scientific logic, would they be as popular as they are? Certainly not. It is unwise to view our new electronic world without the consideration of the art and integration of past mediums. There was a time when film was merely the product of clever engineering, but now, certainly, one may look and see the exquisite artistry involved in a movie. In the same way, video games serve a similar purpose and must be analyzed as a legitimate art in order for us to fully understand its role in our lives.

It is said that humans are the only beings that tell stories to each other. For such a unique characteristic, we should be intensely interested in everything involved in it. Consider the first story told - the person who first drew a scene in his story and invented drawing and painting, the person who first reenacted his story inventing drama. In light of these developments, to ignore the role that new technologies, that video games and other electronic worlds, play is to miss out on one of the most dramatic evolutions in the way humans tell stories and in the very way we view our lives.

All art is the illustration (whether 2D, 3D, or otherwise) of a view. A view entails many things and can be seen in art throughout history. For the Medieval artists, cycle is a central theme, with people in the stories always filling their role, doing their part, and contributing to the vast divine cycle of life. For Modernist artists in the early 20th Century, their art is filled with a view of progress, of continual newness, and of a great revolutionary scattering of traditional consciousness.  In the same way that print revolutionized the Renaissence world and the way that film revolutionized the modern consciousness, video games and our new electronic media are rapidly and dramatically changing our artistic view. To ignore this new artistic view, to forego a critical analysis of these new media because they are not as high and noble and artistic as the critics think they should be, is the lowest form of idiocy.