Do you see games more as art or technology?

[Stevethulhu]

I was pointing out that it hearkens back to ye olde storytelling, not that it actually is the same as telling stories.

Depending on how this is emphasised really depends on the group playing, and the game itself.

I do like your 'jam session' reference, that is a pretty good analogy

It's something I stumbled on back on RPG.net. Someone expressed the opinion that RPGs are a performance. I had this realisation that the group of gamers is just like a bunch of people jamming. It's completely inward looking, everyone is aware of and making space for everyone else, but mostly doing their own thing. And at it's best it can be a transcendent experience.

But it's not something an audience is particularly likely to find any pleasure in unless it's being done at a very high level. And even then it can all get a bit Grateful Dead or Led Zeppelin playing live in the 70s. But with more Monthy Python and Lord of the Rings jokes.

I think you can tell a story while playing an RPG. It’s an open-ended story if it’s not a railroad. Some people like railroads too. You can’t dismiss any play style. There are things that I don’t particularly care for in RPGs, but I’m not going to hate it just because it exists.

My take on that is, yes you can. But is it a good medium to do so?

 

[Ladybird]

I'm generally of the opinion that we just know more about RPG design now than we ever have, but brilliant games that break the mold of just another good game and are truly great are generally mostly timeless if you enjoy the style of it.

Exactly. The longer a hobby goes on, the more back material there is to learn lessons from, and the more avenues can be explored. Plenty of old design isn't even "bad", just... "not always appropriate". And these days, we're in a golden age, with so much of the historical catalog so easily available as well as the new games that are inspired by them and might get people to check the older things out too, or that just take the form and go in wildly different directions.

As regards the "games as art" debate, they can be both, they can be dumb fun or they can try to say something. Every audience can get something different out of them. I think they can be the best art form, personally, but that doesn't mean they have to be or that a game is lesser if it doesn't even try to be.

 

[TristramEvans]

I do think that overly simulationist rpgs became less relevant with the rise of video games.

That's a term with a lot of meanings, but to go by just the common one: "a game system that attempts to simulate the reality of an imagined world", video games would seem to me to be the opposite of Simulationist RPGs...at least until VR technology improves drastically

 

[Nobby-W]

Calling a game art or technology is overly simplistically labelling it. Role playing games certainly contain artistic and technical elements.

A game has to be played or its a fairly pointless object. Therefore it has some mechanical function, at least at a conceptual level. The rule books also have ergonomic considerations - readability and usability. So there is an element of technical design, editorial and visual function that it has. Some games definitely do this better than others.

A role playing game is primarily imagined, so it has an artistic component. The backdrop and setting, choice of rule systems and emphasis all promote a look-and-feel for the game.

 

[Baulderstone]

I do think that overly simulationist rpgs became less relevant with the rise of video games.

I don't think that photorealistic art became less relevant with improvements in cameras.

It's like how there was a decline in gamers who just wanted to kill things over the '90s as shooty video games got better and better, and in the '00s people that were just there to interact with the system were just as happy to go play WoW.

I've never really been threatened by the idea of people abandoning RPGs for video games, as they people that can truly find video games to be a complete replacement probably weren't playing RPGs for the same reason I do.

My take on that is, yes you can. But is it a good medium to do so?

Sure. Using your music metaphor, a group playing a linear adventure path is doing a jazz cover of a standard. They are playing the same song as everyone else that goes on that adventure path, but they will be putting their own flourishes on it.

 

[Stevethulhu]

Sure. Using your music metaphor, a group playing a linear adventure path is doing a jazz cover of a standard. They are playing the same song as everyone else that goes on that adventure path, but they will be putting their own flourishes on it.

That's answering a different question to the one I asked. I'm not going to go into my answers, but I asked myself, are RPGs a good medium for telling stories in? Then drew up a list of pros and cons. I did some looking at what roleplaying gets used for outside the fairly narrow sphere of gaming and came to some conclusions.

The act of playing an RPG has a lot in common with a jam. But it also differs in several key ways. It's close enough to make an analogy, but not for a comparison. Which can be said about almost every aspect of RPGs. It's kind of like, but not at all like at the same time.

To expand on your analogy of a jazz standard, every group that plays an adventure path will have a very, very different experience. In many ways to the point of being a completely different song. The combination of players, characters, random outcomes to key events and emotional responses to situations will be different enough that each table will have a unique experience. Despite starting with the same set of conditions.

It's like everyone gets the same chord chart, but uses totally different rhythms, melodies, instrumentation, arrangements, lyrics and tempos.

 

[cody]

That's a term with a lot of meanings, but to go by just the common one: "a game system that attempts to simulate the reality of an imagined world", video games would seem to me to be the opposite of Simulationist RPGs...at least until VR technology improves drastically

Video games like Arma or Sniper Elite seem pretty comparable to the kind of thing I imagine the Phoenix Command authors were interested in. I dunno if there are any rpgs with a heavy focus on simulating driving (besides maybe GURPS Autoduel), but video game racing sims are definitely simulationist.

My point is, "Spreadsheet the RPG because mah simulationz" isn't a marketable idea anymore, which I honestly regard as a good thing. Tabletop games should be scaled for human interaction and choices, not doing things that would be better done by computer.

 

[TristramEvans]

Video games like Arma or Sniper Elite seem pretty comparable to the kind of thing I imagine the Phoenix Command authors were interested in. I dunno if there are any rpgs with a heavy focus on simulating driving (besides maybe GURPS Autoduel), but video game racing sims are definitely simulationist.

My point is, "Spreadsheet the RPG because mah simulationz"

Ah, OK, this is "simulationism" as correlating to crunch, as opposed to how I would view it, as relating to a sandbox-style gaming approach, I gotcha. Yes, I can see how a videogame can more easily handle the level of complications and math involved in an approach like Phoenix Command. Though that makes me wonder if a game like that was made today if they couldn't pair the RPG with a cellphone app?

 

[Stevethulhu]

Ah, OK, this is "simulationism" as correlating to crunch, as opposed to how I would view it, as relating to a sandbox-style gaming approach, I gotcha. Yes, I can see how a videogame can more easily handle the level of complications and math involved in an approach like Phoenix Command. Though that makes me wonder if a game like that was made today if they couldn't pair the RPG with a cellphone app?

This is why I hate GNS terminology. Simulationism is actually defined as genre emulation. Giving you the tools to simulate a particular genre or setting. But people insist on using their own interpretation of the terms.

 

[TristramEvans]

This is why I hate GNS terminology. Simulationism is actually defined as genre emulation. Giving you the tools to simulate a particular genre or setting. But people insist on using their own interpretation of the terms.

Yeah, game theory terminology is a big old mess these days. One of the reasons when one of the words come up I always have to figure out what definition a person is using before I know how to respond.

 

[Baulderstone]

This is why I hate GNS terminology. Simulationism is actually defined as genre emulation. Giving you the tools to simulate a particular genre or setting. But people insist on using their own interpretation of the terms.

My preference is just to ignore the "official" GNS meanings. The people insisting" on using their own interpretation of GNS terms are the ones that are inferring them based on the clearly understood definitions of "narrative" and "simulation". If someone uses terms that are almost universally misunderstood, maybe their system of terminology isn't worth keeping.

On top of that, GNS isn't even a good system for categorizing RPGs in the first place. Why even bother defending the correct terminology of a useless system?

People were talking about narrative and simulation as elements of RPGs long before GNS. You can't just stick "ism" on jargon that is already in use and decided it means something totally unrelated to the word without the "ism".

 

[cody]

Simulation Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

Simulation definition, imitation or enactment, as of something anticipated or in testing. See more.

www.dictionary.com

"the representation of the behavior or characteristics of one system through the use of another system, especially a computer program designed for the purpose."

GNS theory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Simulationism is a playing style recreating, or inspired by, a genre or source. Its major concerns are internal consistency, analysis of cause and effect and informed speculation... Combat may be broken down into discrete, semi-randomised steps for modeling attack skill, weapon weight, defense checks, armor, body parts and damage potential."

I really don't see how those are contradictory definitions, they seem like descriptions of the same underlying idea. If I pushed anyone's buttons around GNS theory, I certainly wasn't intending to.

 

[cody]

if a game like that was made today if they couldn't pair the RPG with a cellphone app?

Golem Arcana tried that with wargames, and judging by the clearance sales I saw, it wasn't very successful. I've seen more success with apps that make things easier (dice rollers, army list managers) rather than being a necessity for play.

 

[David Johansen]

Hey now, I'm a big fan of "spreadsheet the rpg"! It's much better than jumbled mess the rpg where you can't find anything on your character sheet let alone the in the book. Ah well, the madness of the crowds.

On sorcery, it's neither technology nor art unless we're looking into Dadaism as the great non art. Rpgs live in the collective subconscious, without the common frame of reference drawn from other media, from film, from books, from illustration you couldn't begin to have the consensual interaction of ideas, people need to know what a vampire is, a dragon, an orc. Do you remember playing as a child, and as you got older there were conflicts of interpretation, as an adult you watch and realize that each child is actually playing by themselves together, the stories don't really match up it's an illusion. Rpg rules and settings bridge that gap and bring the imaginations together in a frame work of definitions and numbers that clarify what's going on and nail it down. Sorcery, pure magical thinking, symbolism and allegory written in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is technology, the rulebook is a work of art, but the game itself is a cauldron of conjured spirits writhing and twisting in the hands of those sitting around the table.

 

[TristramEvans]

I really don't see how those are contradictory definitions, they seem like descriptions of the same underlying idea. If I pushed anyone's buttons around GNS theory, I certainly wasn't intending to.

Nah, nothing to do with you, many of us are just veterans of many years of Forge theory flamewars.

 

[EmperorNorton]

It's really much the same reason I make fun of the reaction the word Story gets on some RPG forums (including some users here). It isn't the word itself, it is the baggage that some people seem to associate with it.

 

[Endless Flight]

I never really understood why certain places felt the need to compartmentalize certain kinds of games. It’s not like old-school games were under assault. Quite the contrary; they made a comeback.

 

[TristramEvans]

I never really understood why certain places felt the need to compartmentalize certain kinds of games. It’s not like old-school games were under assault. Quite the contrary; they made a comeback.

Short answer is probably that it's hard to be a pundit without enemies to rage against, even imaginary ones.

 

[David Johansen]

There was something of a backlash against "story" back when third edition D&D came out. I didn't read a lot of the literature, Dragon Magazine at the time and so forth but I ran into it a bit. My usual response is that DMs are prone to forgetting who's story they're telling.

For all that, the last thing I want in an rpg is the English teacher's Beginning, Middle, and End with its Climax and points of rising action. I really hate the way the video game boss fight has drifted into rpg thinking. Ugh!

 

[Baulderstone]

Simulation Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

Simulation definition, imitation or enactment, as of something anticipated or in testing. See more.

www.dictionary.com

"the representation of the behavior or characteristics of one system through the use of another system, especially a computer program designed for the purpose."

GNS theory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Simulationism is a playing style recreating, or inspired by, a genre or source. Its major concerns are internal consistency, analysis of cause and effect and informed speculation... Combat may be broken down into discrete, semi-randomised steps for modeling attack skill, weapon weight, defense checks, armor, body parts and damage potential."

I really don't see how those are contradictory definitions, they seem like descriptions of the same underlying idea. If I pushed anyone's buttons around GNS theory, I certainly wasn't intending to.

You aren't pushing my buttons. Sorry if I came off as brusque.

The basic issue is that GNS categories lump games together that have entirely different goals. When people reference simulation in RPGs, they are generally talking about modelling reality. The GNS model lumps anything in there, which makes it so broad as to be useless. Looking at definition that you linked, simulationism encompasses both Toon and GURPS. It is a category that includes everything, which make it a useless category.

 

[AsenRG]

You can’t dismiss any play style.

Wanna bet?

Also, I don't think simulationist RPGs have become any less relevant due to videogames. New ones have been created, and sold, to the people that care about them.

 

[Necrozius]

My feeling is that a game is not art. However, the crafting of the game itself, the components, illustrations, wood-working, even writing etc can be artistic.

The rules of a game, just like the rules of sports, are also not art to me. Technology? I don’t know: there’s nothing really applicably scientific about game rules except for the maths of statistics and such.

Storytelling, a part of role playing games, can definitely be artistic, though.

TL;DR: I don’t believe that games are art nor tech, but components of them can be artistic or technological. Eg: chess? Not art. Hand-crafted wooden chess board and pieces? Totally artistic. The very first AI-driven chess game opponent? Tech.

Any game designer who claims that THEIR game (as a whole) is art comes across as really pretentious to me.

 

[Necrozius]

Addendum: my expectations of a good RPG product is that sweet-spot middle ground of solid layout, editing and a pleasant artistic experience.

That being said, this is very subjective. I find the black and white hand-drawn artwork of, say, Torchbearer to be far lovelier and visually pleasing than the full-color, glossy digital artwork featured in the 5th ed. Player's Handbook.

* "digital" artwork meaning painting with pixels, not physical mediums of oil, acrylic etc. on a canvas. I understand, from a personal experience, the added convenience and flexibility of digital painting programs, but they just aren't the same. There are exceptions, of course!

 

[CRKrueger]

Definitely neither. RPGs have similar aspects to many other activities, but truly are their own thing.

Trying to equate them to art, particularly literary or performance art is a category error that leads to false assumptions and a whole lot of bad gaming theory.

Trying to equate them to technology is even worse, as it leads to ridiculous and laughable assumptions about the quality of RPG mechanics related to age.

 

[Baulderstone]

My feeling is that a game is not art. However, the crafting of the game itself, the components, illustrations, wood-working, even writing etc can be artistic.

The rules of a game, just like the rules of sports, are also not art to me. Technology? I don’t know: there’s nothing really applicably scientific about game rules except for the maths of statistics and such.

Storytelling, a part of role playing games, can definitely be artistic, though.

TL;DR: I don’t believe that games are art nor tech, but components of them can be artistic or technological. Eg: chess? Not art. Hand-crafted wooden chess board and pieces? Totally artistic. The very first AI-driven chess game opponent? Tech.

Any game designer who claims that THEIR game (as a whole) is art comes across as really pretentious to me.

I'd also say that ultimately whether a game is art or not is going to lie in the play of the game. The RPG book itself is like the box I keep my brushes and tubes of paint in. In theory, any time I break those out and play with them, a work of art could potentially emerge. Most likely, it will just result in me having a good time.

RPGs are the same. I'd say I'd been involved in some sessions where things really came together and produced the same level of drama as a play. It could be argued those sessions reached the level of art. That doesn't happen often though, and it doesn't need to. I don't think you can force it to happen either. Attempts to force it are more likely to simply feel pretentious or canned.

 

[cody]

New ones have been created, and sold, to the people that care about them.

Honestly curious, what are some examples from the past decade of new rpgs (not updates of old ones) that you would consider heavily simulationist?

Mythras is one of the biggest I can think of, and calling it a new game is a bit of a stretch. Even the latest editions of GURPS and Hero are a decade or more old afaik, and are basically on life support.

 

[CRKrueger]

Hmm, the “level of art”. That sounds like if it’s good enough, it’s art, if it’s not, it isn’t. Odd way of putting it.

If you saw some events happen in real life that impacted or affected you strongly, or were just damn cool, would you say what just happened had elevated to become art? I doubt it.

If people aren’t playing the game to create art, and don’t have the mindset that they are storytelling or creating drama, they’re not going to create art, no matter what happens.

 

[Baulderstone]

Honestly curious, what are some examples from the past decade of new rpgs (not updates of old ones) that you would consider heavily simulationist?

Mythras is one of the biggest I can think of, and calling it a new game is a bit of a stretch. Even the latest editions of GURPS and Hero are a decade or more old afaik, and are basically on life support.

Even with Mythras, outside of combat, it isn't that heavy on strict simulation. Looking at the Luther Arkwright book as an example, the rules on tech and vehicles are a lot closer to the WEG Star Wars end of the spectrum than the GURPS Vehicles end.

 

[tenbones]

Is "Trap-Country" REALLY Country Music? Is Chess and art or a skill?

Games unto themselves are not art. Running a game takes skill. Playing a game takes imagination. Running a game so good that the players, the rules of the games, the player's understanding of the rules contextually to their GM's intent, and the GM's skill at running the game to point where the player's imaginations and the rules become completely transparent...

Well those are extreme rarities. Real honest unicorns. Such outliers in *any* endeavor are transcendent experiences. You hear people say the same things about sports - such rare moments where the game is transcended.

Humans, properly invested, can make "art" out of anything.

By themselves... no game is art.

 

[CRKrueger]

Honestly curious, what are some examples from the past decade of new rpgs (not updates of old ones) that you would consider heavily simulationist?

Mythras is one of the biggest I can think of, and calling it a new game is a bit of a stretch. Even the latest editions of GURPS and Hero are a decade or more old afaik, and are basically on life support.

The Fragged series of games and the W.O.I.N system I’ve seen described as crunchy and lacking in narrative mechanics. I haven’t read them yet, so can’t confirm.

 

[Ladybird]

The Fragged series of games and the W.O.I.N system I’ve seen described as crunchy and lacking in narrative mechanics. I haven’t read them yet, so can’t confirm.

Fragged handwaves some things - like it abstracts cargo to "trade goods", iirc - while being quite specific about it's combat mechanics. If I was categorising by Forgian GNS, I'd probably say it's more G than S than N.

 

[Voros]

Trying to figure out if a game can be art would require some kind of definition of art, something missing so far from this thread.

 

[cody]

Yeah, Fragged seems like a possibility. FWIW as i recall it does also have stuff like fate points to keep you alive and bonuses to your roll for quality of roleplaying.

I guess Shadowrun is an example of a surviving school of game design based on "throw a crap ton of rules in a possibly misguided attempt at simulating something", given things like square roots and chunky salsa. But even Catalyst seems to have figured out that doesn't fly as well these days, judging by Anarchy and 6th edition getting a haircut.

 

[Luca]

I really don't see how those are contradictory definitions, they seem like descriptions of the same underlying idea. If I pushed anyone's buttons around GNS theory, I certainly wasn't intending to.

[rant mode on]

GNS is useless.

Point the first: one of its central tenets is that you can't follow more than one agenda in an "instance of play", but it never defines what an instance of play is. And the reason is obvious: defining it would mean instant falsification of the theory. Instance of play = few seconds? Then it might technically be true but there's the obvious colossal problem that you have hundreds of separate instances in one session. Instance of play = one session? Hell you bet you can go all over the place in one whole session.

Point the second: the three categorizations are useless. It's like me categorizing animals as "mammals except those with wings, animals with wings, and everything else". While technically this division is correct, it doesn't give you any useful information.
In GNS case it's not even correct. E.g.: "simulationism" is critical to "gamism" because you need to know how the game world works if you want to "win". I need to know, in a reasonably detailed way, how magically-armed infantry works if I have to devise a tactic around using it. You can't split the "agendas" here, it just doesn't work.

[rant mode off]

Ok, you can go back to your normal discussion...

 

[Baulderstone]

Trying to figure out if a game can be art would require some kind of definition of art, something missing so far from this thread.

I'm judging an art competition this weekend, but even I'm not going to wade into that one.

GNS is useless.

It's worse than useless, as every single conversation on RPG theory leads to someone jumping in and "correcting" people for using terms by their presumed English meaning and not the way GNS uses them. Then the rest of the conversation ends up being about GNS.

Number of times I have seen GNS derail an RPG conversation into useless semantics: Countless.

Number of time I have seen GNS used in a productive fashion: 0

Given the number of times I have seen Ron Edwards purposefully trolling people online, I wouldn't actually be surprised if it is working exactly as intended.

 

[raniE]

Exactly. The longer a hobby goes on, the more back material there is to learn lessons from, and the more avenues can be explored. Plenty of old design isn't even "bad", just... "not always appropriate". And these days, we're in a golden age, with so much of the historical catalog so easily available as well as the new games that are inspired by them and might get people to check the older things out too, or that just take the form and go in wildly different directions.

As regards the "games as art" debate, they can be both, they can be dumb fun or they can try to say something. Every audience can get something different out of them. I think they can be the best art form, personally, but that doesn't mean they have to be or that a game is lesser if it doesn't even try to be.

I'm not sure I'm reading you right here, but to me at least, art doesn't really have to try to say anything o9r have a deeper meaning to be art. If I draw a picture, it is art. It might be bad art, but it is still art.

Video games like Arma or Sniper Elite seem pretty comparable to the kind of thing I imagine the Phoenix Command authors were interested in. I dunno if there are any rpgs with a heavy focus on simulating driving (besides maybe GURPS Autoduel), but video game racing sims are definitely simulationist.

My point is, "Spreadsheet the RPG because mah simulationz" isn't a marketable idea anymore, which I honestly regard as a good thing. Tabletop games should be scaled for human interaction and choices, not doing things that would be better done by computer.

Hmm, I think this may just be trends and vagaries of game design though. Right now lighter rules are in. The OSR is in, D&D 5e is a lot lighter than 3e or 4e, The Fantasy Trip pulled in a lot more money on Kickstarter than Gurps Dungeon Fantasy etc. But who knows where we'll be in ten years. A lot of the newer players brought in by D&D 5 may want to move on to more rules-heavy stuff. Or maybe they go for lighter rulesets. Or they might want to go to something with more story mechanics. Or maybe they'll go for all three, or whatever. I don't know. But I don't think that just because something is popular right now in games that means that whatever was popular before is gone for good.

My feeling is that a game is not art. However, the crafting of the game itself, the components, illustrations, wood-working, even writing etc can be artistic.

The rules of a game, just like the rules of sports, are also not art to me. Technology? I don’t know: there’s nothing really applicably scientific about game rules except for the maths of statistics and such.

Storytelling, a part of role playing games, can definitely be artistic, though.

TL;DR: I don’t believe that games are art nor tech, but components of them can be artistic or technological. Eg: chess? Not art. Hand-crafted wooden chess board and pieces? Totally artistic. The very first AI-driven chess game opponent? Tech.

Any game designer who claims that THEIR game (as a whole) is art comes across as really pretentious to me.

Hmm, I guess I have a different view of art. I think a stick figure is art so someone saying "this is art" in and of itself doesn't make me think they're being pretentious or anything, just stating that they believe it is in fact a piece of art.It doesn't have to be fantastic art, but it is art nonetheless.


In a more general sense, no, you can't equate games directly to music, or films, or literature. But then those aren't entirely equatable with each other either. When I said I see games as art, I didn't mean I see them as the equivalent of a novel or a film. I mean I see them as a thing whose worth is mostly or wholly measured by the joy, or other emotions, it brings.

It has been really fascinating seeing the discussion though, and there are a lot of interesting perspectives here.

 

[Stevethulhu]

I'm not sure I'm reading you right here, but to me at least, art doesn't really have to try to say anything o9r have a deeper meaning to be art. If I draw a picture, it is art. It might be bad art, but it is still art.

From what I understand, if you can convince a critic that it's art, it's art. See also:

 

[tenbones]

Hmm, I guess I have a different view of art. I think a stick figure is art so someone saying "this is art" in and of itself doesn't make me think they're being pretentious or anything, just stating that they believe it is in fact a piece of art.It doesn't have to be fantastic art, but it is art nonetheless.

Art, the best kind, is transcendent. It stirs something in you. What "that" is, is totally subjective, as you point out with the stick-figures. The ability to express that feeling of what "it" is that stirs you - is what you, subjectively, think the "artist" is trying to convey. But it could be totally in your head.

In my opinion - that doesn't make it "not art". Ones reaction to the thing in question is important (but less so). There ideally are some objective standards to art. So I'm going to always hang my hat on the "transcendent" aspect of a thing. Because it allows room for everyone, and that alone creates room for objectivity on a higher scale than individual opinion.

Gaming is not art. No more than a bunch of jackasses doing a band of kazoo players in clown outfits, blasting Carmina Burana is "art" in the context of paying homage to Carl Orff. But I'll concede if you get the right group of kazoo players, who can kazoo beyond my expectations of what such a group of jackasses might otherwise do... by definition you're entering the transcendent. It might not rise to "art', but it gets you close.

Gaming can be like that. I've had those games. I couldn't have those games with *just* anyone. It took the right people, the right game, the right GM, the right everything... and it just "goes beyond our conceptions". It transcends and takes us to a different place that "normal games" can't reach.

That's what I strive for with every single game I run. I fail more often than not. But that's the goal - to have those peak moments as much as possible to produce peak-games.

In a more general sense, no, you can't equate games directly to music, or films, or literature. But then those aren't entirely equatable with each other either. When I said I see games as art, I didn't mean I see them as the equivalent of a novel or a film. I mean I see them as a thing whose worth is mostly or wholly measured by the joy, or other emotions, it brings.

It has been really fascinating seeing the discussion though, and there are a lot of interesting perspectives here.

You get it!

 

[Ladybird]

I'm not sure I'm reading you right here, but to me at least, art doesn't really have to try to say anything o9r have a deeper meaning to be art. If I draw a picture, it is art. It might be bad art, but it is still art.

IMO, art that doesn't try to Say Something to Someone is just wallpaper. Wallpaper's cool, though. There's nothing wrong with it, the world needs wallpaper.

But inherently, I'm inclusive. If someone says they think something is art, I'm inclined to agree that it probably is, and that it's Saying Something to them even if it isn't to me.

 

[Voros]

IMO, art that doesn't try to Say Something to Someone is just wallpaper. Wallpaper's cool, though. There's nothing wrong with it, the world needs wallpaper.

But inherently, I'm inclusive. If someone says they think something is art, I'm inclined to agree that it probably is, and that it's Saying Something to them even if it isn't to me.

But what does ‘saying something’ mean when it comes to usually non-representational forms of art like instrumental music or dance?

I was just listening to a talk by Isaiah Berlin on Romanticism and he notes that at the time there was a big push back at the ‘meaningless’ instrumental music of the Romantics as representational music (opera, etc) was widely considered superior and more ‘meaningful.’ Ironic as now the Romantic’s music is usually upheld as the prime example of ‘high art.’

I doubt we’re going to be able to nail down what is art here, it is an endless philosophical and aesthetic debate. But I always loved what Jean Renoir, the filmmaker, said regarding the question of art:

To the question, ‘Is the cinema an art?’ my answer is, ‘what does it matter?’... You can make films or you can cultivate a garden. Both have as much claim to being called an art as a poem by Verlaine or a painting by Delacroix… Art is ‘making.’ The art of poetry is the art of making poetry. The art of love is the art of making love... My father never talked to me about art. He could not bear the word.

Jean Renoir

Note he mentions the widely held opinion of the time that film was supposedly not art, something that strikes us today as absurd.