[MUD-Dev] RE: eXistenZ

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Zak Jarvis <zak at voidmonster.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Wednesday, July 19, 2000 2:07 PM
Subject: [MUD-Dev] RE: eXistenZ


>> From: Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt [hhs at cbs.dtu.dk]
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2000 2:47 AM
>
>> I would have to disagree with mr. Rushdie on the point
>> (that games are not 'truly' art), It sounds like he excludes the
>> posibility of interactivity by the spectator in any artform.
>>
>>    'DC: But this is really subverting what you want from art.
>>         You want to be taken over and you want to be-'
>>    'SR:Shown something.'
>>
>> I find that opinion rather puzzeling. Am i missing something?
>
>I didn't much agree with them in that interview either (at least on the
>subject of what constitutes art). But it's from mid 1995, when it was
>easier to be insulated from knowledge of not just the internet, but things
>related to computers and games. The film, however, is a really fascinating
>exploration of how a game could be art, and it 'gets it' better than most
>anything I've seen. It also stretches and seriously plays with the
>definition of 'game'.
>
SR: "In the end, a work of art is something which comes out of somebody's
imagination and takes a final form. It's offered and is then completed by
the reader or the viewer or whoever it may be. Anything else is not what I
would recognize as a work of art. "

Okay, this definition certainly leaves MUD-like games out, they never stop
changing till someone flips the power switch for the last time.  But it's
bogus, live theatre wouldn't count by that definition (well, the written
play would be art, but the actual performance wouldn't be).  Neither would
dance, or singing, or any of the other performing arts.  And SR may make a
point of getting off the case, but more than one author has gone back and
re-written his early work, even after it had been published in the original
form.  Same for film, "Director's Cut", anyone?

It's not too relevant to me, I don't know about art, but I know what I like.

--Dave Rickey




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