Video games are a form of art. It’s been said before, but thanks to recent events, another resounding victory has been won in this ever-raging debate and the nail in the coffin of this controversy is at hand.
Next year, Bioshock will be highlighted as part of an Art of Video Games exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., a museum that houses the works of more than 7,000 artists. The exhibit will highlight titles spanning the last 40 years, including such classics as Super Mario Bros. 3, Diablo II, Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid. Modern examples of digital art will include .Fable, Mass Effect 2 and Heavy Rain.
This news comes on the heels of a recent announcement from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) — responsible for funding and supporting not-for-profit projects demonstrating artistic excellence — that video games are now eligible for funding. This not only means that the United States’ government officially recognizes video games as an artistic medium, but that artists can now use video games as part of their expressive repertoire.
Consider the controversial coffin nailed closed. Match point video games. Or so I thought.
Soon after, Fox News, in its infinite wisdom and unfettered fumbling for journalistic truth, attacked the NEA for supporting video games as art, spouting that the government would be using public taxes to fund games like Call of Duty. And this is where positive progress, which took two giant leaps forward this month, takes one step back. This is where the coffin of controversy gets pried opened once again.
That’s not to say all video games are art; far from it. In the same way that Jackass the Movie should never be considered a work of art, Call of Duty is not a form of art, hence why it is not included in the Smithsonian exhibit. But in the same way that the movie industry will, once in a while, produce a work of art in The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption or Black Swan, so too will the video game industry produce such works of art as Shadow of the Colossus, L.A. Noire and Bioshock.
In defining art, I’ll spare you the pedantic quoting of Webster’s, Oxford or, heaven forbid, Wikipedia. Instead, I’ll go out on a limb and personally state that art is anything that has been skilfully and precisely crafted, either in subtlety or candour, to reflect an artist’s deep and soulful connection to our world and through this crafting, makes an emotional connection with an audience.
All the classic forms of art — painting, music, film, literature, sculpture, conceptual art — are forms brought together by and expressed through video games. Art also reflects social awareness and growth. This too is an integral part of video gaming’s history, paramount in creating and maintaining a realistic connection with the audience.
What sets video games apart is the nature of the emotional and social connections made; it’s often more tangible, direct and interactive in this virtual form. Though this is the chimerical root of the controversy, it is also a part of the panoply of refined, emotional experiences that certain video games provide, like Heavy Rain and Bioshock. There is a moment when these diamonds in the rough become more than a video game. They become a work of art that is crafted, compelling and complete.
This is what the NEA and the Smithsonian recognize, that video games have been and will continue to be a powerful artful representation of society’s development. While not the first example, Bioshock simply mainstreamed the issue of video games as an art form. Its delicious blending of writing, conceptual art, music and emotion created an experience that stood out and its impact on the artistic and gaming community echoes four years later.
Let us hope that the issue can finally be laid down to rest in peace. The Art of Video Games exhibit will run from March 16, 2012 through Sept. 30, 2012. For more information, please visit www.artofvideogames.org.
When he’s not teaching junior high, St. Albert Catholic High School alumnus Derek Mitchell spends his free time connected to a video game console.
