The Philosophy of What Makes Art, Art.

For this post I will be studying a piece of text that was originally part of a radio show broadcast, which the topic was “What is art?”, the show had the philosopher , Alexander Nehamas who was discussing the philosophies behind hide, what classes as art, does art have to be beautiful or does whatever the someone calls art , makes it become art and not just a fancy object. The interview/discussion can be listened to online here http://www.philosophytalk.org/pastShows/Art.html .Underneath were some listening notes that i have quoted to compare how, concept art and games are relative to this philosophers ideas of what is art.

Key parts have been highlighted and numbered to create points on which to discuss on how these are comparable to games.

“Nehamas thinks that the desire to make something special is characteristic of the artistic process. Is there a legitimate difference between high  and low art? A lot of people think art is only the stuff hanging in the museums. Historically, much art was made for popular entertainment. Does this mean we should expect popular culture like Seinfeld to be the only thing to survive the passage of time? Nehamas points out that we need to consider why we would want an algorithmic way of deciding what is art.

What is the connection between beauty and art? Nehamas thinks that all art is beauty although it may not all be pretty. Beauty, he says, involves whether you like it. Much modern art is engaging although it isn't pretty. What does art do for us? Nehamas says that primarily it is for us to enjoy.
Can just anything be art? Nehamas points out that it is hard to convince people that something is art. There is also status involved in art, like Bach's commisioned pieces. A lot of art is inaccessible because it requires background knowledge, but many people think that it should be immediately engaging. John points out that some art is aimed at a small group of viewers. Nehamas thinks that it is difficult to appreciate any art, even great art. He says that we need to learn how to appreciate  art, from paintings and sculpture to television and punk rock. “

                A Oil painting of a market scene which doesnt differ that much from concept art below[1]

The first thing he mentions is that the desire to make something special is the artist processes involves, I’ve already mentioned the processes behind classical art such as paintings and how it’s similar to the processes of new digital art methods and the shear amount of different methods used to make a  game should surely make it count as art?.Whole teams of different types of digital artists are employed to create games, firstly there is the concept artists that take the lead developer idea’s and create many different rough drawings of what things should look like. Then after that other artists are employed to draw up more details pictures and images to work through, they mainly use digital methods, but classic styles of paintings  can be made, and pencil drawings. To create the actual in game model’s 3d modellers’ have to hand build variety of buildings and characters to populate the world, which is similar to the way architects work. Using all these different artistic processes, so games have this section ticked. He also says that historically art was for entertainment which games are for, seeing how many copies of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 were sold, 3.6 Million[2],that’s a huge amount of popular entertainment. Also a recent research shows that

“There the number of games consoles in use has shot up from 13.5 million a year ago to 22 million this month, with enough consoles for eight out of every ten households in the country to have one.

This includes just the 'third generation' consoles – Microsoft's XBox 360, PlayStation3 and Nintendo's Wii – not the older consoles”[3]
So games consoles are becoming more and more popular, this survey also doesn’t include PC games , which could also boost the figures up more, so this could mean that the biggest popular entertainment art is in fact the games industry and games. He also considers how art isn’t always beautiful either, such as same games can be art such as the scenery in “Assassin’s Creed” which is beautiful but the darkness and death in “Modern Warfare 2” , isn’t classed as beautiful. He then goes onto say we should appreciate art in all its forms from paintings to punk rock, I think this to includes games.

                                                 Assassins Creed Concept Art, Depicting a Market Scene.[4]

[1] Pieter Aertsen[c.1550] Market Scene[Oil Painting on Oak].Held at Alte Pinakothek,Munich.

[2] Alice O’Connor [11/2009]Activision Boasts Modern Warfare 2 Sales Figures.Broken Records[Internet], Available from:< http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/61298> [Accessed January 6^th 2010]

[3] Harry Wallop [01/2009]Video games:eight out of ten homes own a next-gen games console[Internet], Available from:< http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/4248136/Video-games-eight-out-of-ten-homes-own-a-next-gen-games-console.html> [Accessed January 6^th 2010]

[4]Luke Wallace[2006]Assassin’s Creed Concept Art[Digital Painting].Held at: N.A Available at < http://www.realmmedia.com/index.php?q=gallery&g2_itemId=3908>