How does an instrumental piece of music examine the human condition?

http://openclipart.org/people/Tavin/like_a_sir.svg.

Well, I believe it certainly can. In music, there are all sorts of emotive pieces that arguably represent the human experience.

A band's intended emotion they wish to convey through their music, is not always the emotion the listener might get stuck with.

I don't disagree, but the same can be said for almost any video game - they all represent some facet of the human experience - most just do so on very shallow levels. But it's still there.

Indeed. But does that preclude it from being defined as art?

David Lynch's 'Eraserhead' is very open to interpretation, and Lynch has said no interpretation matches his own.
Does that mean that his film is not art?

Oddly enough, I consider the GTA series to come closest to art compared to any other game I have played.

There's a wealth of satire about popular culture, consumerism and the 'American dream'.

This is a very good point. The easiest answer I can think of, is that art is whatever the viewer will it to be. It's as subjective as it can get, and coming up with a factual template of what is and is not art, is inherently pointless.

I'd have to agree, although critical consensus can be reached as to what the standards something must surpass to be considered art, it will never be objectively correct.

Fallout is full of the same themes. It's as subjective as subjective can be.

Sounds like how opinions themselves work.

I disagree on the consencus part there.

If there are to be some standards for what is art, what's something that fulfills some of them, but not all? Is it pseudo-art? Mimicry? It just becomes pointless. It would be absurd to try and define the standards. Like with games and books.

Two completely different things, should they be held by the same standards? And if not, is it because they are different, or because one is more respected than the other? And if they are held by the same definitions, it all boils down to aesthetics, ignoring large portions of at least what a game is.

In that case... no. Games don't deserve the same sense of legitimacy that older mediums have -- not until they largely stop aiming themselves at 12-year-olds.

http://craziestgadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/space-invaders-couch.jpg

Games that I like are what I would consider art. Games that I don't like aren't art.

So everything could be art... even a turd if you like it?

By definition, I think so... so long as a human created it, as opposed to animal.

Art is almost impossible to define, and you certainly can't include or exclude an entire medium from it.

Illustration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring?

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-20O6wg4eKF4/Tqqpk_cb8-I/AAAAAAAAAZc/ddSjQZCkZcM/s1600/childs%2Bdrawing.jpg&imgrefurl=http://abigailanddolley.blogspot.com/2011/10/childs-drawing.html&h=541&w=904&sz=113&tbnid=4sMgjrs6PlFGJM:&tbnh=81&tbnw=136&zoom=1&docid=D4-p5ks6yN4kjM&sa=X&ei=JraVT8r1F4Pd6QH_g_2BBA&ved=0CEEQ9QEwAQ&dur=609?

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/560/tyxcur.jpg/?

So we all may have three different opinions on these, but who gets to decide? Nobody. Everybody. It doesn't matter. Something is art because it makes you feel as though it is art. If you have a connection to it, it's art. If it tells you a story, or makes you feel like you know something, new or familiar, then it's art. If you like it, it's art.

You can't objectively define it.
If many, many people tend to agree, then it's great art. If nobody agrees with you, then it's only art to you. That doesn't mean it isn't art.


Someone mentioned that art isn't chosen or defined by popular vote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa.
Some of the world's greatest art is so because it's immensely famous. It's impossible to determine whether the image is famous because it is great, or whether it is great because it is famous. Perhaps there is no need to, for it is probably both.

Never understood the overbearing focus of some to have games regarded as art. I'd be happier if they concentrated on being consistent, working products that meet their marketing before they get ahead of themselves and worry about if they're art or not.

If something is good and you like it then that's great. What does it matter if it receives expansive acclaim and is hailed as art.

TLDR: Don't care. Games should be happy to be a unique form of entertainment.

First, it contains art.
The hand-created world could be considered an art in itself. The art of creating a world.

I say yes, most (if not all) games are art, or at the least, have a lot of art in them.

I think largely the same. Art has not typically been of the technical or functional persuasion - those are called designs, innovations, inventions. Building upon one invention to improve another. Art covered other categories. The more things overlap, the more the debate.

As others have mentioned, you can't really define art in some hardline, factual way. Art is eye of the beholder stuff...not fact. Thus yes, to someone out there, a turd could be turned into art, just as a few lines or splashes of random paint on a canvas can be considered so awesome and filled with such artistic meaning that someone is willing to pay 1000's of bucks for it. I personally wouldn't in either case, but that's just me.

You can easily consider games art, an example is one ive been playing called E.Y.E: Divine cybermancy

Its more of "thinking art" then normal art, considering this game contains a healthy doseage of mysticism, phliosophy, introspective examination and more.

If you play it, you'll get a taste rather quick, but i'm not going to spoil that surprise


P.S: can some one help me figure out to put the spoiler hider on again? I forgot :<

Something that reminded me of a painted picture so well done was seeing Paleven being scorched to a pile of rubble in ME3.
There's also another one, Metro 2033 coming from the broken metro to the destroyed civilization.

If you have a PS3: Play Journey/Flower/Flow
If you have a 360: Play Fez/Trials Evolution/Halo
If yoy have a PC: Play Dear Esther/Amnesia/Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
If you have a Wii: Play Mad World/EVERY MARIO GAME EVER

Anything that takes a creative "eye" or "mind" to create is art. You can pee in the snow and make a dragon and it is art if you want. Is it good art....is it complete crap art.....yes.

Then theres games like Skyrim. The trees, the grass where the snow begins and ends.....all that stuff really looks like a lot of thought went into it and the result of that good creative "eye" is world you can lose yourself in.....easily.