Can Cutscenes be Art?

[Peter]

Fantastic work, icy. I had been looking forward to this for weeks. You have demolished the artfags and pseudo-intellectuals; next, the critics? Part three will be entertaining.

[zinger]

Very exciting indeed.

"auteur" is missing the letter "u" here:

(consider, e.g., the movie Fight Club: who is the auter here, Chuck Palahniuk or David Fincher? Or Killer 7: Shinji Mikami or Gouichi Suda?)

[icycalm]

Fixed, thanks.

Fantastic work, Icy. I had been looking forward to this for weeks. You have demolished the artfags and pseudo-intellectuals; next, the critics? Part three will be entertaining.

You missed the point. The point of Part II was not to "demolish the artfags and the pseudo-intellectuals", it was to explain the process whereby artforms evolve into each other and to demonstrate their continuity (their "flow"). The digs at the artfags and the pseuds were supplementary -- they are being systematically demolished throughout the essay, not just in one particular section of it.

I am basically employing Nietzsche's method from his "Genealogy of Morals", where he describes the process whereby natural morality (i.e. master morality) was inverted by Christianity into its opposite -- into slave morality. In a similar fashion I am describing the process whereby art is inverted by the pseuds into its opposite -- into non-art or anti-art, into "art art", etc. In both cases the inversion is a cunning trick on the part of the weakest (slaves in the first case, talentless artists in the second), developed unconsciously after decades or centuries of trial-and-error efforts to gain the upper hand. And in both cases the results are disastrous: complete and utter dissolution of entire societies in the first case, and of art in the second.

Of course, the processes are related, since the weapon ultimately employed to destroy art (the messages) is the same one developed by the slaves in their struggle with the masters (morality -- note that the messages are always moralistic, and whenever they are not, as e.g. in Gears of War, they do not count as messages). Simply put, morality lays waste to everything man-made, every manifestation of culture, ultimately to life itself (try for example to be moral in your eating habits, and see what happens), because it is anti-natural.

Now the question is how will I manage to explain this astonishing insight, and the extremely complicated way in which it relates to the art of electronic interactive entertainment, to the uneducated troglodytes who read this website. I've been labouring on this task on and off for months, and I think that I am now on the verge of pulling it off. We'll see, I guess.

[raphael]

What you do is very interesting. Please go on.

[Icemael]

Great stuff. People rarely criticize the pseudo-intellectual artists. When they do, they usually do it through jokes and, when asked to discuss the subject in a serious manner, try to avoid it out of fear of being perceived as idiots (the irony being that the only ones who would perceive them as such are actual idiots) by saying something along the lines of "it was just a joke" and trying to change the subject.

It's nice to see someone who has the balls to commit to his criticism.

[icycalm]

It's easy to commit to something when you know you are right, lol (it also helps when you realize that you have every intelligent person of the past on your side.) All of the waffling and pussyfooting you see in journalism and pseudo-cultural, pseudo-philosophical writings is the result of people being unsure of themselves, timid and self-mistrustful. And that is right and proper, that is how it should be; since they don't fully understand what they are scribbling about, the least they can do if they are nevertheless determined to keep scribbling is signal this to the reader through the timidity of their arguments and writing style. After all, there's nothing more repulsive than an ignorant idiot who is sure of himself and writes as if he knew everything. And that's why, as far as the mass is concerned, there is no perceivable difference between a madman and a genius.

[icycalm]

It will soon become apparent why I am linking this dumb cunt here instead of in the hobag thread.

Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1mQJnf/ww ... world.html

She says that she wants to "save the world". The metaphysical implications of this statement are literally mind-boggling. Like, if you tried to fit that statement inside your head it would boggle it up. It implies that "the world" is a thing that is in danger, and in urgent need of saving. Otherwise I guess it might be destroyed or some shit. But by what? "The world" is simply "everything". From what could "everything" possibly be in danger? FROM SOMETHING OUTSIDE OF EVERYTHING ZOMG! And then she goes on:

Reality is broken, says Jane McGonigal, and we need to make it work more like a game. Her work shows us how.

REALITY IS BROKEN ZOMG AND WE NEED TO MAKE IT WORK MORE LIKE A GAME. THIS IS WOMEN PHILOSOPHIZING. SPEND HALF THE DAY READING THE COMMENTS FOR BONUS POINTS. RANDOM QUOTE:

I'm not sure you can claim yourself as a realist without being a researcher in the field.

Like I said, nuke from orbit and never look back.

[icycalm]

From an email exchange:

Yeah, no worries. I only asked you in a state of disbelief at the fact that, despite having solved all these fucking insanely complicated problems that everyone is seemingly so interested in, practically no one is linking and talking about my latest article (or at least the half of it that's currently online). It's been up for like two months now, and it's barely been linked three or four times. Even my most insignificant review gets discussed more than this. The Cocksucking piece was linked to hell and back within hours of me posting it, and compared to the Genealogy it's practically worthless. Whenever some random moron like Kotick, or Ebert, or Thompson, or whoever blurts out some fucking stupid shit, you immediately see threads sprouting within hours in like every single forum, but solve a bunch of questions that have been frustrating mankind for centuries, and everyone suddenly plays dead -- everyone simply pretends that nothing's happened. Even though everyone's read it!

Anyway, whatever. I've really given up caring and accepted the fact that these things simply take time. It's just how the mechanics of these things work -- how ideas propagate. I'll just have to be patient.

[icycalm]

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_the_ge ... s/#partiii

[infernovia]

This article is very illuminating to me. I am still thinking about its implications.

I am having a hard time trying to connect it with what I know about Nietzsche. These passages sit prominently on my mind:

Of the theater. -- I had strong and elevated feelings again today, and if I could have music and art in the evening, I know very well what sort of music and art I do not want -- namely, the kind that tries to intoxicate the audience and to force it to the height of a moment of strong and elevated feelings. This kind is designed for those everyday souls who in the evening are not like victors on their triumphal chariots but rather like tired mules who have been whipped too much by life. What would men of this type know of "higher moods" if there were no intoxicants and idealistic whips? Hence they have those who enthuse them even as they have their wines. But what are their drinks and their intoxication to me? Does he that is enthusiastic need wine? Rather he looks with some sort of nausea at the means and mediators that are trying to produce an effect without sufficient reason -- aping the high tide of the soul! -- What now? One gives the mole wings and proud conceits -- before it is time to go to sleep, before he crawls back into his hole? One sends him off into the theater and places large glasses before his blind and tired eyes? Men whose lives are not an "action" but a business, sit before the stage and observe strange creatures for whom life is no mere business? "That is decent," you say; "that is entertaining; that is culture." -- Well, in that case I often lack culture; for much of the time I find this spectacle nauseous. Whoever finds enough tragedy and comedy in himself, probably does best when he stays away from the theater. Or if he makes an exception, the whole process, including the theater, the audience, and the poet, will strike him as the really tragic or comical spectacle, while the play that is performed will mean very little to him by comparison. What are the Fausts and Manfreds of the theater to anyone who is somewhat like Faust and Manfred? But it may give him something to think about that characters of that type should ever be brought upon the stage. The strongest ideas and passions brought before those who are not capable of ideas and passions but only of intoxication! And here they are employed as a means to produce intoxication! Theater and music as the hashish-smoking and betel-chewing of the European! Who will ever relate the whole history of narcotica? -- It is almost the history of "culture," of our so-called higher culture.

The "predominance of suffering over pleasure" or the opposite (hedonism): these two doctrines are already signposts to nihilism.

For in both of these cases no ultimate meaning is posited except the appearance of pleasure or displeasure.

But that is how a kind of man speaks that no longer dares to posit a will, a purpose, a meaning: for any healthier kind of man the value of life is certainly not measured by the standard of these trifles. And suffering might predominate, and in spite of that a powerful will might exist, a Yes to life, a need for thus predominance.

"Life is not worthwhile"; "resignation"; "why the tears?-- a weakly and sentimental way of thinking. "Un monstre gai vaut mieux qu'un sentimental ennuyeux."

My inexperience with philosophy has left me in an indecisive state to what the "next step" is. Is the hedonistic man worthy of derision due to his desire for pleasure or due to his fear of suffering? If pleasure is what all of life is screaming out for, is Nietzsche wrong when he calls them trifles?

Or is he speaking of another kind of pleasure, the narcotic kind?

Here is another point you made that I am thinking about:

and indeed a videogame can even be defined in such terms as "a machine for giving pleasure" (a definition that should be kept in mind, for we shall be returning to it)

An interesting definition, then I thought of these machines:

http://wireheading.com/

http://www.wireheading.com/pleasure/com ... ation.html

That is my confusion, how to separate between narcotics and the pleasure that Nietzsche and you are talking about.

Thank you for posting Part III.

[Masahiro9891]

Ok, let’s start with the second Nietzsche quote and work back to the first. The hedonistic man is worthy of derision because he seeks to try and distinguish between pleasure and suffering, in other words, he wishes to separate them from each other as being ultimately independent of one another. This is what Nietzsche means when he refers to them as the signpost of nihilism. To make a distinction between the former and the latter is to ultimately deny them when they no longer hold to the way the world works.

An example of this would be the “death of god” and the turn to nihilism. God was by the Christian community basically defined as “love”, “truth”, “beauty”, etc. The Christian definition of love being essentially the end of suffering, hardship, evil, and basically anything that they did not like. Since, logically, the world does not work like this the Christians began doubting their own moral system. This moral system, itself, was believed to be watched over by their almighty God. So, since they lost faith in their moral system they ultimately lost faith in God. They did not just lose faith; they continued their extreme behavior by not just denying God but denying all of existence along with it and saying that none of it had any value whatsoever.

Their error was where most pseudo-philosophers, theologians, and humanity itself gets confused. They term objects as things-in-themselves. As good-in-itself, love-in-itself, evil-in-itself, etc., and when these things begin to be doubted the entire belief system falls into nihilism.

Now, on the other hand, the noble man, the free spirit, the Übermensch, the Dionysian man, the intelligent man (all these being the same man in different words) all understand things in a higher sense. This sense being that opposites don’t exist, that love is a kind of hate, evil a kind of good, and so on. It is not about separating them but reaching the highest pleasure which would also be the highest suffering. With the understanding that how one experiences these things is in the end determined by the level of strength that he posseses, see work thread. Nietzsche is calling the separation of the two or the belief of one over the other, “The 'predominance of suffering over pleasure' or the opposite (hedonism)” as trifle because the idea of one over the other is saying that one is more important that the other which is false since they are one and the same thing.

All pleasure is, in fact, a narcotic or to use Nietzsche’s terminology “intoxication”. The greater the narcotic or intoxication the greater the pleasure that it brings to the person. This is shown by icy in his Genealogy. The higher the artform the more pleasure it brings the person, the more it intoxicates the person. So, back to the first Nietzsche quote you posted, that people look to the theatre or in our case movies for high pleasures is because they don’t have the strength to take them in in real life. To watch “Avatar” and be over-whelmed by Jake Sully flying, to be intoxicated by the event, is real. You are being intoxicated by it and the emotions that you feel are perfectly fine, but we can think of them as a lower type of intoxication than from the person who is really able to fly like that on their own flying-machine. The closer the artform reaches real life the higher the intoxication, the greater the pleasure you receive from the event. With the highest artform being videogames which come as close to anything before to simulating the real world. Because what the intelligent person wants is the toughest challenge, the most complex challenge because as icy has once again already shown
the higher the complexity, the greater the depth, therefore the greater the skill it takes to compete in it. In the end it is always real life that will produce the most pleasure. Because it is the cruelest and most difficult game there is, with only the tiniest amount, the most highly skilled, ever being worthy of anything.

[icycalm]

Amazing. I see you've been doing your homework, Masahiro.

[icycalm]

But you still haven't answered infernovia's question about people sticking wires inside their brains, thereby abolishing pain and living in a state of constant "pleasure" (really a zombie state more than anything else). What are we to make of this scenario?

The answer is this: that doing that would be quite simply stupid. Because pain is USEFUL, if you abolish it you lose one of life's most powerful instincts of self-preservation.

Imagine, for example, sticking a wire into your brain and messing with the "hunger" function, so that you no longer feel hunger. From then on you are quite simply incapable of feeling hunger. What would happen then? You'd be dead within a week.

lol, it's as simple as that.

Anyway, let's not say any more on the subject, even though there is A GREAT DEAL MORE to be said, because, really, it is off-topic. Properly speaking, it's not even a question directly related to videogames, which is why I will treat it in my third book. Game theory helps greatly to understand this issue, but the answer ultimately lies beyond it.

[icycalm]

Also, the question of how to differentiate between healthy pleasure and narcotic pleasure. Again, all the stuff Masahiro wrote is correct and rather nicely put, but still doesn't directly answer the question.

Short answer: there's no difference. All pleasure is, in a sense, a narcotic, which is why pain is needed again and again: to wake you up.

I won't say more than this on this subject at this time, either.

[icycalm]

Via email.

Original version:

Let me start off by saying that I don't like you. At all. I've read some of the "rules" you place on your forums and I think you either have a gigantic superiority complex or you're insane.

To each their own though. You know your games and I appreciate your taste. On the Genealogy of "Art Games" is pretty spiteful but I agree with everything being said and it's a great read. The higher-art parallels between mediums really opened my eyes.

That's all, really. Just want to let you know you're doing good and I'll be on the lookout for the fourth part. Godspeed to you sir and all that jazz.

With commentary:

Let me start off by saying that I don't like you. At all. I've read some of the "rules" you place on your forums and I think you either have a gigantic superiority complex or you're insane.

To each their own though. You know your games and I appreciate your taste [the taste, let it be noted, of one who either has a "gigantic superiority complex" or is "insane" --icy]. On the Genealogy of "Art Games" is pretty spiteful but I agree with everything being said and it's a great read [So you agree with a spiteful series of comments and arguments, and you find it "a great read". Wouldn't that make you, "spiteful"? --icy]. The higher-art parallels between mediums really opened my eyes [Yes, it is true, "spitefulness" can often be eye-opening. --icy].

That's all, really. Just want to let you know you're doing good [with my "spitefulness" --icy] and I'll be on the lookout for the fourth part [of my "spitefulness" --icy]. Godspeed to you sir [and to my "spitefulness" --icy] and all that jazz.

[icycalm]

And the question of course remains: Who is the real spiteful person here? He who, in order to make a name for himself, is willing to destroy an entire art and drag through the mud all its masters and masterpieces, or he who exposes him? And is it possible to expose this spitefulness in a non-spiteful manner? Moreover, wouldn't the person who is doing the exposing be also the one who has most carefully observed and studied the deception, more so than any other human being, and wouldn't this lengthy and close examination of such wretched goings-on and their disastrous effects have had an effect on him; an effect which, reasonably enough, would have to manifest itself later on in some way (perhaps in his writings?), in the form of anger, hostility and disgust? For isn't it necessary, in the last resort, for him who fights monsters to become one himself, if he is not to perish by them? Indeed, isn't it only logical for him who fights (and defeats) monsters to end up becoming in the process an even greater monster?

[infernovia]

Thank you for the responses.

But you still haven't answered infernovia's question about people sticking wires inside their brains, thereby abolishing pain and living in a state of constant "pleasure" (really a zombie state more than anything else). What are we to make of this scenario?

The answer is this: that doing that would be quite simply stupid. Because pain is USEFUL, if you abolish it you lose one of life's most powerful instincts of self-preservation.

This is a very interesting statement, as it relates my dilemma to the question of power. But let me clarify one thing, the wireheading would not eliminate pain sensors. As you say, that would destroy the instinct of self-preservation. Rather it will attach the pleasure/pain sensor of your brain to an external device you could easily control (a controller perhaps). Which is to say, separating it from sensory organs.

My instinct tells me that this will only domesticate men even more, so I have an aversion to the idea. But how to separate pleasure from this, music, and video games? Power seems to be the most important factor.

Short answer: there's no difference. All pleasure is, in a sense, a narcotic, which is why pain is needed again and again: to wake you up.

This reminds me of Heraclitus: "It is not good for men to get all they wish to get." Another statement I will keep in mind.

But as you say, this is off topic. I will be waiting for the book.

[icycalm]

But let me clarify one thing, the wireheading would not eliminate pain sensors. As you say, that would destroy the instinct of self-preservation. Rather it will attach the pleasure/pain sensor of your brain to an external device you could easily control (a controller perhaps). Which is to say, separating it from sensory organs.

You do not appear to have made much progress in the reading list. There is no "pleasure or pain sensor" which could be "attached to an external device", etc., simply because there ARE no pleasure or pain "sensors". Pleasure and pain are derivative intellectual phenomena. The brain creates them, not the senses.

My instinct tells me that this will only domesticate men even more

This is just a parody of Nietzschean ideas. Badly phrased and haphazardly inserted in the discussion of a random issue just for the hell of it.

But how to separate pleasure from this, music, and video games? Power seems to be the most important factor.

I've already told you (and so has Masahiro) that there's no way of separating different kinds of pleasure. The higher pleasure is simply more pleasurable than the lower one. How hard can that be to grasp? As for "power being the most important factor", what does that even mean? What is power anyway?

Stop wasting my time. Posting on a message board will not remedy your lack of education -- only reading can do that.

[icycalm]

http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/deadly- ... 50/?page=4

And why do these things have no place being there? The only (relevant) difference between a good painting and a good hamburger is that one looks good, and the other tastes good. Why should taste be excluded from art? Is it not just as much a sense as sight and hearing? The same goes for the art of sexual stimulation -- it simply deals with touch rather than sight or sound. Fundamentally -- if we ignore intensity, and treat all the senses equally -- a woman sexually stimulating someone is really no different from her singing a beautiful song for him.

A really beautiful paragraph. This guy will go far. It is perhaps worth checking the thread from the beginning to read all his comments. He makes some mistakes, but that's only because he rushed in to employ my arguments without waiting for me to complete them. Food is not art, Icemael -- at least not in the sense that a movie or a videogame are art, and the same goes for sex. Food is a CRAFT, sex is a SKILL, whilst movies and videogames are SIMULATION (or REPRESENTATION, which amounts to the same thing).

Just hang on a bit more and very soon all will become clear. We are just a few more pages away from being done with this godforsaken issue for all eternity.

[Icemael]

I am aware of that difference, and I did, for a moment, wonder whether it would be better to exclude non-simulation from the category. But then I thought: if only simulation is art, then what of music?

Part III was great, by the way. Before I found this site I hadn't given any thought to why pseudo-intellectual artists and art critics do what they do (I had simply concluded that they were idiots I wanted nothing to do with, and left it at that), and I'm really enjoying reading your explanation. I never suspected the problem was this deeply rooted.

[icycalm]

But then I thought: if only simulation is art, then what of music?

It simulates feelings.

I never suspected the problem was this deeply rooted.

And we are not even done yet. The problem is a great deal more deeply rooted; it is rooted in the very nature of the universe. Properly speaking, it's not even a "problem", in the sense that a problem can be solved and done away with -- it is the whole point. Just wait a little longer and you'll see.

[icycalm]

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_the_ge ... es/#partiv

I am cutting it up in smaller parts otherwise I'll never get it done.

[sand]

Excellent work icy, you're on a roll.

A few typos:

So the masses are the ones who iniate the decline

the higher level is the province of the men of taste: the experts and connoisseurs, the lower of the men of pseudo-taste: the abdurdly rich

[icycalm]

Fixed, thank you. As for "being on a roll", I've been on a roll since I was born, lol.

And here's a comic interlude:



End of comic interlude.

[icycalm]

http://hipsterhitler.com/