Is Jason Rohrer really the future of video gaming?
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
Maybe, maybe not. He’s certainly a step in a more interesting direction. I’ve heard people say innumerable times that they’ve never had an interactive installation make them cry. In place of interactive installation you could put a few different technologically driven means of creating art: new media art pieces, video games, vj pieces. That’s all true. They don’t make us cry. I’d say that, in my own experience, most of those things are created using a sort of language that is developed to keep us from crying, to keep us from feeling too much of ourselves, to, instead, direct us towards something distracting, bright, and shiny. I just walked out of seeing “Wendy and Lucy”, which, while it is the product of technical sophistication, does not use the language of technical sophistication. It uses an almost Transcendentalist language, and a plain cinema verité. That did make me cry, because it was so unmistakeably human, vulnerable, plain, honest, and heartbreaking. I like Jason Rohrers work. I think it’s interesting, engaging, and a fascinating look at a better direction not for games, but for all art. How does it rank next to the recognizable humanism of a film, or the ephemeral emotionality of music, or opera (all things well known for their abilities to induce tears)? Not particularly well. Is it really “a fantastically expressive, artistic vehicle for exploring the human condition”? Not comparatively, no. Roger Ebert made an astute point:
“I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging, and visually wonderful, but I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists, and composers…video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized, and empathetic.”
Rather damning. Does that mean all is lost for emotionally affective video games and new media art? Not at all, but there is a long way to go in how we think about what these things are and how we can think about them differently.
a friendly-to-read esquire article
There are some other people and companies to look at as well:
