Bibliography from my essay

All the resources I looked at 

John Berger (2015) Art Quotes [Internet] available at:

http://www.art-quotes.com/auth_search.php?authid=2222#.VWdbM7tFCzl

Rachel Falconer (2014) The Guardian [Internet] available at:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/29/rebooting-the-relationship-between-art-and-tech

Henry Jenkins (2006) The official weblog of Henry Jenkins [Internet] available at:

http://henryjenkins.org/2006/07/are_games_art_wii_i_mean_oui_1.html

(2015) Video games as an art form [Internet] available at: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_games_as_an_art_form

(2015) Gamasutra [Internet] available at:

 http://www.gamasutra.com/

(2013) Games as art [Internet] available at:

https://gamesasartnow.wordpress.com/quotes/

(2015) William Morris & Co [Internet] available at:

https://www.william-morris.co.uk/a-full-history/

(2012) Tearaway - Gamescom 2012 Announce Trailer [Video] available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK6_QvdxyXQ

(2012) The Art of Video Games: Interview with Henry Jenkins [Video] available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBOhtr1vTk0

(2014) NEW Oculus Rift 2! Head-Tracking + 1080p, Playing My Neighbor Totoro! [Video] available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgY2FvrUcTA

(2012) John Berger / Ways of Seeing, Episode 1 (1972) [Video] available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk

(2014) Ways of seeing [Video] available at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ways_of_Seeing

Helen Dore, (1996) William Morris. London; Reed International Books.    

Quotes relating to video games being pieces of art

“One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite an immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.”

Roger Ebert

“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. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.”

Roger Ebert

“Games are not just art, they are the most revolutionary form of art mankind has ever known about.”
Advergame designer Santiago Sir

“I feel video games are probably the most advanced form of art thus far in human history. Not only do video games encompass many of the traditional forms of art (text, sound, video, imagery), but they also uniquely tie these art forms together with interactivity. This allows the art form of video games to create something unique, beyond all other forms of media. Video games are the ultimate form of art as we know it.”
Denis Dyack, president of Silicon Knights

“Video games use images, actions, and player participation to tell stories and engage their audiences. In the same way as film, animation, and performance, they can be considered a compelling and influential form of narrative art.”
Smithsonian American Art Museum

“How many times does a generation get to witness the birth of an entirely new artistic medium? I mean games could be the collaboration between everything we’ve learned to date, as humans, about telling stories through visuals, through audio, and now with the added component of interactivity. I do think that we are on the precipice of an extremely exciting time right now, and that this is an amazing opportunity that we’re being given here.”
Kellee Santiago, TEDxUSC “Are Video Games Art?” presentation

“We need to try to understand and analyze methods of our art form to elevate the medium and make better entertainment. Thinking about games as ‘art’ is simply the first basic step.”
Denis Dyack

“My memory has always been lousy and it’s not improving with age. But it’s good enough to remember a time when the government was trying to do to comic books what some politicians now want to do with video games: censor them and prohibit their sales. It was a bad idea half a century ago and it’s just as bad an idea now”
Stan Lee, on bill HB 1423

“I believe passionately that games are an art form and that the power of our medium flows from our audience, who are deeply involved in how the story unfolds and who have the uncontested right to provide constructive criticism. At the same time, I also believe in and support the artistic choices made by the development team.”
Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare, in response to the mixed reception of Mass Effect 3‘s ending


“Destroying or killing is not the ultimate definition of interactivity. Changing something in your environment, talking to someone, feeling something, making a meaningful decision — this is interactivity, too. And it’s just as meaningful and interesting.”
David Cage, creator of Heavy Rain

“I feel video games are probably the most advanced form of art thus far in human history. Not only do video games encompass many of the traditional forms of art (text, sound, video, imagery), but they also uniquely tie these art forms together with interactivity. This allows the art form of video games to create something unique, beyond all other forms of media. Video games are the ultimate form of art as we know it.”
Denis Dyack, president of Silicon Knights


“Art is measured not in terms of what it means to the artist but instead what it means to the reader.”
Henry Jenkins

I can't tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that art has often judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past has suffered, so that it has never been forgotten.
John Berger



“Reproduction should make it easier to connect our experience of art directly with our other experiences."
John Berger


"I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few." 
William Morris

Plan for my essay

• Title of the essay. This will be a question relating to the topic you are writing about.
• Something along the lines of: ‘How has Art progressed using the medium of video games and were will this lead in the future?’
• Introduction. Mention vaguely what you will be writing about in your essay as just a warm up to the main piece so don’t go into too much detail.
• First Paragraph. This will be a talking about the progression of art in the past specifically via the use of print media and the arts and craft movement.
• This will vaguely focus on subject of how the public are able to view pieces of artwork without having to go see them in person but mostly just about the evolution of the art itself.
• Focus on William Morris for this paragraph and how he used his artwork as wallpaper to bring colour to people’s homes after the industrial revolution and how this was the beginnings of art and technology becoming one.
• Second Paragraph. This will lead on from my last paragraph and focus on William Morris’s art being used in a game which is ‘The Strawberry Thief’ by Sophia George.
• Write briefly about how this is a progression of his art work using digital media and how the player is allowed to be creative. 
• Make sure that you mention that ALL games are pieces of art and are now becoming immersive via the form of 3D technology and devices such as the oculus rift.
• Talk about the ‘My neighbour Totoro’ oculus rift game allowing the player to be inside a world that was originally 2D animated.
• Third paragraph. This will briefly be mentioning the use of player immersion and creativity via the use of user generated content. Look at the game ‘Tearaway’.
• Focus how in some games player can actually create their own elements to the art of the game via mods.
• Mention ‘The Sims 3’ and ‘Team Fortress 2’
• Conclusion. Discuss how these different elements of progression of art video the form of video games could possibly expand and advance in the future.

Summary of my essay

What I want to focus on


For my BA6 Contextual Studies project I would like to focus on the artistic side of video games due to the fact that this is the area out of the three we were given that appeals to me the most and I believe that due to my interest in this specific topic I would be able to write a good deal more. I have been able to narrow down my essay subject to something that covers quite a broad range of content and I shall be focusing on two different interlinking topics. The first area that I will be writing about is how Art has progressed through the digital form of video games which will entail discussing things such as the evolution from two dimensions to three dimensions and also how traditional art work has effected the design of games.  Secondly I shall be focusing on how a user or player is now able to interact with certain videos games in a digital design sense, thus making them more personal and ‘creative’ and also looking into the growth of user generated content. Once I have described the basis of both of these topics I will them discuss future casting so how this concept of artist creativity could possibly progress and change in the future as technology advances. 

BA6

Advanced Games Studies and Research