Jesse Bergerstock
Aug 9, 2017 · 2 min read

I’ve become aware that over the internet disagreement is usually associated with antagonism; know that I’m not being antagonistic, rather merely discussing my perspective as a means of exchanging ideas.

This article seems to lack a certain appreciation for a theory, or a domain specific vocabulary. Yes, art is ambiguous when faced against the onslaught of every theory who describes art. In a similar way, given the term ‘physics’ without a particular context may imply one out of several theories of physics. But like physics, when you say something is a form of art, you’re making certain implications; at the very least it implies theme, metaphor and a modelling of the human experience. For example, back to physics, if there’s multiple theories of physics, then each theory should at least be an attempt to model the physical nature of our reality.

Now why is this useful, to use a word to describe a set of concepts who maintain some intersect of properties? I think the pragmatic utility is the use of analogy via abstraction. As an example, let’s peak back into physics. If I describe both sound and light in the structure of a wave formation, I then can think of one in terms of the other. So now whenever something interesting is extracted from the model we dub light, this finding can be compared to the model we dub sound and vise versa. This means of a common abstraction allows for me to go on and study the art of comics, film, literature, and so on, then come back with something useful to say about my art form. I use the word art not as a specification of any one thing, but rather to conveniently categorize for the purpose of comparison with other things we might call art due to their similar structure.

By calling games art, it may “castrate” them as you say by forcing the ideas through my cookie cutter set of analogies, but it also allows for a mature set of theory to think through. Games sometimes attempt to convey theme via metaphor of not only gameplay mechanics, but other forms of art as you well know. By ignoring the entire summation of humanity’s documented knowledge on this common concept we’ve called ‘art’, I leave aside a volume of intelligence to stand upon. Theory and semantics aren’t always easy, and many people confuse a common word between multiple contexts as intending to mean the same thing, but there certainly is something to gain here that shouldn’t be dismissed. Games aren’t always art, but when they are, it might be worth checking in to see what Van Gogh has to say about your themes.

Thanks for taking your time to write this article, please continue to share and refine ideas like this.

    Jesse Bergerstock

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    Till the man comes around.