Blocks

I've just been playing Tetris and listening to jazz. It's a winning combination. I started to think there should be a jazz version of Tetris. You would get points for the interesting and beautiful shapes you produced. Perhaps there could be the image of a hip-cat beatnik who would come on screen, saying approving things like "I can dig!" or "that's real crazy, daddio!".

But then I thought maybe Tetris is already like jazz. You have all these disparate shapes, falling without rhyme or reason, and it's up to you to flip them around and move them and transform them into a pleasing whole, by dropping them into a pleasing hole.

The completed rows and blocks are the resultant music. You also have bits where you mess up, and the blocks fall untidily (which is often fun). That's the discord that contrasts with the solid stuff. So Tetris = Russian jazz.

That's probably all stupid. But it got me further thinking about video games and art. Are video games art? I think they probably are. As I've said before, I don't think there are any clear cut distinctions between art and culture and any number of other human activities conducted for their own sake.

So football and philosophy and sculpture and Mario Kart are all on the same continuum.

Of course, video games require participation from the consumer. But all art does this (and I'm not just talking about modern experimental art exhibitions). The appreciation of art is always a kind of negotiation between the art and the consumer. It's never a straight process of sensory intake. We approach all pieces of art with a preconceived set of ideals and experiences that effect how we engage with art.

I've studied a bit of literary criticsm, and a bit of aesthetics, so I probably used to know more about this. But I think meaning is constructed through a dialogue between art and consumer (and the different schools of theory just put the emphasis on different parts of the process).

So video games are a literalisation (is that a word?) of that process. It's an explicit dialogue with the piece. Instead of some internal romancing of sensory perception and mental or emotional biases, we interact by pressing the 'A' button or the down arrow.

Video games are made to elicit certain responses from the gamer. But then again, so are most films. There's no doubt that video games can be beautiful, and can (although don't often) deal with deep ideas and concepts.

The reasons games aren't respected as art, are probably:
1) They're stigmatised as kids' toys, and are seen as simple at best and destructive at worst.
and
2) A bit like wrestling, the quality of a game, and the ability to appreciate it, is based around a knowledge and understanding of the conventions of the medium. You can't judge a game based on the same critera as other media (eg, you can't say how good a game's graphics are by applying traditional fine art criticism, you can't judge the writing on the same terms as a novel etc).

It's strange that such a prevalent cultural product is neglected by much of society. But then again, maybe it's not so surprising. Video games have only been around for thirty-odd years. I'm sure it took people a while to start taking film seriously. They had to get used to not running away from the on-screen train that appeared to be hurtling towards them.

When I'm a grown up, I'll do my bit to foster understanding of games as an artform. How will I do that, you ask?

Simple.

Jazz Tetris.

You dig, daddio?