For example, the idea that a mass-produced object with no redeeming qualities gains a completely different status from any other blue box by virtue of being linked to a relevant name and placed in a museum, Duchamp-style.
That's pretty much why I think it's absurd and called it a “painting“.
Or maybe I still don't “get it“. But I feel this is one case where I'm OK with that. I'm not the artsy type.
I don't think you need to be "artsy" to recognize when the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.
Currently Playing: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (NS2); Corpse Factory (PC)
@Ralizah The Switch UI is perfect. It can be considered minimalist, but I consider it to not be attempting to be artful at all. It's a utilitarian tool. A switchboard. A dial pad. It's something to toggle machine settings and launch games. I don't need a stylish screwdriver, I just need one with a straight blade. iOS on the other hand is aiming to be "stylish through minimalism" as opposed to being utilitarian. Of course, it's Apple, that's their market, but still. Then Microsoft followed suit (though Win10/X1 is the most cluttered minimalist creation I've ever seen) But branding, logos, etc, have decided "stark white and bare bones" is the modern design language.
But it goes back further. Look at architecture and retail spaces. Think of 80's malls when neon and color, and clashing styles were all the rage. Leftover bits of the edges and angles of Art Deco, the earth tones of the 70's etc. Then in the 90's the revamped them. They all became straight lines, high arches, and colored in shades of white. Everything became hospital-like uniformity. Mass manufactured homogenization of all things into simple basic bare bones standardized formats. It's an industrial efficiency where everything is "unique just like everything else"....that it's happening across the board in architecture, art, corporate, tool/interface designs screams of a lack of creativity.
I'm not a high style person. I prefer natural tones to everything. Understated/classic everything. But it's a disturbing trend in that it's raw efficiency prized over all else now like the whole world is just a giant factory.
@MarcelRguez We get it. A bunch of snobby artists were fed up with the direction of art in their day and decided to, artistically, flip the academics the bird. Then somewhere along the way, the academics, being so self absorbed in their own philosophical debates, and eternal "right-ness", missed the fact they were being flipped the framed bird, and instead held up what they were being shown as the NEW direction of self expression, and evolved an entire study behind interpreting the meanings of expression behind this new format and spawning career-length studies in the field, because they were just too darn dense to realize they'd merely been flipped off.
@NEStalgia I can't say I've noticed the same nightmarish progression toward an all-encompassing colorless uniformity, but I appreciate your passionate feelings about the subject. Then again, I live out in the country, where the past and a sense of history is palpable almost everywhere I look. Certainly, modern design trends are a change from the garish character of... well, everything in the 80's, but, like anything else, they'll give way to new, most likely reactionary design styles as the years go by.
On the subject of philosophy, I studied that in college for years (focus on philosophy of religion and existentialism), and informally studied the subject in high school as well. What I felt most intensely was a massive inferiority complex from the people I met who worked in the field. Also got that sense from a lot of modern commentaries and critiques on other cultural figures.
Currently Playing: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (NS2); Corpse Factory (PC)
@Ralizah Ahh, yeah, in the country that problem doesn't manifest until urban sprawl plows its way through. In the cities, suburbs, exurbs, if it's more than 30 years old it's torn down to a dirt lot and a new, modern, freakishly uniform object is put in its place So much character and charming older buildings, things from between the 50's through 80's, unique places with unique identities, unique histories, virtually every last one of them torn down and replaced with either identical looking tract homes or identical looking strip malls, all with the same stores....I'd need a GPS to find out where I am because it's identical everywhere like the Stepford Buildings. Last time I was out in the true country area that, granted, was largely open fields, the sprawl had clearly begun moving out there too, with more identical looking strip malls, and the unique local landmarks all gone. I don't even mind the expansion as much, but make it UNIQUE looking and feeling. The whole world looks like it's being spat out of a 3D printer using a demo template.
Maybe that's why I dislike Minecraft. Too much reality in it.
Ubisoft's new logo basically looks like the old one got gutted. Perfect representation of the current state of the company with their impending takeover.
@IceClimbers Haha, perfect perspective, actually. Very characteristically fatalistic for a French firm. You might be onto something there.
@Ralizah BTW your description of philosophy is interesting, though I think it's probably characterized that IMO philosophy is more or less a mode of thinking and type of perspective/analysis. Trying to make a profitable career out of it as an actual industry is kind of getting away with murder to begin with. The same applies to a LOT of academia, actually. So their defensive/inferiority mindset probably starts there.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE That thing needs a trigger warning or something!
@Joeynator3000 I had a cat that used to change my settings on PC games all the time.....he was better at some of them than I was....I could never find a way to get those settings back either
Why is it that every time I see that avatar my head starts going with hers?
@MarcelRguez Wahoo, a half a star is still more than no star! "We're number three! We're number three!"
Seriously, though, good writeup. I'm far from an art critic, art theory academic, or artistic person (creative, perhaps, artistic, no.) And yet I can't help but hold the opinion on art that, art simply "is"....an art theory academic is just an egotist that can't get over themselves, and anyone TRYING to be artistic already failed. If something is art, then it simply is on the merit of what it is.
When I look at film and video games, it's always so clear from the "arthouse" entries that it's trying too hard to be artistic and as a result fails to be art at all. Meanwhile plenty of commercial entries not trying to be art, end up as an unforgettable expression of art.
Video games, even more than film, though, are hard to quantify as art or not art. Their interactivity makes them automatically less an expression of the artist and more a functioning machine that is engineered. But sometimes the art shines through anyway. AFIAK Miyamoto still does not see it as art, but as a product, and as a toy. Of course he comes at it from the angle of an industrial designer.
Thousands of people still searching everywhere for a Switch
Guy: LMAO imma drop a switch out of a plane!
@NEStalgia I think one of the big problems is that, over the past century or so, a LOT of different disciplines have begun muscling in on philosophy's academic territory. Psychology, sociology, biology, physics, cognitive science, neuroscience, etc. etc. have made wide swaths of the field utterly irrelevant outside of the classroom.
It should also be said that, back when American religious extremists were refashioning creationism as "intelligent design" in order to bypass court rulings that prevented them from getting their propaganda into public schools, I noticed a lot of prominent-ish figures in the philosophy world were duped by them. Very disappointing, to say the least.
On a more on-topic note, I ordered one of those 8bitdo SNES controllers for my Switch. If it works well, I'll have the perfect controller for those Neo-Geo games I'm about to purchase. It also works on PC and Android, so it'll be perfect for my emulators as well. Assuming it works. Most of the buzz around them has been good, but a few people are VERY negative. I'll be sure to post impressions after I get it.
@Ralizah@SLIGEACH_EIRE Although the big take-away here is despite all the hand wringing in march about screen scratches and defective joycons, my personal favorite, the warping tablet, and whatnot, the Switch is approaching DMG Game Boy levels of durability here!! Throw it out of an airplane, and it just bounces, you buy a new joycon and off you go. Iwata would be proud!
@Ralizah What I love about articles like that, and it's reflection on the inner workings of all the academic disciplines though is, when you read through their self important wordings....both of the individuals referenced in that link, it's always academia looking at itself. Instead of analyzing the world around them they end up analyzing the other analysts and the analysis the latter arrived at by analyzing other analysts. Somewhere along the way they all seem to have forgotten that the whole point of what they're supposed to be doing is analyzing reality, not analyzing the other scribes in their own halls. It becomes a meaningless chess game of aristocrats arguing over whoever can position themselves in the most defensible position. Meanwhile the world outside their walls keeps going unaware of anything going on inside.
Well, it's hard to be more negative on the 8bitdo controllers than people have been on the d-pad-less joycon and the supposedly too sensitive d-pad on the pro controller. Thank goodness I'm not a d-pad based fighting fan vet. It's not "re-learning" to use thumb sticks.
@MarcelRguez Funny I wrote the above before reading your reply and they bear a lot of similar themes
Funny you'd mention Kojma as he's one of those prize examples of "trying too hard" to be art (in his case by imitating the films that try to hard to be art...)
Ubisoft is probably one of the greatest examples of style over substance. It's trying to be art in some places, not trying to be art in others. It doesn't reflect a coherent vision from any one, or any other group, but I'm not sure it's the feedback loop that matters either. Most of that is just repetition based on base instincts and gambling like rewards systems. I dread to think that now counts as "art" and more just gratification loops. But for Ubi it's always about "style". It's shallow art, but I think that's where their art crystallizes.
@MarcelRguez Latency issues. Mushy buttons. Imprecise D-Pad inputs. The usual.
I search for user impressions all over the internet before buying accessories. Most people loved them. A few people were adamant that they're inferior products. Overall, though, the general buzz has been fairly positive. Enough that I'm comfortable biting the bullet and ordering one.
@NEStalgia Reminds me of the Vita: thing looks like it'll shatter if you look at it the wrong way, but my Vita has been FAR more durable than any of my 3DS models.
I mean, this is what happens when a profession grows insular and disconnected from the outside world. It's probably also why no credible philosophical analysis of 2016 and its implications regarding the evolution of Western culture has emerged.
Yeah, I've heard less nasty stuff about the 8bitdo controllers than about the actual official controllers, which is probably a good sign, because my joycons have been nearly perfect.
Forums
Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread
Posts 13,241 to 13,260 of 69,785
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic