There may not be any real definition of art but people have tried to come up with a definition. According to Maraviglia (Smashing Magazine, 2010) art can be considered the 'process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions'. So then that would mean digital media is art. However Ebert (Videos games can never be art, 2010) is persistent that video games are not pieces of art work, the author states that 'no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form'. Although Ebert also stated in another article that 'No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, film makers, novelists'. This quote is representing the opinion that Ebert sees film/ videos as art as he clearly specified film makers as artists. So why not video games they're both digital media the only exception is that you are more interactive with a video game.
It is clear that most people see digital media as artists took advantage of computer software and digital communications. This portrays that digital media may not have started off as an artists tool but artists exploited the medium and made it their goal to make artwork using the medium. Many people could say that it still has nothing to do with art due to video art emerging from two technologies which had nothing to do with art. But computers were very expensive when they was first founded and was only available to art schools, universities and research centres, before it became available to the public. That portrays that the companies would have seen the artworks made using computers as art as the were available to art schools first. So it must be an artists tool. Abraham Moles stated 'The scientific image- technical, medical, geographical- lies ... at the very origins of what we shall refer to here as computer art...' This not only presents is opinion of digital media but it also shows us that he sees all media as computer art whether it's a picture of a map or an x-ray scan. It is still computer art to him. His opinion is very valid as a medium is something that communicates a message, the medium is what portrays the message, such as a piece of paper. That must mean that a computer screen and television screens are mediums as the can portray a message to the audience. It is understandable that when the technology first came out it was not seen as a tool for art as it was not created for that purpose. But now that artists have had the chance to experiment with the machines surely their pieces of work created using that medium would be seen as art. Artists had set out to create artwork with digital media so it should be seen as digital art. Digital art/ Media art is pieces of artwork that have used new technologies in order to create them such as digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, art as biotechnology, internet art, virtual art, video games, interactive art and computer robotics.
Digital media has a strong affect on people whether it is good or bad such as Tim Burton was influenced by man famous artists like Wes Craven, Ronald Dahl, Stephen King and Steven Spielberg. However on the bad side, video games have been slated as the common dominator of violence from young adults. For Example the school shooting that occurred in 2012 was said to have been caused by the shooter owning an xbox. The xbox supposedly influenced the man to kill innocent people.
There are many art styles in digital art which consist of visuals, sound/music, story telling. Visuals include the way it has been portrayed through the way it looks. For example a children's film cold be bright and colourful, friendly tones whereas for a more mature audience it could be dark and more realistic. The story telling part could consist of the way it is told and what is being showed to the audience, this could help the audience to feel the emotions the director wants them to feel. The sound track/ music help to get the audience to feel the emotions more towards the characters. It also helps helps to set up when something is going to happen such as when a scary bit in a film is going to happen dark music will begin to play. Music can also tell a story with in the lyrics for instance Everybody's Fool by Evanescence tells a story of a woman who is lost in doing things that affect who she really is. Se feels her actions and day to day life is betraying who she is . All these styles are forms of art as a painting tells a story, helps you to feel emotions ad it visually created in different ways. Such as a vanitas painting would be dark and disturbing and each object in the painting would represent some sort of meaning e.g a mirror would represent being vain. So basically digital media acts as a meeting point for many art forms visuals, musicals and story telling.
Artists have used many different visuals to get their point across. There are comic styles, realistic, cartoons, simplistic and abstract. The Walking Dead Game, Episodes series has used the comic book style which works well in order to link it to the original comic books. This essentially gets the player to play the characters in the comic book, so it gets the audience more involved. This also helps to keep originality with in two different mediums of the same type of story. It also helps you to see more of the story in a different way where the audience has more control over the outcomes.
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The film RED has used music really well throughout as when Bruce Willis jumps out of the car whilst it is still moving and he is shooting happens, the audience really gets goosebumps as the music kicks in at the perfect time and it is very up beat and base like. This helps to get the audience involved in the action and it gets their hearts racing. The Avengers movie also has used music to their advantage throughout in order to set certain tones within the movie. This music is also mainly high tempo and up beat. When Iron Man enters a scene 'Shoot to kill' b ACDC starts to play which links in perfectly with Iron Man as Tony Starks who is Iron Man is very child-like and doesn't take thins seriously, however when he plays Iron Man he looks serious and is essentially dangerous.The song is massively known world wide and is also up beat and not to serious. The music starts a the perfect time when he enters which enhances the experience for the audience. It gets the audience to feel what the characters feel more.
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The story telling side is essential, as if you do not have a good story to tell, that wouldn't catch the audiences eyes then our film/ game wouldn't do very well when selling and when it is being criticized. Mary and Max is a disturbing animation that has succeeded in the story telling department. The story consists of two pen pals that have been writing to one another about their problems in life. They initially are best friends. Well the story gets disturbing as one of the pen pals end up committing suicide. This story is told so well that you really connect with the character and you feel heart broken when the tragedy occurs. It also as that shock factor due to it being a child like animation in the style of Wallace and Gromit. It has the shock value as you wouldn't expect such a dark tone in a child like animation. The Walking Dead Episodes (Game) has a different type of story that has also succeeded in telling the story. It is different as there are various stories where you get to choose which path the character takes. This could result in one of the characters friends dying or you could end up saving a strangers life etc... So this type of story as many endings much like the old fashioned books where you et to choose the path like The Cave Of Time by Edward Packard which was a very popular children's book were the reader makes all the decisions. The only problem is when it is written in book you can pretty much cheat very easily, as you can change your mind at any time and pretend like you didn't choose the other route. This mean that you won't fulfil to the original end for you. Although in a game you do not know what is coming next and when you have chosen the path you want to take then you have to stick with it until the end. This type of game has re-playability as you can start from the beginning once competed to see what happens if you do things differently. Bio Shock Infinite has also got a different story telling genre as you can experience various separate stories with in the same experience. This could be so that the audience gets to see all the characters back stories and how they got to where the are in the game. Bio Shock Infinite did this brilliantly in the game. There have been movies that have tried to include this element of story telling. Not many have succeeded as you have to keep the audience interested throughout the film. This type of story telling can often get the audience confused and bored. However Pulp Fiction managed to do it well with keeping the audience interested throughout. They also linked al the characters together well. As well as LXD the webisodes that started off as webisodes but then was converted in to three films. The audience was interested throughout like Pulp Fiction. Every time a episode finished you wanted to see more of each character as you want to know what happens to. The difference with LXD is that they have used some interpretive dance to tell the story of most of the characters.
Photo realistic computer animation is used in video games, live action films and full animated films. In live action films it is mainly used to help to make things tat can not be real look real. This helps the movie more realistic to the audience. The audience gets more intrigued by this as they start to wonder and question them selves in what is really real and what is not. A good example of this is Eight Legged Freaks about enormous spiders that harass humans and eat them. This film works very well as it really gets the audience paranoid about how big spiders can really get and if the can actually get bigger than humans. Another reason that photo realism is used in films is to create special affects in live action scenes like in the SAW series. They use special effects when the victims are stuck in Jigsaws torture chambers like the scene in SAW six where Tanedra Howard cuts her arm off. In SAW they look extremely realistic and the audience starts to imagine what sort of pain the may be going through. In Full animated films the ave used photo realism in order to make the cartoon look more real this would help the audience connect more wit the characters as they would relate to them more if they were human like. However in animations they may not look realistic but they can have very realistic stories to the characters. In games is where photorealism is used most as they want to make the characters human like for the gamer to interact with them more. It also astonishes the audience when the see how realistic the artist can make them look. This would make the customers want to buy them
more as the can see they are getting there moneys worth in the looks department. A game that doe this amazingly is Battlefield Bad Company Two as the sceneries look astonishing and realistic. Also Far Cry Three has a talent for making astonishing environments. Far Cry Three also have realistic like characters that make the customer bond more. Photo realism originate from paintings as artists wanted them to look like photographs although photographs came out at a later stage. A famous painting that looks incredibly real is the Mona Lisa created by Leonardo Da Vinci.
Journey the game holds a 92 Metacritic score and as received a 9.0 out of 10 from the likes of IGN and Game Informer. Te game is said to be universally acclaimed. This could be because of the story, visuals and music used. The story is told 'wordlessly' throughout the game, it consists of the main character travelling towards a distant mountain and finding lost ruins of what used to be populated. In the ruins you come across stones where the traveller rests. As the traveller rests you conjure a vision of you journey so far and you acknowledge what has happened to the once lived village. The journey continues up to a once lived city at the bottom of the mountains. The traveller continues further by climbing the mountain. Climbing the mountain is a difficult task for the player due to the climate change, like real mountains would be. Robed characters appear to re-energise the character in order to reach the top. The story is told incredibly well although there is no speech throughout. This portrays this simplistic nature of the game. The visuals are also simplistic but affective. It is simple an beautiful to look at. It was nominated for Best overall Graphics, Best overall Story, Best Overall Music, Game of the Year, Best PS3 Graphics, Best PS3 Sound, Best PS3 story, Best Playstation Network Game and Best PS3 game nominee by IGN Best of 2012. At Machinima Gaming Awards Journey won the Best Art Direction. Also at X-play Best of 2012 it recieved awards for Best Art Direction and Best Original game. Journey received the first Grammy nomination for a video game in soundtrack for visual media. It is also the 'fastest selling Playstation Network game of all time'. The soundtrack is simply sensational and inspiring . The music goes perfectly with the story and visuals as they are all simple but done so well ad creative. For a game that only lasts two hours of game play it has certainly done extremely well wit its' audience and critical score.
The game has been completely stripped down to its' simplest form. This can be seen with the simplified game mechanics. The game mechanics consist of simple movements including walking and jumping.The journey to the mountains summit could be seen as a statement on objects seen in modern games.
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A certain artistic animation 'Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase' really links with contemporary fine arts. It really links to it as it presents all sorts of famous paintings mixing together to form one another. The animation was created with the animation technique, clay painting. Clay painting works just like ordinary painting with oils or acrylic paints, you just use clay in replacement. Gratz piece is pretty much 'a history of art' a Aex Santoso says. The Descending a Staircase animation as won an OSCAR in 1993 for the Best Animated short, it has also received a Golden Conch (1994) for Best Animation Film. At Chicago International Film Festival it received a Gold Plague for Best Short Film (1992). In 1993 at Melbourne International Film Festival it won for Best Short Animation yet again.Ottawa International Animation Festival presented Gratz with a Media Prize for Best Experimental Animation in 1992
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I conclusion digital media has many controversial affects on society. Man people do not even believe it is art and others strongly believe it is art. It all depends on what audience you have and what you, the artist is aiming for, audience wise. There are also some people who believe it is art but they believe it has a bad influence on society for instance video games. However many customers have been influenced b digital arts. So it has mixed responses, it depends on how you the viewer sees it.
References
De Meredeu, Florence (2005) New Media Art, Edinburg, Chambers
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Carlson, C. Don't Blame Violent video games, The Diamondback
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http://maryandmax.com/ (Accessed 13 April 2013)
Cooper,H. The Walking Dead Review, GamesRadar
http://www.gamesradar.com/the-walking-dead-review/ (Accessed 10 April 2013)
Community Review, Goodreads
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LXD, IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1743034/ (Accessed 10 April 2013)
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SCEA. Journey for Playstation 3, Metacritic
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/journey (Accessed 10 April 2013)
Clements, R. Journey Review, IGN
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/03/01/journey-review (Accessed 10 April 2013)
Rhode, S. Journey Transcends, Playstation blog
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/12/13/journey-transcends-gaming-with-grammy-nomination-other-big-wins/ (Accessed 13 April 2013)
Santoso, A. Joan C. Gratz Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase, Neatorama
http://www.neatorama.com/2006/06/28/joan-c-gratz-mona-lisa-descending-a-staircase/ (Accessed 13 April 2013)
IMDB. Mona Lisa Descending a staircase, IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104908/awards (Accessed 13 April 2013)
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