Today’s agenda:
- Set up and discuss the game journals using Google Docs
- Discuss Aristotle
- Generate list of games
Game Journals
As I mentioned in the first class, I will be asking you to keep a game journal for the next couple of weeks as we work on project one. Essentially, I will ask you to play a game for (at least) 45 minutes and spend 15 minutes writing about your game. Following our discussion of Aristotle below, I will be asking you to record not only what happens in the game, but to speculate as to the “action” of the game (what we might more commonly refer to as “theme”). I will also periodically ask you to write about our reading and class discussion in this journal.
Here’s what you all need to do: you need to create a Google Doc and share it with me, making sure that I have permission to at least “comment” on the document. You should copy and paste this sample game journal into that document.
Also, I want to show a sample document from last class.
The purpose for the journal is inventive–it is a place for you to be able to think in writing as you are playing.
Aristotle: Mimesis and Catharsis
I’ve asked you to read two pieces on Aristotle, a summary of the Poetics and the wikipedia page dealing with mimesis. Below I want to address these pieces in order to articulate a basic understanding of art.
Our discussion of Aristotle will center around two key terms: mimesis and catharsis.
Mimesis
The stock definition of the ancient Greek term memesis is “imitation,” though the more precise philosophical sense, attributed to Plato and Aristotle, is often “representation.”
Plato, Aristotle’s teacher, was suspicious of art because it was merely memesis- that is, representation of the material world (which itself is a mere representation of a transcendental Ideal/divine world). For Plato, being a representation (a copy, an imitation) was a pejorative. Anticipating Karl Marx by about 2000 years, Plato believed art was a kind of opiate that distracted people from engaging more important questions and problems.
But Aristotle rejects Plato’s condemnation, and actually argues that mimesis is superior to reality (or that art is superior to history). Because the artist has the power to represent things not as they are, but as they should be or as they could be. This is how I interpret Aristotle’s argument that art represents “men in action” either “better than in real life, or […] worse” (I.10.a). This exaggeration provides art with its pedagogic potential–the core to Aristotle’s defense of art. He writes:
Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in thing imitated.
To understand what Aristotle means by contributing to our advancement and learning, one must recognize the difference between plot and theme, what Aristotle designates as the difference between “narrative” and “action.” This gets us at the heart of what art imitates–what is the “action” of a poetic drama (which in Ancient Greece is a catch-all term for all artistic production). Plot is what happens in the narrative. Theme indicates what the narrative “is about.” To be more explicit: what general problem/tendency of the human condition does this particular story address? What does it teach us of the struggle to be human? to be better? to live the good life? So by memesis, imitation, representation Aristotelian aesthetics points to how (or whether) a piece of art instructs on how to live. Art shows us examples of characters (ways of being in the world), and–as we will see below in the discussion of catharsis–it often provides us with models for how to respond (or, in the case of tragedy, how not to respond) to the challenges of human existence.
When Ebert challenges that games cannot be art, when he calls them immature, I believe he is pointing to their “theme,” although he has not provided a sufficiently robust definition of art to support the claim.
So, when writing about your game in the gaming journal, I want you to distill the theme for your game. What kind of character does its characters represent? What does it attempt to teach? Is it an immature game that teaches us nothing special? Or is there something more didactic there?
Catharsis
Above, Aristotle referenced the “pleasure” experience via art as one of the two primary causes for poetry. Pleasure here must be scare quoted, because often the impact of aesthetic works isn’t necessarily enjoyable. Aristotle is approaching one of those timeless introductory questions to the humanities: why do we enjoy things that make us cry?
His answer is catharsis, the process which, by watching/experiencing a narrative of struggle with which we identify, we are able to purge ourselves of those emotions. He writes:
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action, that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions. (VI. 1-2)
Of course, there is something memetic or pedagogical going on here as well–we are learning the proper way to handle those difficult situations in life. But we are also releasing frustrations. This, Aristotle argues, is essential to human life. Gain and struggle are unavoidable. Art not only teaches us how to deal with such difficulties, but also helps us cope with the frustrations we accumulate on a daily basis.
As you are playing, be on the look out for cathartic moments. As Miranda addressed in her game journal, pay attention to the way a game is designed to make you feel.
Artistic Games
Our third goal today is to create a list of artistic games. There’s a few tools (besides our own heads) that we can use to help this process.
The first off, we can look at the 2015 Independent Game Awards finalists. That should give us a list of interesting games to check out, especially for folks who want to try the road less taken.
We can also look at the 2014 Game Awards winners–this is a far more mainstream outlet (though it has an independent games category).
One last tool we should use: HowLongToBeat.com. Games require a pretty significant time investment–anything from 8 to 60 hours on average to complete a story. As we put together our spreadsheet in class today, I will ask you to look up the time-to-beat on the website so we can give the noobs a sense of what they are signing up for. Note that I don’t think all the indie games will show up here, but indie games tend to be much shorter than AAA games.
Homework:
First, I want you to write for five minutes about Aristotle in your game journal. Write sentences that summarize mimesis and catharsis in your own words.
Second, I want you to read the excerpts from Tolstoy’s “What is Art?” You should then write in your gaming journal about Tolstoy, using a transition into a quote similar to the ones I use above to transition into Aristotle (so, a sentence that sets up the quote, the quote, then a sentence that summarizes the quote, and finally a sentence that speaks to the significance of the quote).
Third, I want you to make a play entry in your game journal. Play a game for 45 minutes and then write about it for 15 minutes.
