Despite my intention to not follow in the footsteps of the literature review, I never really got much of a chance to write the essay until the weekend. But at least it was much easy to write and reach the word limit.

I just started writing somewhere in the middle then kept writing then later arranged it and added a conclusion and an introduction and tied it all up. Not as well as I might have liked, on the bus home from handing it in on Monday I reflected on it and thought it was a bit simplistic. There is so much detail I could have gone into. But then again 1000 to 1500 words is not a lot of space once you have enough ideas.

Also, two thirds of the way through I re-read the brief to see if I was on track and decided that in some ways I wasn't really. It specifically asked for minimal quotes or discussion from other sources. But I needed to add so much background. Perhaps if I'd known where I was going in the literature review I might have added appropriate material there and then put my reading of everything in the essay as asked. But I wont be too hard on myself, it was my first go at this sort of thing, it's hard to know where one is going when the information about what we are doing is staggered out while I could always improve my time management, I was busy with studio work.

I found it easier to write this time because I relaxed about the "academic writing" thing. I wrote slightly more to my personal style although more formal. I don't care if there are more learned people who disagree, I find academic writing that no one can understand a bit poncy. What's so difficult about writing in a style that is easy for a lay person to read, and why is it bad if you are still presenting complex subject matter? Until this question can be answered satisfactorily I'll remain sceptical about some of the intention behind academic writing.

Anyway, a friend just pointed out to me that I am supposed to upload the damn thing to this blog as well as hand it in. So everyone can see it, ugh. Here goes:

Oh btw, I don't play videogames, I can't stand them. So I'm not looking for some weird justification of them personally. Makes it more fun to argue for them actually.

Maths, Art, Nature, Video games.

Introduction

Mathematics and art to the uninitiated seem to be about as distant subjects as they can possibly be, however this essay will attempt to connect them on multiple levels. One can possibly imagine Mathematics as a tool for art of the renaissance, using perspective and ratio, further diving into other obvious arts such as music and architecture in which mathematics is a fundamental part of keeping a functional piece of art standing. We will explore how maths is used to simulate nature to create works of art that represent nature. We will do this by looking at video games. The reason video games have been chosen is because of recent controversy regarding the subject, and whether they can in fact be an art form. We will start with some background on this controversy.

Video games as Art?

In 2005, respected film critic Roger Ebert answered a question from a reader in regards to whether video games can be considered art. He responded, part of which was “I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art.” ¹

In August 2009, game innovator Kellee Santiago gave a TED talk ² opposing Ebert’s view, saying that games are already art, citing three experimental games as examples. One was called Waco Resurrection, that took the form of a Role Playing Game (RPG) where the player first had to don a mask of David Koresh, then announce “I am David Koresh”. The player has to cast spells using their voice in-game. The game is in “total chaos” through out, and difficult to navigate. Kellee describe the game as an expression of the developers not of what really happened in Waco, but what happened in “culture and society as a result”.

Another example was an Xbox 360 game called Braid, that explored the player’s relationship with their past by allowing them to rewind time every time they die, and follow a story as the game continued. The third example called “Flower” explored the relationship between an urban environment and nature by tracking the progress of a flower seed blowing in the wind which controlled by the player.

While poor examples, Ebert was motivated to respond in a blog post ³ in the Chicago Sunday Times and label them as “pathetic”. To date, there are over 4730 comments to his article. At about 4500 comments, he responded with another blog post entitled “Okay, kids, play on my lawn”. ⁴ In the post he conceded two main issues:

One is that he did not play video games and was not interested in doing so. Therefore was probably not qualified to comment.

The other point was that he had never provided a definition of art. To this he supplied a definition from the Oxford Dictionary of English:

“[noun] the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power: the art of the Renaissance | great art is concerned with moral imperfections | she studied art in Paris. | art, fine art, artwork, creative activity. • works produced by such skill and imagination: his collection of modern art | an art critic. • creative activity resulting in the production of paintings, drawings, or sculpture: she’s good at art.”

One game in particular was mentioned multiple times according to Ebert, “Shadow of the Colossus” for Playstation 2. Shadow of the Colossus has been described as a work of art, ⁵ it is an unusual game with nothing to explore, just a wasteland, forcing players to paint their own picture as to why it became this way.

Art’s various definitions

The definition of art is problematic. It has changed as art has changed. An early attempt was made by Greek philosopher Aristotle, he defined art as an imitation of nature. This raises several issues in regards to modern art that is not representational in a conventional sense. It really seems that no single definition can be arrived at without excluding at least one form of art. For the purpose of the project accompanying this essay however, Aristotle’s definition very useful. The project will be a video game that will produce art by modelling physical laws of nature. However the project will still work if one is to use the Oxford definition. The quality of the art will to at least some degree be controlled by the player.

Another one of Ebert’s criticism of video games was that games by nature gave multiple scenarios and kept a score. You had to win a game. To this end, the project game keeps no score, as there is nothing to score. Winning is producing a piece with interesting quality.

Interactive Art

Art installations that have some form of interactively involved have increased with the advent technology, in particular digital programmable technology. But interactive art is not always so apparent.

In October 2010, Stuff.co.nz reported an installation by Tao Wells, an artist who explains that he has been on the unemployment benefit “on and off since 1997”. ⁶ His piece is called ‘The Beneficiary’s Office’ and it urges people to abandon jobs that they dislike rather than suffer ‘slavery’. Controversy has surrounded the piece as it is part of a $53,000 performance installation series, and Wells received $2,000 for the piece. The reaction it has generated with public in various forums is a form of on-going interactively and arguably part of the piece.

This is mentioned as it is an intermediary step between art which one may for example hang on a wall and look at and art that contains some form of gadgetry to create an interactive experience. It also seems that while interactive art installations are often a personal experience, or shared by those few people around one, Well’s statement involves the entire society up and down the country, anyone who will chose to participate. Much like a video game community.

Mathematics

A fundamental part of all video games is mathematics. Even for a most basic game, that written in a high level language, the creator will be confronted with a way of keeping the score. At lower levels, computers are machines of logic and pure mathematics is taking place every second. More complex games will require collision detection of on-screen elements of some sort, and the majority of games released today are in 3D environments. The mathematics involved simply drawing a successful 3D environment include an algebra, geometry ⁷ such as understanding of co-ordinates and vectors, matrix transformation and projection into a 2D co-ordinate system (the screen).

Added to simply rendering a 3D environment, one needs to create some degree of realistic physics. Objects need to detect collisions, not simply pass through each other. They need to fall with gravity. Objects need difference forces acting on them and energy needs to be transferred so that an objects inertia changes as it does in the real world, providing it is the real world that is being simulated. Physics is then taken a step further in rendering as light and reflections are calculated to simulate real-world conditions.

Conclusion

In order to model reality, nature, or a version of it, one requires multiple types of mathematics, from simply describing objects, their space, physical laws and interactions and light ray tracing. This simply cannot be avoided in the creation of video games or modelling of nature on a computer. It is fundamental. From there, using computers and mathematics as a tool one can concentrate on higher concepts such as the aesthetic of the game, and what it is expressing. Essentially one can use mathematics to produce a work of art.

References

1. Ebert, R.   (2005, November 27).   Why did the chicken cross the genders?.   Retrieved from https://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=answerman&date=20051127
2. Santiago, K.   (2009, March 29).   TEDxUSC - Kellee Santiago - 3/23/09.   Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9y6MYDSAww&
3. Ebert, R.   (2010, April 15).   Video games can never be art.   Retrieved from https://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html
4. Ebert, R.   (2010, April 15).   Okay, kids, play on my lawn.   Retrieved from https://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/okay_kids_play_on_my_lawn.html
5. Roper, C.   (2005, October 17).   Shadow of the Colossus Review.   Retrieved from https://au.ps2.ign.com/articles/658/658991p1.html
6. Nicholes, L.   (2010, October 5).   The Dominion Post.   Retrieved from https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/4239839/Artist-paints-noble-picture-of-dole
7. Dunn, F & Parberry, I.   (2002).   3D Math Primer for Games and Graphics development.   Wordware Publishing, Inc.   Retrieved from https://www.gamemath.com