Last week, I visited the art fair Art Russia (aka Art Russia). True, I visited only two days out of four, but nevertheless I saw a lot of interesting.
What is interesting there, you ask? Especially for a game lover? But the fact is that with the filing of the Synergy Corporation this year, the contemporary art presented at Art Russia just included video games. As well as comics – primarily European and Japanese (manga). And the last day of the “art forum” (this is when the experts made reports on a separate scene, gave lectures or discussed on various topics) was completely devoted to the discussion of the issue-whether video games (as well as comics) are art.
About Art Russia 2024
Although for starters I still should tell about the exhibition-fair in general. The event was held in the exhibition center "Gostiny Dvor" (this is near the metro station "Square of the Revolution"), where under the glass ceiling there were many stands from various artists and entire groups working in various directions of art.
It was quite convenient in the layout that all the stands (more or less) were located along the four lines passing through the entire hall through the side where the input checkpoints were to the opposite side, where the art forum was the scene of the “art forum”. By the way, it spoke on it all three days, just the first two were mainly topics regarding not games, but digital technologies and contemporary art in general.
Every hour (that is, at 12:00, 13:00 and so on), excursions on the exhibition went from the central entrance. Just for those who were not very oriented in art (or the exhibition itself) it was very useful – after such a small excursion on the most remarkable stands, one could decide which expositions to study more closely. Moreover, in addition to the actual inspection of paintings and sculptures, on many stands it was possible to chat with their authors.
Here you need to wear vr-ocher.
And here are not paintings, but bas -reliefs.
. Even workers – doors open and t.p.
And this is not an exhibit. This is a pointer to the game section and comics.
Of the claims, I would primarily call the absence of Wi-Fi. Especially if you take into account that visitors were now advised to go through the QR code on the site of the guide, where there were both the plan of the exhibition and the schedule of lectures, discussions, master classes and other interesting activities.
Arenadata Art stand. Not a game, but already digital art, where a neural network creates a canvas using the volume of data on the smartphones of visitors for "inspiration".
Each pixel here is a picture https://prime-slots-casino.co.uk/ based on data from someone’s smartphone.
It looks like the contents (more precisely the indicator of the volume of the contents) of the smartphone?
Although the plan of the exhibition was not so needed (as I said, the stands were located quite straightforwardly). But the program, which included what is happening not only on the main stage, but also on different stands (primarily at the stands of “synergy”) would help me participate in some activities that I eventually missed.
About games and comics
The stands from "synergy" were all located along the extreme right (if you look from the entrance) line. Basically, they were zones of “master classes” from teachers and speakers from the University of Synergy, which for several years has been offering training both in the classical format of higher education and individual courses in various specialties. Including creative specialties – an artist, animator, screenwriter, game designer and so on.
As teachers for such courses, “Synergy” primarily takes people who are actively working in the industry who have already released their own successful projects, in common have ideas about current trends and able to tell about the nuances of the modern profession. True, on those master classes and presentations that I saw, I could not hear anything special. And the master class on scenario skill was generally a copy of what was on Fan Fest.
Let me remind you that Fan Fest was held in November last year, and also with the participation of the Corporation/University "Synergy". In general, this is a reasonable strategy – to eliminate comics, animation and gamdazin of those who are already interested in comics, animation and games as consumers and (possibly) want to try Seby in their creation.
These are mini-comics by order by the artist at the stand. The rhino – the Synergy Maskot was already in the template, and the customer comes up with the rest of the plot.
However, Synergy was not the only representative from the world of games and comics. Near the stands of the faculties are the shelves of publishers Molot HardCorp, Alpak, Auf-Commick. At a joint stand, developers from AVM and ANO studios.The gram presented their projects, where they showed a non -standard handling with words and symbols. BUKI game, for example, combines the mechanics of collecting words (by analogies with three-in-seras) and various puzzles.
There is no one at the Buki stand.
Domestic comic book is still gaining momentum. So we got to Perumov.
A few more developers’ teams, although they did not have a stand, made presentations of their projects in the Synergy zone. And even demonstrated gameplay on a pair of computers.
Personally, I managed to test the adventure Fake Dream, whose authors are betting on cinematography and atmosphere (however, not forgetting about puzzles). As well as Atrophia technicock: Diseed Lands. I saw her at the game industry, but she went through a new. The plot authors of Atrophy look at dark fantasy, gray morality and similar things.
And on one of the same computers, I played in the recently released Superball. This is a sports online arcade in the spirit of Knockout City and Rocket League. And she came out exclusively on the crypt b.A.S.E. True, a couple of matches is difficult for me to judge the game and the likelihood of its success.
Unfortunately, I somehow forgot about the "children’s territory", which was on the opposite side of the exhibition. It seems that there were also some master classes, and not only for children, but also for older lovers of anime and manga.
About art and not only
On the last day, almost all performances and discussions on the central scene of the Art forum were dedicated to games and comics. And most of them were spinning around the question whether comics and video games of the status of art deserve.
These discussions evoked mixed feelings in me. On the one hand, I believe that the very formulation of the question “is the game of art?"Is vicious, due to the fact that it rests on the actual definition of art, which in fact is not. More precisely, the definition exists and not one. And the problem is that many of these definitions of art conflict with each other, on which the attitude of certain works and entire areas to art depends entirely on the fact that it is a particular person (or group of people or an entire organization) who considers art to be art.
If you try to ripen the problems in the root, then rather you need to ask the question of what generally means the status of "art". Why critics, authors and other people are interested in drawing a border between art and "non-art"? What benefits/problems are recognized as a particular work as a work of art? And who generally benefits from all these research in the field of art?
And what is noteworthy – at least two of the speakers just raised this topic that occupied me. And I was very glad that the speakers spoke out on those issues, confirming my own considerations. They even mentioned that in addition to critics who do not want to share their “high art” with game critics, even some players and developers speak out against the status of art in order to protect their sphere of entertainment from those very critics who are only happy to accuse some product of improper ideological and cultural orientation.
Also, speakers shared interesting information. For example, several "manifestos" from developers who wanted to prove the status of games as works of art were mentioned here. The manifesto of art-in-real-time, non-manifesto and manifesto "Deep game" from the founder of the studio Ice Pick Lodge Nikolai Dybovsky.
It’s only a pity that the matter did not go beyond the statements. That is, it was suggested that for the analysis of games as art, critics need to develop new criteria and methods (and at the same time learn to play, because it is impossible to completely analyze the sensations from the gameplay, looking at it from the outside). In general, it is worthwhile to figure out in which cases the work of art is considered the game as a whole, and in which its elements. However, until the classification, differentiation and development of criteria, apparently still very far.
Dybovky from Ice Pick Lodge, by the way, promised to come to the fair and participate in this discussion. But never arrived.
On the other hand, if art is more likely a matter of status than criteria, it turns out that conversations about belonging to art, government grants and support, the very fact of setting games in museums and a serious analysis by academicians – all this already means recognition of games as works of art. So there are discussions, even if not always revealing the topic – the necessary part of the process.
However, not all performances concerned high-abstract issues. Some discussions and reports were devoted to specific authors and the artistic value of their work. Relations of new types of art and culture, especially modern culture. The issue of education and the complexity of training in a situation where views and entire paradigms appear and become obsolete for a couple of years was raised.
