1. Integrating Games into the Artworld:
A Methodology and Case Study Exploring the Work of Jason Rohrer

2. Why did I do this research?
It is the next step in understanding the relationship between Games and Art.
There is MORE to the conversation than just this one piece of research and point of view
(or lens if you prefer Jesse Schell’s way of communicating)

3. Background information
Part 1
Background information

4. What is “The Artworld”
“The Artworld” is the provider of an operational/institutional theory of art that participants use to distinguish art from non-art.
The Artworld institutional network is the ground of possibility for anything to appear as art for us today.
(according to the people that are in support of it)
There are other ways to look at the Art Community but that is a subject for another day.

5. What does the system look like?

6. History of the relationship between The Artworld and Games
Or – how have games been collected in the past?
Option 1: as an artifact
UR [3000 BC]
Middle East Department

7. Option 2: Collected as Sculpture
Xul Solar
Pan Game and Marionette I Ching
The Museo Xul Solar in Buenos Aires
1945
Painting and Sculpture Department

8. A better picture of Pan Chess (sometimes called Pan Game)

9. Painting and Sculpture Department
Another example of a piece collected in the Painting and Sculpture Department
Gabriel Orozco
Horses Running Endlessly
1995
Painting and Sculpture Department

10. Sidebar: Chess and Art Duchamp On Chess Video Beckett
Endgame (a play in one act)
The woman in this photo is author Eve Babitz and this was taken at the Pasadena Art Museum during the opening for the Duchamp Retrospective in The photo is linked to the museum webpage about the exhibition. Get the Vanity Fair version here.

11. Other Artists who made chess games (there are a bunch – here are two)
DEADALIVE
2012
Tim Noble and Sue Webster
Do You Feel Comfortable Losing?
2006
Barbara Kruger
Chess Set Link

12. Option 3: Collected as a Drawing and/or Print
George Brecht
Games & Puzzles/Ball Puzzle
Fluxus Artist
1965
Drawings and Prints Department

13. Another example of a piece collected in the Drawings and Prints department
Mieko Shiomi
Events and Games
1964
Drawings and Prints Department

14. Mieko Shiomi (more of her work)

15. Option 3: Collected as Media and Performance Art
Feng Mengbo
Long March: Restart
What was the Long March?
In 1934, the Communists left their base in southeast China, where they had been more easily attacked by the Nationalists, and wound their way over 6,000 miles to the north on their Long March. The journey took two years.
2008
Media and Performance Department

16. Option 4: Collected as Design
Allan Alcorn
Pong
1972
Architecture and Design Department

17. And this is where we find Jason Rohrer.
Passage
2007
Architecture and Design Department

18. In the Artworld the divide between Art and Design is clear
Paola Antonelli: Why I brought Pac-Man to MoMA
Jonathan Jones from The Guardian. "Sorry, MoMA, video games are not art.“
@ min 04:20 “You know, it's like once again there's this whole problem of design being often misunderstood for art, or the idea that is so diffuse that designers want to aspire to, would like to be called, artists. No. Designers aspire to be really great designers. Thank you very much. And that's more than enough.”

19. Jason Rohrer is clear about his intentions.
He is an Artist and the games he makes are Art
So why is his work in the DESIGN collection?

20. Part 2 The Methodology: A path for integration into the Artworld
…using Jason Rohrer’s work as a case study

21. There are 3 phases to the methodology. Phase 1

22. Phase 2

23. Phase 3

24. Case Study: Jason Rohrer
Jason Rohrer has been chosen for this study because he fits certain criteria.
First, he has self identified as an artist and has written and verbal artifacts on this score to examine.
Second, he has produced artworks to compare to his or her artifacts.
Third, he is not trained as an artist per se, but instead has an educational and professional background rooted in computer science and game design.
This third point is important because his work has never undergone the rigor of art critique such as is found in art schools. This inexperience, invariably, has created gaps in his work. These gaps allow for discussions that, in turn, add to the dialogue as to how to approach games as art.
Fourth, his work has crossed the boundaries of the game and art worlds and has written artifacts to examine on that point.

25. The Work
Jason Rohrer seems to be obsessed with hypothetical situations. His games constantly ask, “What if?”
In his game Passage (Rohrer, 2007), the player is asked to make life choices.
What if I stay single and search for treasure?
What if I get married?
What if I get married and search for treasure with my wife? In another one of his games,
Idealism (Rohrer, 2008), he asks,
“What happens when your ideals … stand in the way of one of your goals?” (Rohrer, 2008)
Immortality (Rohrer, 2008) is a game in which he posits,
“If you could choose immortality, would you?” (Rohrer, 2008)
Each of his games has a built-in conundrum, and in each of these games one choice does not give a better outcome than another, just a different one, or maybe makes no difference at all.

26. Phase 1: Mimetic, Pragmatic, Expressive, and Objective
When examining the work through a mimetic lens, I first take into account the appropriation of an 8-bit imagery.
Since 8-bit imagery does not strive for a sophisticated depiction of nature, this path of critique is irrelevant and I abandon it.

27. Pragmatic
However, since the work does seem to want to please the audience with a nostalgic use of the 8-bit imagery, and it does want to move or instruct the viewer through the use of conundrums, a pragmatic critique is appropriate.

28. Passage
Idealism
Immortality

29. Expressive

30. Passage
Idealism
Immortality

31. Objective
Rohrer's games expect to delight, move, instruct, and express. Therefore, they do not fit the criteria for an objective lens. The games are more than games because they mention and allude to the outside world and the artist's inner world in all cases.

32. Phase 2: Examination of Premise

34. Passage
Son Of Man
Rene Magritte
1964
Oil on Canvas
Immortality

35. Phase 3: Artworld conventions, Immortality

36. Is there documentation? Yes.

37. Artistic Identification

38. This is where Immortality fails

39. Phase 3: Artworld conventions, Passage

45. A theory as to why the classification of the piece (AS DESIGN) has come to pass may be found in remaining questions in phase three of this critique process.

47. The first of the remaining questions: "Is the work aware of the history of similar works?" brings to the forefront the question: what are similar works? What games has the MoMA collected and categorized as art?

48. Xul Solar’s Pan Chess

49. Fluxus Games

50. Feng Mengbo’s Long March: Restart

51. Memento Mori
Picasso
Munch
Salcedo
Kentridge

52. This is where Passage fails

53. Conclusion
This is the rigorous critique process that an artist opens their work up to when they self identify that the work is intended for collection and preservation in an Art Museum.

54. How games are a new predicate for Art
Article that is Free and Open to the public
Games as New Predicate for Art: What can Arthur Danto’s Theory Reveal about the Role of Games in Art?

55. Game Over Theresadevine.com Studio4GamingInnovation.com