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Post by Reactionary Rage on Feb 24, 2023 9:38:24 GMT
Culture has become a minor distraction rather than something fundamental to our society. Tik Tok, Twitter, mobiles, Youtube, the latest Netflix "sensation" etc are largely dopamine rushes that provide short term release but are unsatisfactory and childish. Yet some appear locked in a never ending pleasure seeking loop seeking them out like junkies forever chasing the next hit. There's something about the likes of Twitter and Tiktok - the endless scrolling, the 240 character tweet, the 30 sec videos etc - that really exploits a part of our brain that clearly chases this sort of thing. We also suffering from attention deficit issues as a consequence and we are increasingly overwhelmed by information and technology which makes matters worse so we seek refuge in the thing which is part of the problem in the first fucking place. But it also makes processing older art harder....a lengthy book (put the mobile down!) that requires re-reading of passages and a dictionary....a 1950s French film that moves at a "glacial" pace etc. I've seen this decline in myself and in others for around 20 years now. I think tech and the modern world is rewiring our brains in negative ways.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Feb 24, 2023 9:42:49 GMT
The argument I guess is - does it matter? I mean, I will probably read another 1500 books in my life and none of them need to be new. I have enough in the works of Bach, Brahms, Wagner and various Jazz artists to last a lifetime. I think it does yeah. There is something more powerful about art of the moment that speaks to us, that connects us, that inspires us, we can't only live in the past. There is when we are younger because we want to be part of a group, a movement, an experience that connects us with our peers but I don't find that to be true as I get older. At some point living in the past culturally becomes preferable to the present because it simply speaks to me more but then it also expresses things that art in the present has largely given up on communicating.
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Post by davey on Feb 24, 2023 15:08:38 GMT
On your last point, that's true. But does it produce anything of any value? This argument 'well you're not the audience' (not applying that to your post btw) is superficially true, but it seems a bit of an excuse too, a way of evading the issue. “Value” is in the eye of the beholder. A lot of the stuff my daughter appears to get a lot of value from does little or nothing for me. So there’s that excuse… I’m not the audience. But i HAVE picked up bits and pieces of things that suggest the presence of something more. A lot of that has been in the realm of video games. Neither my wife nor I are gamers. We don’t own any of the consoles. But when my daughter and her boyfriend come, they bring their game consoles with them and they invariably ask us to play. What I’ve found out when we do, is that some of these games have real artistic vision. There are at least a small handful that have gotten me interested in the possibilities of video games as a genre. That causes me to assume (perhaps incorrectly) that it’s possible that more is going on in their culture than I know. Others have brought up the ephemeral quality of a lot of their culture. That DOES seem to be a feature of what they like. But did anyone expect rock and roll to be anything but ephemeral when it was new? Or hip hop? My experience over the years is that ephemeral shit ends up lasting. So who is to say? I DO think there’s some adaptive biology going on though. The world is changing, and it appears that young people are changing to adapt to the world and media culture they will have to live in. It seems pretty alien to me. But I’m not going to have to deal with that much of it, One thing is for certain…older people not being able to relate to the changing culture is a time-worn phenomenon.
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Post by Stacy Heydon on Feb 24, 2023 15:13:33 GMT
Video games are getting more advanced, technologically speaking. But the artistic advancement doesn't seem to keep pace with the technological progress.
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tory
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Post by tory on Feb 24, 2023 15:22:31 GMT
Video games are very enjoyable and their immersiveness is becoming more noticeable.
Whether they reveal or pose questions concerning anything about the human condition remains to be seen.
As an experienced gamer I reckon there is potential for this, but I am yet to see any real evidence for it so far. It strikes me as highly developed escapism, yet the fact that participants are agents in these worlds marks a whole different realm than that of the observer or audience.
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Post by davey on Feb 24, 2023 15:23:33 GMT
I think it does yeah. There is something more powerful about art of the moment that speaks to us, that connects us, that inspires us, we can't only live in the past. There is when we are younger because we want to be part of a group, a movement, an experience that connects us with our peers but I don't find that to be true as I get older. At some point living in the past culturally becomes preferable to the present because it simply speaks to me more but then it also expresses things that art in the present has largely given up on communicating. Some of the disconnect here is really about the technology. We were brought up in the broadcasting age. There were minimal outlets for culture, and they broadcasted to everyone. So culture felt unifying. Now there are a million channels, streaming services, podcasts, internet radio stations, playlists, etc, the culture is fragmented. So on one hand, culture that does intend to communicate might seem so hyper-targeted as to not feel like culture at all. Meanwhile the things that do aspire to universality often have to render themselves pretty toothless to do so. It’s worth going over some of the things that have achieved more universal impact in later years to get a sense of where things are headed. I’d argue that Harry Potter and comic book films are the two most universal cultural “events” of the last few decades. Anything else?
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loveless
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Post by loveless on Feb 24, 2023 15:37:00 GMT
Probably (and I have not read the entire thread, by any stretch, so sorry if I'm rehashing) cable/streaming television series - I feel like things like Six Feet Under, Sopranos, True Blood, Downton Abbey, Orange is the New Black, Russian Doll, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul (and I'm not ranking or evaluating any of these, just trying to illustrate a sense of people watching and experiencing en masse) managed to both expand the form and engage a collective shared experience.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Feb 24, 2023 15:38:22 GMT
Video games are very enjoyable and their immersiveness is becoming more noticeable. Whether they reveal or pose questions concerning anything about the human condition remains to be seen. As an experienced gamer I reckon there is potential for this, but I am yet to see any real evidence for it so far. It strikes me as highly developed escapism, yet the fact that participants are agents in these worlds marks a whole different realm than that of the observer or audience. Let's face it, fancy graphics and all that bollocks aside, they are just glorified Fighting Fantasy books.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Feb 24, 2023 15:43:36 GMT
Video games are getting more advanced, technologically speaking. But the artistic advancement doesn't seem to keep pace with the technological progress. The ex used to say that video games are "art". I was more sceptical but then I don't agree with the "everything is art" mantra that gets trotted out. They certainly have artistic merit.
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Post by davey on Feb 24, 2023 15:44:55 GMT
Video games are getting more advanced, technologically speaking. But the artistic advancement doesn't seem to keep pace with the technological progress. Video games are very enjoyable and their immersiveness is becoming more noticeable. Whether they reveal or pose questions concerning anything about the human condition remains to be seen. As an experienced gamer I reckon there is potential for this, but I am yet to see any real evidence for it so far. It strikes me as highly developed escapism, yet the fact that participants are agents in these worlds marks a whole different realm than that of the observer or audience. So - just to give you all a few examples… There’s a game called “What Remains of Edith Finch” (which is really kind of of video game story mort than a game). It has you walk through the home of the titular character, going room to room and learning about the life and death of each member of her family. It is very clearly an art piece. It also was very popular when it came out. Another wild one is called “Baba is You.” This game allows you to solve a puzzle by changing the rules of the game as you go. It’s pretty profound, in its way. I’ve played on called “The Stanley Parable” where the player is attempting to make choices in life while at odds with the game’s narrator and creators. There are more. These just leap to mind. I make no great claims for any of these. They don’t mean more to me than Dylan or Orson Welles. But they at least aspire to something.
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tory
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Post by tory on Feb 24, 2023 16:17:42 GMT
Video games are, essentially, mathematical propositions first and foremost. They rely on logic and coding language. Some games have a narrative to them that might yield something about the human condition. However, many are, essentially, immersive stories on rails that provide some agency in terms of choice. We can often be moved profoundly by Mathematics, yet I'm skeptical as to whether they are representative of something about us so far.
I'm much more likely to moved by board games, which offer much more in terms of narrative immersion with much less in terms of objects.
For me, perhaps the "art" in games is in the projection of our imagination. When I played Championship Manager, which is essentially a collection of numbers, I still projected the idea of personality and character to fictional players. Games that do that seem to be much more in the realm of artistic merit to me.
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Post by rayge on Feb 24, 2023 16:20:58 GMT
The essence of popular music for me, and not just something I thought up. I was saying it at the Sixties: their attachement to time and place is what gives singles their power.
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loveless
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Post by loveless on Feb 24, 2023 16:24:47 GMT
My youngest is 13. He plays all of these games (and perhaps always has) that engage agency, creativity, and elements of design FAR beyond anything I could have conceived of while simultaneously sitting in the other room playing these archaic patterned experiences like Super Mario or whatever. I think if the whole design has moved so aggressively towards the realm of user involvement, I'm extremely disinclined to poo poo it as "Gen Z Pac Man".
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Post by rayge on Feb 24, 2023 16:26:14 GMT
I think it might help the discussion if someone (not me, ffs, I've had enough) would nail down what 'culture' actually means (to them at least). Sociologists and other academics lump it together to mean the concerns, mores, beliefs, modes of communication, architecture and so on of a particular group, not just forms of entertainment.
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Post by rayge on Feb 24, 2023 16:28:22 GMT
And no one has mentioned Marshall McCluhan yet, so I will:
Marshall McCluhan
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