Blog - "The Artist's Wound" and Games
Thursday, May 1, 2008Prior to transferring to SCAD, I attended the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh for a few years as a film student. For both of those two years, I lived in a special art community in the dorms: a special floor of one building at least partially reserved for self-professed artists of all varieties, so like-minded folks could live together and collaborate.
In order to be in the program, however, you had to take a special class which was on being an artist.
Strange topic for a class, but it was filled with some very interesting content I keep finding coming up again and again.
Particularly since switching into game development, it seems.
For example, that course first introduced me to Csíkszentmihályi's concept of "flow", and the different types of intelligence. Both of which I've seen come up again on many occasions in my game design studies.
One concept I learned in that class, though, that has been most enlightening to me and that I've used by far the most is the concept of "The artist's wound".
(Perhaps it's not a widely used term, or I'm accidentally using the wrong one, as a quick google/Wikipedia search for it didn't turn up anything. Hmm...)
In any case (name aside) it is an unresolved issue in an artist's life that they turn to in their art to try and figure out, time and time again.
Each time it comes up in their art it is a different iteration of trying to sort out their feelings about this "wound".
Not every artist has one, mind you, and ones that do sometimes don't recognize it, although do notice they seem to keep redoing the same themes over and over again.
After learning about it, I began to notice reoccurring themes running throughout my writing, visual art, and music. I actually have written down a whole list of all the common iconography that pops up in my work, and what I think it means. I've since turned that which was unconscious into something I can consciously use.
I don't want to get into what those themes are, or what my wound is, here. That's rather personal and not the point.
The point, as this is my game development blog, is that I've noticed that my wound never makes its way into my game designs, like it does with all the other kinds of art I do.
I find that a bit odd. Perhaps troubling.
My current theory as to why is rather positive, however: because, perhaps, game design is still so new to me, there's still so much for me to explore with systems and mechanics themselves. I'm still far more interested in exploring them in their general, basic forms than I am with having to explore them relative to my personal demons.
Of course, maybe it is also because making a game about ones demons implies making a game that isn't fun, and generally one makes games that are meant to be fun.
My wound deals in some ways with the idea of never finding satisfaction, and never reaching one's goals. Certainly feasible to pull off with game mechanics, but it wouldn't make for a very fun game.
However, I'm at an art school. We can get away with, and are sometimes encouraged to, make art games that "aren't fun" while we still can.
As I said above, earlier, once I began to analyze the unconscious iconography of my own wound, I was able to then use them deliberately as symbols. I always love when I start to notice the trademarks of an artist, following the patterns in their body of work. It's like finding the underlying patterns in a game: the very "fun" of gameplay.
By employing this iconography I can leave traces of just such a pattern of my own.
However, that brings up a troubling issue: being collaboratively created, games make it difficult for any one designer or artist to employ their wounds or any kind of signature trademark. They can be subtle, and slip them in there now and then, sure. When something needs to be changed or cut, however, and people start asking why you used that particular imagery...
...well, it could be hard to explain to the rest of the team why your wound should stay.
So wounds are, perhaps, too personal for the realities of game development.
There are very few designers who have been allowed to have noticeable "trademarks" running throughout the body of their work, and I'm not sure if I recognize any as a wound even then.
I find this curious, and even a little sad, as knowing my wound and playing with it has taken my art in a lot of interesting new places, and produced some of my most powerful work. I'd like to be able to utilize some of that power in my medium of choice, without having to feel guilty about disguising it, hiding it from the rest of my team. posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 2:26 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
