Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller fame) was quoted as saying the following:
Technology adds nothing to art. Two thousand years ago, I could tell you a story, and at any point during the story I could stop, and ask, Now do you want the hero to be kidnapped, or not? But that would, of course, have ruined the story. Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else’s vision.
Not to sound too much like a textbook, but: Do you agree or disagree? Explain.
I have to disagree – that’s an incredibly narrow view of what both art and entertainment are. Isn’t film a different art form than theatre, each distinct from the story teller in the marketplace? As for entertainment, plugging into someone else’s vision is only part of the experience – choose your own adventure books and videogames are entertainment that isn’t entirely passive, and a large part of the entertainment is the ability to explore the bounds of the vision you’re presented.
Format matters. Technology has introduced new formats that have resulted in new art.
Now the statement “Technology adds nothing to art,” is certainly narrow minded by itself. This of course depends greatly on one’s definitions/ideas of _technology_ and _art_, not to mention ambiguous figurative “nothing”. But i digress into semantics. Regardless, technology has enabled art since berries were used for dye and someone put hair on a stick and called it paintbrush.
I would like to read a larger context (does anyone have the which-month? ’93 copy of _Wired_?). If Penn were ranting about “video games” gaining marketshare on films/movies (does this make video games “art” or the artform of the future) OR if Penn were responding to a comment on various post-structuralist “interactive” plays/ movies/ books in which a viewer picks certain plot points, OR if the interviewer asked how he and Teller used technology within their “art” — etc., i would validate certain aspects Penn’s statement.
I believe I’ve found the original Wired article here:
http://www.pennandteller.com/sincity/penn-n-teller/wired-penn.html
I figured I should just put the entire quote in context in here. I should mention that part of the quote wasn’t actually said by Penn, but rather written by the author summing up what Penn had apparently said. Here’s some context, including the section from which the quote was pulled.
I had to censor some of the strong language to get it through my spam filters, but I left as much untouched as I could.
I’d also like to point out that about two years after this was published, Penn & Teller almost released a video game, but it was never released for some reason. I don’t know why, and I haven’t spent much time trying to find out.
Personally, I think, “The bottleneck is really in art,” is a much more interesting quote, although it requires context to get it.
Personally, I think comments like this (and pretty much anything said by Roger Ebert on the subject of video games) are true about a major chunk of interactive gaming, but they’re obviously missing the games that achieve true art status. Yes, there are games that are basically crappy choose-your-own adventure games. Reference Dragon’s Lair as the stereotype. Yes, there are games where the technology actually made things worse. Reference pretty much any FMV “game” that came out in the early to mid 90s. Then there’s the much more subtle problem of games that think they’re movies. Talk to anyone who’s played Xenosaga and probably one of the first things they’ll say about the game is that they don’t remember playing it so much as watching it.
But there are lots of games that are nothing short of art, because they managed to see what the medium could accomplish, and ran with it. Find a copy of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. If you’re not much of a gamer, find someone who is. Watch them manipulate the game. While the pictures are pretty, and the characters and story are entertaining, it’s the control that is the art, in my opinion. Trying to evaluate it the same way as a movie or a book is missing the point.
If technology has nothing to do with art then tell me how you created that line drawing of yourself in the upper corner.
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