/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7501304]

Icycalm gets seen as an internet crazy, and rightly so IMO, despite the fact that his attempt to be the new Nietzsche is lollable. But his essay on art is undoubtedly good.

http://culture.vg/features/art-theory/on-the-genealogy-of-art-games/#partii

I started from part 2, where he gets to the heart of the matter, and it's a good read if you're not small minded.

[Anonymous No.7501308]

[Anonymous No.7501390]

>>7501308
please no, corn father

[Anonymous No.7501397]

Is this Alex "Permanently Histrionic Felon" Kierkegaard?

[Anonymous No.7501407]

fuck every white on black website

[Anonymous No.7501427]

>>7501304

Icycalm makes all the retards that like shitty video games cry. It's fucking hilarious.

[Anonymous No.7501434]

>>7501308
please no, corn father

[Anonymous No.7501504]

Here's the guy's list of favorite video games.

I'm sorry, but none of these are as aesthetically accomplished as the greatest works of art, music, literature, or even cinema. Great art makes your hair stand on end, gives you an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach, and leaves you wandering around in a daze contemplating what you just experienced. Can he say that about any of these games? As far as I'm concerned, they're just silly time-wasting entertainments, and they don't give you anywhere near the amount of pleasure that a genuine artistic masterpiece does, not even a Picasso.

[Anonymous No.7501510]

am I supposed to know who this guy is?

[Anonymous No.7501512]

>>7501510
Nope.

[Anonymous No.7501514]

>>7501504
They're not even aesthetic games. You'd at least expect Morrowind or Dark Souls.

[Anonymous No.7501516]

>>7501514
They're just as bad

[Anonymous No.7501525]

>>7501514
Also he's clearly claiming in that very thread that Far Cry 2 is "aesthetic", and it might have some pretty environments, but it's still just a stupid murder simulator, no matter how "complex" it is

[Anonymous No.7501560]

>>7501516
Maybe for a pleb with no grounding in Hindu theology and the Neitzschean Eternal Recurrance

[Anonymous No.7501566]

>>7501560
Sorry, but having references to philosophy doesn't automatically make it great art

[Anonymous No.7501581]

I will admit that the games he likes are better than shit like Undertale.

[Anonymous No.7501584]

I think the part of the essay I looked at is interesting. He talks about how technology increases the immersive aspect of art while decreasing our admiration of the craftmanship necessary to make a given piece of art i.e. drawing a photorealistic picture takes more craftmanship than taking a picture. Also collective artistic efforts require the admiration to be divided between many people.

But the gist of his entire essay is also interesting.

>Thus in every advanced artform there slowly develops in due course a decadent counter-movement by the lazy, the ignorant and the talentless which, in order to fend off the inevitably devastating comparisons, proceeds to open up a chasm between itself and its opponents by dubbing itself as "art", thereby implying that everyone else's work is not art — in other words, that not all art is art, that only some art is art, and precisely the kind that they themselves are making. So we see once again the tactic of the diehard artfags, which functions at the level of ENTIRE artforms (by separating some arts from others, and claiming that the more advanced arts are not arts), being employed also WITHIN artforms (by separating some artworks from others, and claiming that the better artworks are not artworks). In both cases the counter-movement latches on to the word "art", i.e. to the little three-letter symbol "a - r - t", which is now elevated to the status of a holy symbol and thereby assumes a new significance, a kind of magical power.

>>7501504

>It is a grave mistake therefore to suppose, as most people do, that photography, the cinema and electronic music have today become acceptable as artforms. Because, whatever the man in the street may think (and no one really cares about that, for the simple reason that "men in the street" do not think), the older artfags, the original artfags, let us call them the diehard artfags, still do not consider them arts, and never will. Consequently the vast majority of so-called "art" publications simply refuse to have anything to do with the advanced arts — with for example movies, since as far as diehard artfags are concerned movies are merely a coarse mass "entertainment" medium and nothing more (as if there could ever be anything more than entertainment, lol — notice moreover how diehard artfags achieve the admirable feat of turning "entertainment", i.e. pleasure, into an insult, a practice that videogame artfags will later on inherit and repeat, as we've already seen, with "fun"). They therefore let the "movie critics" deal with movies, with the implication that these people are not art critics — and let Ebert say what he will (just as Ebert in his turn does not consider videogame critics art critics — and let the videogame people say what they will).

[Anonymous No.7501598]

I think his essay draws together and crystallises many thoughts I've been having about art and /lit/. Here he talks about the justification for the "progression" from Michaelangelo paintings to Damien Hirst modern art / urinals as art etc.

>The upshot of all this chicanery is that, as the excuses become ever more vague, in order to encompass and justify ever more and worse rubbish, the very notion of art ends up coming under increasing scrutiny. Things like "sculptures" of factory-produced urinals or "paintings" of random geometric figures, which a mere two or three generations before would under no circumstances have been deemedby anyoneas art, are not only regarded as art now, but even asthe epitomes, thehighest points, thecrowning achievementsof art — the Mona Lisas and Davids of the democratic age. But at the same time the question ofwhat is artbecomes increasingly pressing. For if a urinal can "be art", why not also that crock of shit in my back yard? Or the one coming out of my ass right now as I sit in my toilet with my laptop and type this? This kind of question eventually becomes inescapable, and finally the subhumans are called, not only to play critic in order to JUSTIFY their rubbish, but to play alsothe philosopherby PROVIDING A DEFINITION of art which will also encompass all of their rubbish.

>And thus the random justification-producing process begins anew, this time at an even higher level, and naturally enough with even more imbecilic, utterly farcical results: "ART IS WHAT HAS MEANING" (as if every object in the universe did not possess meaning for at leastsomeof the creatures contained in it), "ART IS WHAT HAS A MESSAGE" (as if messages depended on theobjectwhich "contains" them instead of on thesubjectwhich regards it, in which caseeverythinghas a message, and in fact an infinity of them), "ART IS SOMETHING SUBJECTIVE" (and therefore, according to subhuman logic, impossible to evaluate, or even to agree on criteria on which to base an evaluation, or even to so much asdiscuss), "ART IS WHAT HAS AN EMOTIONAL IMPACT" (as if interaction with any kind of object whatever did not have an "emotional impact" of some kind), "ART IS SOMETHING USELESS" (as if any living creature would ever bother with anything that it deemed as truly useless), "ART IS... ACTUALLY, YOU KNOW WHAT, FUCK IT, WE WON'T BOTHER WITH A DEFINITION BECAUSE DEFINITIONS, AND SEMANTICS IN GENERAL, ARE SILLY" (which amounts to saying that "everything I am saying is silly, including what I just said"), and so on and so forth, until they finally simply give up and resort

[Anonymous No.7501617]

This is the last part I will post and it pretty much says that new tools bring (almost by definition, I would say) higher and lower possibilities in artistic potential.

>That is to say, that every new artistic means that is evolved (instrument, technique, mechanic) expands an artform's possibility space, thereby increasing — not only the potential for a higher, more complicated and more aesthetically pleasing work, but at the same time the potentialfor a more wretched work than has hitherto been possible. This is why going back to a game like, sayPac-Man, after grinding away for a few hours in a J- or MMORPG is such a relief — the same kind of relief we feel on seeing a panther or an eagle on a documentary channel after watching a bunch of subhumans bickering on a talk show over their "equal rights". In both cases, degenerate humans on the one hand and degenerate games on the other, the profoundaversionwe feel on coming in contact with them is due to ourdisgustat the sight of so much WASTED POTENTIAL, OF SO MANY MEANS SQUANDERED; and even worse: OF THEIR PERVERSE MISAPPLICATION; for the degenerate man does not simply ABSTAIN from using the incomparable skills of logic, language and inference that his ancestors have bequeathed on him: he downright PERVERTS them by manufacturing and disseminating nothing but ILLOGICAL THINKING, ABSURD STATEMENTS AND BLATANTLY ERRONEOUS INFERENCES, just as the degenerate designer in his turn does not simply REFRAIN from using all the advanced programming and artistic techniques that modern game design has placed at his disposal: he downright PERVERTS them by using them to DUMB-DOWN INTERACTIVITY, TRIVIALIZE CHALLENGE, AND INCREASE THE AMOUNT OF BLOAT INSIDE HIS GAME WORLD, WHILE HIDING ALL THIS DEGENERATION BEHIND AN ELABORATE SMOKE-SCREEN OF PURE AESTHETICS.

[Anonymous No.7501623]

>>7501584
>photography, the cinema and electronic music
>the older artfags, the original artfags, let us call them the diehard artfags, still do not consider them arts
Hardly anyone like this exists, and those that do, no one takes seriously.

>since as far as diehard artfags are concerned movies are merely a coarse mass "entertainment" medium and nothing more (as if there could ever be anything more than entertainment, lol — notice moreover how diehard artfags achieve the admirable feat of turning "entertainment", i.e. pleasure, into an insult, a practice that videogame artfags will later on inherit and repeat, as we've already seen, with "fun").
He's clearly aware that some entertainments/pleasures/whatever are superior to others, which is entirely my point. The entertainments/pleasures/whatever he likes so much are shit, even when compared to a Picasso painting. This guy overpraises stupid crap

[Anonymous No.7501625]

Is icycalm the diogenes of the internet age (i.e no subtlety or manners)?

[Anonymous No.7501664]

>>7501623

You're proving his point desu. You used entertainment as a pejorative. You bring up vague ideas of art giving us special "messages" or "ideas". You muddy the waters of critique itself.

>And finally, to wrap up this mind-bewildering litany of wretchedness and perversion, in the plastic arts there is no longer anyone who has the skill (or who can be botheredto attempt to acquire it—) to painstakingly carve out of blocks of pure marble anything even remotely resembling the statues of the Greeks, the Romans, or the masters of the Renaissance; consequently, what passes itself off as "plastic art" today are the descendants ofPicasso's metal monstrosities,Duchamp's urinalsandManzoni's crocks of shit— meaning whatever piece of junk modern "artists" might care to randomly slap together. — In short, while older artists throughout entire millennia created, elevated and refined the arts, giving pleasure to innumerable human beings, indeed practicallyinventingentire new worlds of pleasure — modern ones seem hell-bent on remaining entangled in a debased, pretentious, hypocritical pseudo-artistic process of "creation" which culminates with "the non-exhibition of non-works in non-galleries — the apotheosis of art as a non-event. As a corollary, the consumer circulates in all this in order to experience his non-enjoyment of the works." (Baudrillard)

>In conclusion: As each artdeterioratesanddegeneratesdue to the gradual abandonment of laboriously invented and refinedconventions(which, contrary to popular belief, do notrestrictan art but on the contrarycreate, refine, and help it flourish— the reason bunglers find conventions "restrictive" is because they lack the training and discipline requiredto adhere to themand the talent and creativity toadd to(i.e. further complexify) and/ormodifythem), we find in every field the same movement: a regression to previous, in many cases evenprimitivecritical standards. Moreover, at the same time as standards collapse the number of aspiring artists increases (indeed, as we have seen, it is this very increase that leads to the collapse, the two movements unfolding simultaneously once the masses have been "emancipated" and the means of artistic creation become widely available), whilst the resulting artworks come to increasingly resemble a repulsive junk- and rubbish-soup that no one in their right mind would want to have anything to do with. "In this sense, therefore," says Baudrillard, in his essayTransaesthetics,
"inasmuch as we have access to neither the beautiful nor the ugly, and are incapable of judging, we are condemned to indifference."

[Anonymous No.7501675]

>>7501625
sam hyde is the diogenes of the internet age

[Anonymous No.7501719]

>>7501664
"Entertainment" is perfectly legitimate as a pejorative. The ideas is that, just because you enjoy something, doesn't mean it will stay with you afterwards. He does make it clear that Far Cry 2 stayed with him, but it did so because he's an aesthetically stunted moron.

In addition, I never said anything about "ideas" or "messages", but either way, like it or not, "ideas" and "messages" can be extremely powerful, and they're essential to many great aesthetic experiences; this is something that I know icy is aware of.

[Anonymous No.7501748]

>>7501504
>all that console trash
>no Carmack works
>no DOOM
>no Tetris
>no Deus Ex
>no Ice-Pick Lodge works
>no Supreme Commander
>no Rainbow Six
>no S.T.A.L.K.E.R games
>no Action Forms games
>no Mount & Blade
>no Thief games
Jesus.

[Anonymous No.7501772]

>>7501748

Just because you don't understand video games or what makes them good doesn't mean everyone else has your plebeian (lack of) taste, fagot.

"I think a game is good so it deserves it to be on someone else's list!!!!"

Excellent.

[Anonymous No.7501774]

>>7501304

>it's a good read if you're not small minded.

I can't believe people are still falling for the sociopath demagogue meme on blogs.

Didn't he kill himself in a streetrace, or was that just the lamest possible self-shilling ever made?

[Anonymous No.7501779]

>>7501304

Anyone have the screencap from his forums where someone points out his spelling mistake and he goes utterly fucking ballistic over the course of several posts calling the guy who pointed them out subhuman scum and arguing that the error was intended?

[Anonymous No.7501782]

>>7501748
Those games are for autists.

[Anonymous No.7501826]

>>7501779
He gets extremely pissed at someone pointing out his bad word choice when he was editing someone else's review. "Complement" is very obviously the right word to use here, but the absurdly pedantic icy is having none of it.

[Anonymous No.7502096]

>>7501826
Holy shit this guy is a pure sociopathic autism.

He doesn't browse /lit/ does he?

[Anonymous No.7502106]

>>7501826
jesus christ i've never seen damage control of his calibri

[Anonymous No.7502118]

>>7501826
I love that he mixed up the meanings of compliment and complement entirely. Top kek

[Anonymous No.7502120]

>>7501308
please no, cornfather

[Anonymous No.7502329]

<--- Here's some help icy in case you ever read this thread.

[Anonymous No.7502339]

I had a dream where I was on a cell phone talking to Icy calm himself.

Me "Alex how should I try to die?"

Icy "I've already fucking told you in my writings before. If you're a man and have courage you will die like a hero. A slave will die like dog. Of course there are circumstances where one isn't permitted to choose the heroic option..."

At this moment a humongous fat neckbeard steals the cellphone from me. Than several of his ugly nerd friends showed up and started taunting me about how I was too much of a pussy to take back what was mine. All of them are shorter, uglier and less fit than myself. I tried to visualize myself going attacking the fat man and getting back what was mine but I felt cowardly and ran away trying to save face by throwing insults back at them. I realized the reason I ran rather than fighting was because I was afraid of pain.

I think this was my subconscious telling me to stop being a fucking pussy.

[Anonymous No.7502347]

>>7501308
Please no corn father

[Anonymous No.7502349]

>>7502339
Sounds like you spend too much time on 4chan

[Anonymous No.7504159]

>>7502339
Bump because more people need to see what kind of stupid shit happens to your brain when you take fags like the guy this thread is about seriously

[Anonymous No.7504209]

>>7501304
He may be anal retentive and arrogant but he's smart, and producing works instead of just meandering on the internet doing fuckall

[Anonymous No.7504225]

>>7504209
But he's not smart and meandering on the internet doing fuckall is exactly what he's doing.

[Anonymous No.7504245]

>>7504225
have you written any essays? or created a website? creating is mkre admirable than consuming, even while you consume as you create. go write a book

[Anonymous No.7504252]

>>7504245
>muh productivity
go back to reddit capitalist shill

[Anonymous No.7504258]

>>7504252
you havent proven anything until you create

[Anonymous No.7504259]

>>7501304
nice self-promote icy

now go away

[Anonymous No.7504280]

>>7504245
>>7504258
I'm constantly creating posts on 4chan that have exaclty as much value as anything this guy's produced

[Anonymous No.7504371]

>>7504280
No one is going to remember anything you wrote after the thread died and they probably forget it even before than.

Things icy wrote 10 years ago are still being talked about today. Do you realize how rare that is by video game standards? Apart from Playing to Win I don't think anyone else has done it. The click-bait, flavor of the month, and just plain bad video game articles will fade into existence a few days after they are written. While the stuff icy wrote will live on. Like I said how many 10+ year old video game articles are still talked about, still relevant, and still teaching us things?

And it's the same with his philosophy. As icy pointed out web-blogger pseudo philosophy falls out of popularity the moment that the blog stops updating. Meanwhile icy can go on hiatus for months and people still care about what he wrote.

[Anonymous No.7504396]

>>7504371
Stuff that Chris-chan made 10 years ago is still being talked about today. Guess that makes him a genius LOL

[Anonymous No.7504401]

Advertising is against the rules, Alex.

[Anonymous No.7504422]

>>7504396
compared to you, yes

[Anonymous No.7504432]

>>7504422
What if I told you I invented some of the most popular memes on 4chan...

[Anonymous No.7504591]

What would freddy N say about icy

[Anonymous No.7504598]

>>7504591
H'ed probably be jealous of all the sexy poon icy gets

[Anonymous No.7504599]

>>7504591
He'd whack icy with his cane and tell him to finish the damn books!

[Anonymous No.7504855]

>>7504432
What memes are we talking about, big guy?

[Anonymous No.7504963]

>>7501617
>>7501598
>>7501584

What does he, as a 'die-hard artfag' define art as?

[Anonymous No.7504969]

>>7501308
Mediocre prose will be an improvement

[Anonymous No.7505007]

>>7502329
He is half the posts ITT and most likely op

[Anonymous No.7505042]

>>7501584
> he uses the suffix -fag in his essays/articles

holy shit what a fag

[Anonymous No.7505044]

>>7505007
Hm... 30 posters ITT, 57 posts.. sounds legit

[Anonymous No.7505047]

>>7505042
He also uses memes from 10+ years ago, like "o rly"

[Anonymous No.7505058]

>>7505047
Poor icy. He's so behind the times. Does he even watch Japanese Animation? I imagine he would really like the 80s and 90s OVAs because of 'mai aestetics'

[Anonymous No.7505061]

>>7505058
His favorite manga is Berserk

[Anonymous No.7505063]

>>7501308
Please no, corn father

[Anonymous No.7506087]

>>7501308
please no, corn father

[Anonymous No.7507071]

>>7501308
please no, corn father

[Anonymous No.7507071,1]

icy is easily the best writer on videogames (and beyond). Quite easily evidenced by the fact that he's the most widely/often discussed writer on the matter. Everyone else is irrelevant