Comments on: Why Can’t You?

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:55:30 +0000

Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose always struck me as a beautiful example of criticism and fiction fused together. There are a lot of works that demonstrate that it can be done.

There are certainly game scholars who demonstrate the value of being able to code and make games (Eric Zimmerman, Nick Monfort). At the least, I’d agree that game scholars need to understand the technological affordances and constraints involved in producing games; some of the people who have come over from lit-crit occasionally pass that particular Go and fail to collect $200.00.

By: Jason Mittell

Jason Mittell — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:41:39 +0000

I think a lot of critical analysis as expressed via art or creative media can be quite powerful and effective, and I’d like to see more critics experiment with non-written forms of communication. Arguably, that’s what the French New Wave was all about…

I’d also add that the negative side of #1 is that a “failed artist” can make a poor critic, especially if they try to rationalize their own failure through their critique. So #1 can work, minus bitterness.

Now how would you apply this to the argument from a number of prominent game scholars that anyone studying digital gaming should know how to code? Is that different than saying a musicologist should be able to play music, or an art historian should know how to paint?

By: Bill McNeill

Bill McNeill — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:38:36 +0000

In fairness I have friends who create the kind of art I describe, and a lot of time I get a kick out of the actual artifact and just ignore the critical talk that goes along with it. Death of the author and all that I suppose.

By: Bill McNeill

Bill McNeill — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:30:31 +0000

Polemical fiction is a good example. The one I had in mind is a certain genre of art…I don’t know what you call it: art-world art, art-that-gets-shown-in-art-galleries art, art-that-gets-taught-in-graduate-arts-programs art. Anyway, there’s a certain genre of art in which the actual piece only exists to elucidate some particular idea from critical theory, and works from this genre always make me wonder, “Why bother assembling the video screen triptych with the chicken wire and the surgical gloves and the naked guy smearing himself with butter when you could just send me a postcard?”

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:24:21 +0000

Bill’s point is also a good one. I think it’s one reason I don’t like strongly polemical fiction even when I agree with its polemic: I always wonder, “Why write it as fiction, then?” Perhaps because fiction works differently on its audiences than polemic, and some authors imagine that they can find a road into consciousness better that way. But mostly it seems to me that creative work has an element of necessary mystery especially for people who produce it.

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 06 May 2009 08:03:23 +0000

Can quarterbacks block? Can linemen throw a pass? Can pitchers cover the outfield? Can outfielders pitch?

By: Bill McNeill

Bill McNeill — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:39:00 +0000

The inability to explain what one is doing is probably a prerequisite for a lot of creative work, an inoculation against overthinking. If you could wrap everything up in a pithy summary, why bother creating the work of art in the first place?

By: Carl

Carl — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:37:32 +0000

Then again there's Kliban's tasteless take.

By: Carl

Carl — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:48:09 +0000

Great coverage of the ground here, so I just have a little note about the emotional disconnect between critical distance and the cathexis a work of culture is supposed to inspire. A piece of high art or a tale of personal plight may even be invested with a kind of charismatic holiness, moving it outside the realm of any kind of rationalized critique. In this case the work of the critic is not just formally clueless but impertinent, irreverent or even blasphemous.

By: benjamin

benjamin — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:40:57 +0000

loving the way you broke this down! a clear and distinct, yet related array of possible answers. extremely helpful to me. thanks again!