State of the Blog

Once in awhile I will be doing these 'state of the blog' posts to shed some light on changes or see how it has evolved since I first started this. I do these because it expands on my own idea of what this project will turn into, and will help guide my future posts in being more in line with that idea. So as I have reviewed these games, so shall I review myself in regards to my criticism. The way I see it, this will be either enlightening, or self-loathing, either way you win!

One thing I have noticed quite prominently since I've started is that I have an opinion. That's not surprising in itself really, I have pretty strong opinions and most people don't agree with them. However, when I started this I wanted it to be an objective view on art in the medium. Sadly, that hasn't panned out exactly how I thought it was and it could be because of a few things.

The strongest theory I have is that art in itself cannot be criticized without some sort of opinion on your part. Think about it, what makes people believe that a completely abstract piece is art? When others only see a bunch of shapes and lines and just mutter "My five year old could do that". Are they both considered art? Should they be qualified as art? Who the heck says what is art and what is not? One might think there is a board of art directors out there somewhere making judgment calls a-la Illuminati shadow heads and trickling down information as to what is really art.

Now if we take off our tinfoil hats I think we'll start to understand that art really is subjective. You cannot objectively criticize art. It is a nebulous form of emotion that only applies to certain characteristics. It could be as simple as 'I like art to be completely unchained from reality'. That person would dislike landscapes and art based on real things, why? Well it could be for a yearning to escape reality, or just the though that art should transcend it. Again, it is simply subjective to who is viewing it. I could get into the various forms of visual, textrual, audio and taste that could be used in art, but that would simply reiterate my point.

As is almost everything about humans, Art is contextual, it serves one person differently than it does another person. Why this is? I'm not smart enough to know, but I will continue to insert a little of my opinion in the review process while trying to keep in mind the cons of my opinion. Objective view of something as emotionally attached as art may have been a folly in the first place.