Bioshock is a work of art

Video games as artThe digital graphics involved in making a video game employ all the traditional forms of art: shape, color, design, lighting, cinematography, style, sound, and music. Think about it: the formal aesthetic principles used by and expressed through video games are exactly the same as those used in other more traditional artistic mediums: images, conceptual art, film, poetry, and music. Can we seriously and consistently entertain the idea that video games, as a medium, cannot be art? It seems more reasonable to say the video game is and can be a medium of artistic expression: the videogame-medium provides, as do other artistic mediums, a framework for the possible creation of art. This does not mean all video games are art, just as no one seriously thinks all images, films, and music are art. But it does suggest that some video games could be art.In addition to the purely formal, many video games offer interactive fictional worlds whose content often aspires to the status of art. Whether this fictional content is considered artistic or not depends on the particular video game in question, but there is little doubt that literature, story-telling, and world-creation, are mediums filled with artistic possibilities. Does anyond doubt Shakespeare's King Lear or Hamlet is art? Likewise, if the narrative of a gaming-world dramatized and reflected upon the human condition in insightful and surprising ways, would anyone doubt the video game's fictional content would be art?I think this much is clear, the parallel between video games and other artistic mediums -- in both form and content -- suggests a set of compelling reasons to believe video games can be a kind of art. To further appreciate a game as art, consider the difference between a video game like Bioshock and a traditional game like Chess. Chess does nothing art does, whereas Bioshock (as I hope to show) does everything good art does. Ask yourselves: if a game does everything art does, is there any reason to deny the game is art?Bioshock as a gameThe game begins with the player floundering on the surface of the ocean, the only survivor of a plane crash. Coincidence or not, the plane crashed meters away from the bathysphere station that transports citizens down to Rapture, and as players descend and the city comes into view, a recording of Andrew Ryan's speech (replicated above) plays. As readers may already know, the speech mirrors the objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand, which is further implied by the partial anagram between the two names.What players discover, however, when first entering the city is anything but the idealized city described in the recording. It turns out the lack of moral restriction, coupled to the astonishing hubris of the city's inhabitants, has brought about utter ruin. The player learns that a genetic manipulation technique intended to bestown supernatural powers on its users led to Civil War, and its users (termed "splicers") turned violent and psychotic. This sets the ground for the game's primary objective: escape from Rapture.Bioshock as artEarly in the game the player-characer confronts Big Daddies and Little Sisters. The juxtaposition of the Little Sister, a cute little girl, with her monstrous protector is at once surprising, strange, and beautiful. It is here that we see the art of Bioshock first emerge. Players are confronted with rescuing the Little Sister or harvesting her; if you harvest her, you get double the ADAM, which enhances you abilities and makes you stronger.The obvious, rational choice to make is harvesting the, and Atlas, the leader of the revolution in the city, assures you the girl's are not human. He says: "Somebody went and turned a sweet baby girl into a monster. Whatever you thought about right and wrong on the surface, well that don't count for much down in Rapture." The choice seems obvious, as a gamer. But the choice, of course, is made harder by the Little Sister herself, who repeatedly calls you an "angel."Personally, I couldn't bring myself to harvest the Little Sister. I saved her, and the action was accompanied by incredibly evocative scene in which I realized, at the moment my emotional attachment and investment in the game-world became exposed, that this was what the game had intended: the Little Sisters use our emotions to defend themselves. At first, I kept questioning myself, but I kept saving the Little Sisters. It seemed right, and everytime I saved them, it game an emotional high.This is the first time, in my experience of any fictional-world, that my emotions were self-directed. Think about it: in Shakespeare's plays, the characters elicit our sympathy and pity and other emotional responses, but they are always passive emotions because we are not actually involved in the fiction. Bioshock choreographs scenes in which we play a central role, and hence, the emotions are directed towards ourselves, feeling either good or bad about what we do.What is so uncanny about this is that the self-directed emotions challenge our ability to play the game rationally. We allow "monsters" to defend themselves through appeals to our emotions. We experience emotions in the game in a new and suprising way, that itself is in dialogue with past works of art. The Big Daddies evoke fearfulness, the Little Sisters sympathy. Each character and scene is designed to challenge our rationality and our emotions, as the game forces us to be active participants rather than distant observers.And the moral consequences of Little Sisters has barely been touched on yet. Notice that in most games, characters that elicit the sympathy and psychological response that Little Sisters do are completely absent. In fact, in most games, innocent women, children, and the elderly are usually not found. But in Bioshock, all are characters that force the players to make moral deliberations and reflections, which are themselves offset by their rational need to survive and escape and their emotional commitments. What is art, if not a fiction that explores all these aesthetic and philosophical elements and performs them in the viewer?Now, we come to the most artistic aspect of Bioshock: the way it thematizes freedom and the linearity of videogames as a medium. At first, the game creates the illusion of freedom by allowing players to move around freely and do what they want. Of course, players are given objectives, but the feeling of freedom is absolute.The tension between freedom and control, however, becomes manifest what Atlas tells you: "Would you kindly head to Ryan’s office and kill the son of a bitch?" Suddenly, the player-character is killing Ryan, and it is outside the player's control. Before you kill Ryan, he reveals: "The assasin has overcome my final defense, and now he's come to murder me. In the end, what separates a man from a slave? Money? Power? No, a man chooses, a slave obers. You think you have memories: a farm, a family, an airplane, a crash. Or was it hijacked, forced fown, by something less than a man? Something bred to sleepwalk through life, until they're activated by a simple phrase spoken by their kindly master? Was a man sent to kill? Or a slave? Come here, stop, would you kindly? "Would you kindly?" A powerful phrase, a familiar phrase. Sit, would you kindly? Stop! Turn! A man chooses, a slave obeys."In this revelatory scene, the player discovers their true nature, as Ryan takes control by uttering the trigger phrase: "Would you kindly?" The game thematizes the player's subconscious desire for freedom in a game-world that has already determined every action the player will do, from beginning to end. The most powerful moment in the game arrives when Ryan commands you to kill him. The player realizes that their role in the game-world, as a lived and experienced narrative event, is no different than the passive observer seen in other forms of art. Out of space, will continue next Round discussing this scene.