Se mi seguite da un po’ su queste
pages, you will know that one of the key points I like to press on often is the nobilitation of the Video Game medium, a
slow but fundamental process that began more or less at the end of the
Nineties. Paradoxically, it was precisely with the advent of the total dominance
of home entertainment and the sad demise of arcade cabinets that
videogames began to become something more than mere little men on the screen who jump and shoot.
Spesso il cinema, la televisione
e la narrativa su carta vengono accostati allo status dell’Arte: audiovisual works that convey messages and through the
dialogue between images and words convey emotions and generate reactions in the viewer’s eye: if the concept of
“art” referred essentially only to this, then the Video Game
understood as a conveyor of input for the audience would also have every right to
have its place of honor alongside them.
But let’s take a step back.
What does making art mean today?
I even call on Treccani and report what it tells us: by art
is meant «any ability to act or produce, based on a particular set
of rules and of cognitive and technical experience, therefore also the set of
rules and procedures for carrying out a human activity in view of
specific results.»
Ability to act and human
activity that leads to results. These, in my opinion, are two indispensable
pillars of the state of the art, because they reflect how decisive the human
intellect is, and consequently its imaginative capacity, that wonderful thing
called creativity, and
choice, or rather the planning behind it, the solid foundation for
success, the consecration of an Idea.
Pensiamo a The Last of Us, for example, or Max Payne to go a little further back in time, or even the Life is Strange series: video games
with a strongly narrative focus, similar to films in themes and pacing, shots and plot twists, with adult and profound storylines, disturbing,
synonymous with a punch to the gut for the gamer. And here comes the first
provocation: what do the raw and at the same time redemptive arc of someone like
Ellie, or Max’s descent into the abyss of self-destruction with her guns
dispensing revenge, have less of than an epic poem or an Oscar-winning film, if
they too were born from the creative spark of one or more human beings, who through
a set of rules (reality and its definable parameters) and cognitive
experiences (the personal baggage that hones the human soul) and technical
skills (knowledge of programming language and sharing of expertise with
screenwriters) materialize something
that did not exist before and impact us with emotional stimuli?
There is a very thin boundary,
as the title suggests, that separates the concept of art from that of the
video game, if we even want to talk about a boundary: I see it as a red thread that is still rather faded, but
less and less so as the years go by, which links the two things instead of
separating them. No more than a few decades have passed, yet much has changed
for the better in the world of video games and in its spread across the world, also and
above all among those who have never picked up a gamepad: the awareness of the Video Game no longer
understood as an instrument of the devil is now widespread, fortunately, and inclusivity, a term overused in
other contexts, is a splendid reality when it comes to gaming and
sharing a passion for stories on screen, whether small or large it matters not.
Because, as I see it, art is made at the very moment you give shape to a magma of sensations and stimuli that change you, for a minute, a year or for a lifetime: it is our human capacity to imagine and create, whether through a pen, a camera, a movie camera, a brush or a keyboard, that makes artistic the thought that becomes a book, a film, a painting.
And also a video game. The moment we play, we ourselves become part of something infinite and tangible at the same time. This is truly art, believe me.
