Video Games as Art

Bioshock

Ken Levine is the Creative Director of 2K Boston which was the Developer of the game. This game was released in 2007.

Bioshock. Boston: 2K, 2007.

When deciding what I wanted to do for this blog, I was struggling on picking a medium. I picked video games because, for one, I love playing them, and for two, they get a bad rap by people most of the time. I chose this game in particular because it is beautifully crafted.

This game starts you out by throwing you out of a plane and entering an underground city. This city was supposed to an idealistic society where all of the profit was your own. The government didn’t do anything to regulate you. But something went wrong when this new technology that gave people almost magical abilities went wrong and caused society to crumble. When you play this game, it sucks you in so much that you feel as if you are the protagonist and are travelling through this underground city. It also takes place during the 1950s for a very good atmospheric effect.

The subject is the city. It is based off of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It is expressed by immersing you into the city and the artist gives you little sections of information along the way to keep you going. Being able to explore every nook and cranny in the city really adds a nice vision of how it all went wrong.

This game is art to me because the graphics are beautiful. I also love the story that is portrayed throughout the events that happen. I would call this game instrumental against the type of society created in the city. It could also be seen as mimetic because they were trying to go for realism in the models of everything.

I can’t think of anyway this relates to this class. This could maybe relate to a couple of the societies portrayed in the Phillip Dick Reader in Scientific Revolutions, but it would be a fairly loose connection. The ancestor is clearly Ayn Rand, but we have not and probably won’t cover that in our class. There are also a few characters in the game that might relate to Aesthetics. There is a crazed plastic surgeon that is trying to create the perfect face.

Ferran Adria, food as art

Can food be art? It is can be aesthetically appealing, it can evoke emotions, and it is creative. This should obviously make it art right? Ferran Adria of the restaurant El Bulli says yes. Adria has been called the world’s greatest chef and El Bulli is the world’s best restaurant according to Restaurant magazine. This world renowned chef has been creating and innovating at El Bulli since 1984 when he started as a line chef. Eighteen months after he got that job, he became head chef. Adria compiles many dishes that can be considered art. A few in the gallery that can be found here really caught my attention.

Morphings is a dish that is made from dark chocolate and coated in a raspberry power. This creation is made to look like coral found in the ocean. This piece looks so much like the real thing that when I first saw a picture of it, I thought Adria was actually serving coral. Another dish that caught my eye is Muelle de aceite de oliva virgen , olive oil springs. This dish is made to look like a spring and is made of virgin olive oil. Both of these pieces created by the magnificent Adria fall under the mimetic category of
Anderson’s “Quartet of Traditions” since they both mimic real things such as coral or a spring. However, his other dishes and concoctions are not necessarily mimetic but could be considered formalist as well. Adria uses form and texture to trick the eye and stimulate the palate. His dishes are wild and take the customers out of the box of linear thinking towards something as basic as food. He has taken something so simple and fundamental and has added pizzazz and flair to it. Not just adding some parsley or scallions as garnish, Adria has made the creation of food into an art form.

This particular idea drew me in for a few reasons. One of my favorite things to do is to cook and to think of new ideas for my cooking. Adding new and different ingredients to foods and coming up with an interesting way to present it is very appealing to me. Adria had taken this to a whole new level. He is expressing his thoughts and ideas on food and how it can be manipulated to act contrary to the norm.

Adria is a visionary who wants his passion to be considered art. He has pushed the bar on how people observe their culinary dishes and also how the go about eating certain foods. Just like the expansion of architecture in the medieval period. Ferran Adria is adding a new medium to aesthetics.


"The Big Debate: Can Food Be Serious Art? - washingtonpost.com." Washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines. Web. 24 Sept. 2009. .

"ElBulli Gallery: All about the most famous restaurant in the world - elBulli.info." El Bulli Restaurant. Web. 23 Sept. 2009. .

"Ferran Adria - Bio of the World's Greatest Chef - El Bulli Restaurant Barcelona Spain." Gourmet Food - Fine Cooking, Recipes, Techniques, Reviews, Celebrity Chefs, and more. Web. 24 Sept. 2009. .