There is a lot of discussion in WJT Mitchell’s text, Picture Theory, about what it actually means to discuss comparisons between images and texts. I think my favorite part of this, or at least the part that was most interesting for a discussion, was the idea that there is a tendency to do comparative work in relation to the broad concepts that are the framework for how we think about art/literature, etc, from a certain time period. His specific example is that in a course that “compares (say) cubist painting with the poems of Ezra Pound [...] the real subject of the course is not the image/text problem, but modernism” (88). This, while useful for modernism, isn’t quite as useful for conceiving the of the work with images and text; especially as the mediums that use these continue to advance in interesting and unexpected ways. Seeing as it will be my project as the semester moves on, I thought I would discuss video games a bit.

For those of you who don’t know, the Smithsonian has decided to do a exhibit on video games, and specifically, on video game art. For the record, this is awesome, a great step forward for the medium and hopefully an opening for people to start making games stretch the range of artistic exploration in the field, and hopefully a movement outside of our normal ideas of what a game should be (that is, the constant reliance on combat as an equation to equal fun).

However, when going through this, I couldn’t help but think that the first response of art critics, and perhaps of the critical approach in general, would be to make a comparison of video game art to the other kinds of artistic exhibits that travel through the Smithsonian on a regular basis. As Mitchell suggests in his book, this kind of comparison, while productive in certain ways, is also reductionist and limiting, it ignores, as he discusses, “other forms of relationship, eliminating the possibility of metonymic juxtapositions, of incommensurability, and of unmediated or non-negotiable forms of alterity” (87). Even examining the current games, a comparison based on the same artistic standards obviously is going to work out the detriment of games, which rely on entirely different mechanics in order to engender art. However, while that kind of comparison isn’t going to be very fruitful for an examination of games, examinations based on the other values that Mitchell mentions could be very interesting.

A juxtaposition of a video game with a different form of artistic representation, might however, call into question the ways in which the two mediums present different ways of interacting with image, even with text. Without the video game comparison however, elements of interest might be concealed, even ignored. Comparing the mediums calls into question not only what medium can do, but what it can’t do and what functions it is limited by...but interestingly enough, it also provides the opportunity to see the ways in which it is capable of qualities that haven’t been fully explored yet, thereby expanding both mediums and there ways of representation. Film culture has changed the way in which books work in significant ways, offering new viewpoints and new ideas, and those who first notice through the placing of one beside the other become innovators.

However, even beyond that, the different kinds of relationship that can be made between different mediums can provide interesting new ways to use them in cohesion; they can possibly make the new simply by working together, or in counterpoint...or in ways that people haven’t even conceived of yet.

Hmm......