The word “art” is a pretty loose term when applied to visual novels. For example, whenever I am working on fixing Paulette’s dress, I say that I am “updating the art.” If somebody happens to see it and decides to be mean spirited, he would say something along the lines of, “your art sucks!” or if somebody for some reason thought that was great, he would say something like, “your art is great!”
At the same time though, there’s been quite a controversy lately on defining just what is and what is not art. For example, there’s one argument that goes along the lines of “if it’s anime styled, then it’s obviously not ART.” Another common argument that gets thrown around quite frequently is that “if something’s rendered in 3D, then it’s not ART.”
Unfortunately, many of these arguments are argued on the basis of personal opinion and common sensical arguments like “Well, I’ve never seen a 3D model/anime in a museum display before, so it obviously isn’t art.” While personal opinion is the basis of all arguments, it generally happens to be the fact that the average internet dweller doesn’t have the artistic or historical knowledge to know that these arguments have actually been occurring in the art world for the greater part of the past century. At least a brief investigation of some of the issues relevant to visual novel creators is needed if the various controversies surrounding visual novel creation is to become more than just empty shouting. Unfortunately, very few people have actually provided in-depth investigations of the matter – probably an end result of conflict aversion and a lack of motivation – so hopefully this series of posts that I’m going to make about art will at least inspire other people to go out and do their own research.
An issue that raised particular controversy in the visual novel making community concerned the issue that I term very loosely as “effort.” To be more precise than that, in a rather strange turn of events, Kikered, an on and off member of the Lemmasoft community (now one of the people who work on Baka-Trio’s Webzine) wrote, “Don’t let the lack of original material prevent you from making a game!” Originally, this was written in the context of NaNoReNo, a festival that the Lemmasoft community has every month of March to make a game in one month. The comment was most likely taken out of its context and taken to mean something that its writer didn’t intend it to, but that’s not entirely the point here. What’s important is that it eventually started a debate in the community about the nature of visual novels. To simplify a more complex situation, two opposing view points were formed. The first of the view points argued that the Lemmasoft community was an insular group of creators who were basking in their own mediocrity by applauding their own works without accepting any sort of criticism (“circle jerking”), while the other view point argued that the first group were basically invaders from Chan who had nothing constructive to offer and were only trolling for attention. The entire controversy apparently led Four Leaf Studios (the people making Katawa Shoujo) to create pXt, a game designed to ridicule most of the Lemmasoft community by creating a game with absolutely no original content.
At first glance, it does appear somewhat ridiculous for anyone to claim that something does not need to be original in order to qualify as being something as sacred as “Art.” Certainly, a creator who takes a bunch of pre-made stock character sprites, gets a couple of backgrounds from Flickr, and puts it together into a game is less worthy of praise than a second creator who creates all of his assets from scratch using his own skills. The theoretical issue at hand here is that making a creation using assets that were made by something else is artistically lazy and is not as worthy as laboring to create everything using one’s own hands. Unfortunately, the debate in the visual novel community didn’t proceed from this clear theoretical question, and thanks to poor debating skills and much mud slinging, had little more than the effect of just making everyone involved in the debate angry and causing most of those people who weren’t interested in debating go underground while the interested parties battled it out.
Once reduced down to this elegant theoretical question, I personally think that the creator who labors with his own hands to create all of his assets is more worthy of praise than the creator who merely assembles together some pre-made assets. As an artist, I expect myself to partake as much as possible in the act of creating, so it seems like I am robbing myself of an opportunity to practice my abilities if I just appropriate someone else’s work. However, I guess I am willing to make some concessions if the situation necessitates it – for example, if it becomes clear that I will not be able to ever complete my game without using some stock photographic backgrounds, then I’d rather use the photographs than kill my game.
However, I am afraid that the majority of the art community would disagree with me on this one. Whoever said, “Don’t let the lack of original content prevent you from creating” was actually correct. Creative objects that has absolutely no original content quite frequently qualify as “art” and some of them in fact have more international esteem than every single visual novel ever produced by mankind combined and frequently sell at art exhibitions in excess of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In our first exhibit, I present Andy Warhol’s 100 Cans. The work of art, is in fact, 100 prints of Cambell’s Soup cans. If my information is correct, it is being displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and a single one of these pictures goes for as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars. Warhol is widely acknowledged by the art world as an artistic genius and is an internationally celebrated artist.
But it does not stop there. I present you with Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. In this exhibit, the work of art is in fact, a cheap urinal that the artist purchased from a local catalogue. Released with literally 5000 times more scandal and controversy than Four Leaf Studio could have ever hoped for when they released qXt, the work and the artist was considered so obnoxious for the art establishment that for the next century, he inspired virtually every single rebellious artist that ever existed. He is now regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and a simple replica of the Fountain sold for as much as $1.7 million.
What then really is “art?” The answer lies in the creative goal of the creator. Warhol, with his 100 Cans wished to express the mass produced consumerism of his era, while Duchamp’s Fountain wished to present his visceral hatred for the establishment that led the world into complete devastation in World War I. It is then entirely possible for a visual novel with no original content to qualify as “art” – if there is creative intent behind the artist’s work. It is then ironic that Four Leaf Studios, in their ridiculing of the Lemmasoft Community by creating a game with absolutely no original content, indeed did create a piece of art – the entire project was charged with the creative aim of paradoxically discrediting a group of other artists. What they believed to be a completely uncreative, uninspired work created chiefly to ridicule a group of other artists by exaggerating their claims to its logical conclusion, was actually a classical example of artistry in its most fundamental sense. Unfortunately however, I don’t think their work will reach quite the international status or financial value as a Warhol painting.
Whether you actually believe personally as an artist whether a lack of original content disqualifies something from the realm of respectability is probably up to you. That’s a personal work philosophy that one follows in his own creative process. In the end though, an artist is free to create in whatever method he choses to, and nobody else should force him to do otherwise.
