I thought Arteroids was a great example of a work that teeters on the line of game and art. It prompted some questions that I think are worth exploring: Can a game be considered a piece of artwork? What about game as literature? That’s the question I keep coming back to. I think it’s safe to say that Arteroids can be considered both game and art. What’s art anyway? If we just consider art to be something that’s visually appealing, Arteroids would definitely be considered art. Even if we act more as players than readers, we have to admit that we are hypnotized by those words and phrases, which seem to twirl aimlessly in a never ending space.
If we say that the function of art is to make some sort of commentary on a particular issue, Arteroids would still be considered art. As Professor Sample pointed out in class, Arteroids illustrates the fragility of language. It plays on some of the same ideas as Neil Hennessey’s JABBER: The Jabberwocky Engine. If you think about it, these two works comment on the arbitrariness of the English language. The phrases in Arteroids are free flowing. This free movement symbolizes the looseness of words. By this I mean that their meanings are very loose, as interpretations vary with each player or reader. As you get more and more wrapped up in the gameplay, you start to notice that the words don’t mean very much. You just want to destroy as many as you can with precision and accuracy. The message comes with playing the game. The fact that Arteroids comes in game form fits in with the theme. In essence, Jim Andrews is trivializing the English language by making it into a game. Andrews is saying that words don’t mean much at all. Words are merely representations of concrete things.