Comments on: Are Game Experiments Apolitical? Avant-garde and Magic Realism.

By: A brief History of Anti-Formalism in Video Games | The Ludologist

A brief History of Anti-Formalism in Video Games | The Ludologist — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 21:23:04 +0000

[…] wrote about how magic realism was interpreted as a way of saying what could not be said in traditional novel form. Rushdie […]

By: Jesper

Jesper — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 12:14:52 +0000

@Frederik Indeed, Greenberg is a great example of how it is more complicated.

@SeanB Ah yes, that is a good point. It’s a bit muddled because of the fact that formal (and “decadent”) experiments were seen as being unable to express true revolutionary ideals, *meaning* that they were seen as de facto political and reactionary. And hence progressive ideas were assumed to be only expressible in non-experimental form.

By: SeanB

SeanB — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 18:10:09 +0000

I'm confused by the premise you're assuming, because you say this:

a powerful political entity felt threatened by experimental art

Doesn't that mean the "powerful political entity" saw the experimental, formalist art as political? I read that paragraph and I'm lost as to how they can possibly be seen as traditionally opposite ends of a spectrum given that sentence, thus undermining the premise that games being formal & political goes against the norm.

By: Frederik Hermund

Frederik Hermund — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 11:43:08 +0000

I’d have to agree that formal experiment and political expression are not opposites. And neither are complicit and radical attitudes, it seems. In fact, Clement Greenberg, the promoter of Abstract Expressionism, who is in the top-right corner (Formal and Radical) might as well be in the bottom left corner (Political and Complicit) considering that CIA themselves were also promoting abstract expressionism as a cultural weapon in the Cold War. But I guess such trivial details are easily lost in the greater, edifying narratives of art history and avant-garde theory, lol.