After planning multiple topics for my negotiated response, the most exciting topic I thought of is the one I’ve selected to discuss. My topic is does someone need to see the whole piece of art or understand it the way the artist intended to fully appreciate the piece for what it is.
The Witness is an open-world puzzle game released in 2016 by Thekla Inc and produced, designed, directed and written by Jonathan Blow, the game places the player on an island without any explanation or direction and forces players to wander and figure out what the island is and what happened there. To unlock secrets and new areas the player must complete puzzles than involve moving a line correctly through a maze-like grid presented on a panel using hints found on the panel or around the environment, the player must determine the rules of each set of puzzles through visual cues and audio tapes scattered around the island. Located around the island are beautifully crafted natural and man-made structures, the way the mechanics force the player to look at the environment highlights the true beauty of the world the company has created. Jonathan Blow created this game around “non-verbal communication”, wishing to make the players learn through observing the environment and figuring out the puzzles through “epiphanies” when attempting to find solutions to different sets of puzzles, hoping that this would lead to a greater sense of involvement in the world and finding a more gratifying experience in their accomplishments. Although there are hundreds of puzzles to solve the player doesn’t need to finish them all to finish the game. The game was met with widespread acclaim from critics and sold over 10000 copies in its first week of release which was the same amount that the previous Jonathan Blow game Braid had sold within its first year of release. However amongst all that praise and success, Blow still wasn’t happy instead stating that while he was pleased with all the raving reviews his hard work of seven However amongst all that praise and success, Blow still wasn’t happy instead stating that while he was pleased with all the raving reviews his hard work of seven ears was receiving he wasn’t happy with how the critics were reviewing the game stating that the critics only based their ratings off of a small portion of the game and never saw the full experience therefore not understanding or appreciating what the game was about or the message it was trying to portray, instead choosing to belittle the reviewers opinions due to that fact.
This got me thinking, why does the critic or regular gamer need to understand it the way Jonathan Blow intended to appreciate it and do we need to see it the way he wanted in order to have a valid opinion on the piece, I disagree with the idea to a certain extent. Art has long been said to be in the eye of the beholder and not one person feels the same way about the same piece of art and everyone sees something differently, a lot of games nowadays focus on the open world element and allowing players to tackle the game in different ways, in different orders and at their own pace allowing more freedom for players to create their own narrative through their choices of gameplay, the witness is no different and is almost inviting more theory from players experiencing the game due to its non-verbal way of communication therefore forcing the player to create more in their head, regardless of the progression and direction they take in the game they will appreciate it for the world they have created to allow them to create their own narratives through the freedom and visual clues that open up speculation.
Video games are in a different ball park to other mediums such as painting, photography, literature and movies where they follow a set direction and the writer or artist has more say in what the viewer sees and direct them into seeing what they want, games can be made with a more direct approach so the players see what is intended but with open world games they can only suggest a player to go visit where they want by marking locations or suggesting it through dialogue or written parts or by making it crucial to progression but if not there is no obligation for the player to go to these areas then some areas or stories may be left untouched by players. Creators must be ready for this by allowing players to appreciate it by whatever means they see fit and must pique the interest of the players into making them want to visit areas.
The other reason why I only partly agree with the argument of appreciating art in different ways is the idea of criticizing something without full understanding of a piece that fits within a larger piece. I recently watched a BBC reviews show where the presenter discussed different new movie releases with a critic as he shared his opinion with each release. Some of the reviews were perfectly reasonable where they were standalone pieces with everything this movie was trying to put forward all condensed into the one piece, there was one critique that frustrated me though and this was the critics review of the newly released Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2. While he didn’t speak ill of the film his critique of certain aspects were somewhat misinformed, stating that the film didn’t have much of a story, now I have seen the film and I rate it very highly. Where the critic went wrong with his review is that a lot of the plot doesn’t go anywhere and the story and characters are almost ridiculous and ill explained is that they have been explained before in the form of Marvels graphic novels and previous films in the cinematic universe, while stating that some of the characters were ridiculous and poorly described would only be valid if this was a film in its own right and not paired with multiple other forms of media. Marvel make their cinematic universe by picking out plot and characters from countless numbers of graphic novels each creating a new world with the same reoccurring characters and introducing new ones but still describing the abilities and motivations of each character, none of the characters introduced in the new Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 film are new in the Marvel universe only new in the cinematic universe. This allowed the creators of the movie to very briefly describe what they needed about the characters and could focus more on the plot progression and visuals of the game. I feel I would be a hypocrite to judge the critics opinion of the film fully but the wording of his critique was quite wrong, he should have instead opted to suggest that rather than saying the movie concentrated on different aspects of the universe rather than describe in detail the new characters included in the new movie.
When it comes to Jonathan Blows pretentiousness with his opinions on critics, he should allow people to appreciate the game in their own way as this is what the game allows. The game stands on its own therefore Blow has left everything about the game in the game for people to discover and explore. He may not have wanted it to be this way but his artwork is very open to interpretation, and in that makes the game more like art than others in the same medium. That is what art does, tells a story that everyone will feel different emotions towards and while not what was intended is a good thing.
