The synchronicity of this most recent publication by my uncle is not lost on me. (What synchronicity? You shall soon see.) I thought I would share the concept with you guys, as some of the few that I know would comprehend and
appreciate it. What follows is the foreword to the text.
Art: The Game of Appreciation
Art is a game of appreciation. The aim of the game is to appreciate playing it. We investigate its play world to discover positive value. Using devices and artifacts crafted as props for a game of make-believe, we employ our emotions and sensations in the art of imagining this unreal world. We play the role of our counterparts, imagining their experience there. In this pretense, we play the game of art. If we are not pretending, art reverts to the real life aesthetics of design and style and the ethics of justice and grace. Real life in the troubled virtue of our world is not a game; nor is it art. But playing games does not make our activity art - not if we don't also play for appreciation. Playing a game of appreciation is a necessary condition for art.
Pretending that all experience is limited to the precincts of a garden makes being there pretend play. If this play activity on a garden visit is to have a goal, it will be a game. And if this aim of the game is appreciation, the garden visit will be art - a non-competitive game with the win-win goal of appreciation. When sports are played to have a good game that can be appreciated, as well as to win by scoring, they are also a category of art. Similarly, in open worlds of fiction, participation in a world of make-believe to appreciate that world makes the activity art. Whatever other aim of the game there might be and whatever the rules of play, as long as the game is played for appreciation, it will be art. Playing a game of appreciation is a sufficient condition for art.
A few choice chapter subheadings:
§ Players' Community of Commitment and Joint Intent
§ Imagining Truth in a World of Make-Believe
§ Your Counterpart's Bounded Mind
§ The Pretense of Free Beauty; Aesthetic Trumping
§ Ethics in an Unbounded, Fictional World
§ Cultural Hermetics
§ The Uncorruption of Consciousness
It runs in the family, see?
It took him years to write it, and it will probably take me years to fully absorb it. I may send him some minor grammar edits if there is to be a second edition.
Adds new depth to "gg". We are artists; if we appreciate the game.
I think this is particularly true of SFC. Especially when you consider the actual artistic content of the game itself and our contributions to it as players. Also, consider the "Plasma Ballet" and the "Sabredance". These terms are no accident. Tactical prowess is an art to be appreciated.
See you in the garden.
Topic: Art: The Game of Appreciation (Read 1883 times)