Violence in Games and Other Media: Artistic Irresponsibility and the Forbidden Fruit Effect

People tend to show interest in things that are considered "bad".

Do violent games and TV shows spoil our youth? Every time this question pops up it triggers heated discussions. So it was only a matter of time until I felt I had to say something on this topic as well. And so ... Here are my two cents:

I'd like to start the discussion with a few things I believe we all can agree on:

· There are many people regularly enjoying violent media, but only a small percentage among them shows violent behaviour. 

· Countless studies prove that there actually is a link between media violence and violence in society. Whether gamers and fans of other violent media like it or not. However, it can't be said for sure whether violent media causes violence or whether it merely affects a pre-existing potential for violence. 

· Apart from violent media there are countless other factors that can lead to violent behaviour, such as domestic violence or child neglect, poverty, violent neighbourhood and so on. People can be taught to be aggressive and to accept such behaviour as normal. 

· There are people who are more aggressive and people who are more pacifistic just by nature. 

· Researching the effects of media violence is a difficult task, because these effects can't be seen immediately.

Domain and Facebook

Hello everyone!

You may have already noticed that this blog's transition to its own domain went well. I did have some trouble with the DNS settings, but the problem was quickly resolved and now everything seems to work. Yay!

In the meantime I've created a Facebook account. So if you're interested in exchanging thoughts on art and other interesting stuff you're welcome to follow me or add me as a friend.

The next regular blog post will be published on August 4th. I can't wait to finally be back!

Sincerely yours,

Feael Silmarien

Summer Break!

As I've already announced in May there's going to be a summer break during which I'll take a rest from all the writing and editing and buy a domain for this blog. This break is going to be the whole of July. So the next essay will be posted on August 4th.

I'm looking forward to it!

Sincerely yours,

Feael Silmarien

Art vs. Mere Skill - Do Commissions Destroy Art?

Some of the greatest pieces of art are commissioned works.

In 1835 the writer Nikolai Gogol published a short story entitled The Portrait in which a poor, young artist gives in to the temptation of money and starts a mass production of commissioned portraits which leads to him losing his talent as well as his sanity. His sin against art isn't taking commissions per se, but giving in to the demands of his commissioners who understand very little about art and only care about being portrayed as Greek gods.

In 1833 Vladimir Odoevsky told a very similar story: In his Improvisator a poet is granted the power to make up poems on the spot and has a huge success as an improvisator who makes up verses according to his audience's wishes. He, too, loses the ability to create art along with his mind.

Both stories are fruits of the Romantic era which introduced the idea of art as something divine seen and expressed through the artist. Today there is the idea about art being a way of self-expression. From both standpoints the artist is seen as having a crucial role in the process of creating art.

When it comes to commissions, however ... At first glance, the artist doesn't seem very important: The idea comes from the commissioner, the artist serves only with his bare skill. Yet is this first impression true?

Trash - When an Artwork Is So Bad That It's Good

"Good" trash wouldn't let go of you and it will haunt you in your dreams and everyday life.

The internet ... A place where you can find everything from the greatest crap to the most wonderful masterpiece ... A place where I found stuff that both amazed and traumatized me, that made me a better artist and that turned me into a little devil at the same time. I've been "living" online for 12 years now and I slowly but surely ended up developing a strange liking for trash.

Don't get me wrong, though. There's a big difference between creative products (I struggle to call them artworks) that are just bad and masterpieces that are so bad that they're actually good. While pieces that are "just bad" are simply plain boring trash has something fascinating about it. "Good" trash wouldn't let go of you until you finish reading or watching it, and afterwards it will haunt you in your dreams and everyday life.

The Fascinating World of Fan Art - Why Creative Fans Do What They Do

The internet is a free space, and there are people with very diverse ideas and interests.

If you ever came across Harry Potter having SM sex with Draco Malfoy in tight leather underwear and your only reaction was to roll your eyes and say you've seen worse then you truly know what creative fans are capable of. I love fan art, I've been a fanfiction writer for over 10 years, and as an operator on Fanfiktion.de, a German fanfiction community, it's actually part of my job to struggle through really disturbing texts. And considering some rather traumatizing experiences I really understand why Anne Rice, the author of The Vampire Chronicles, used to forbid her fans to write fanfiction:

"I do not allow fan fiction. The characters are copyrighted. It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters. It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes."

There are also copyright holders who generally don't mind fan art as long as it respects moral values. For instance, the example above isn't something Joanne K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, and Warner Bros. like to see, since the series is targeted at a younger audience that should be protected from adult content.

A Domain for "Philosophy of Art"?

I've been thinking about this ever since I started this blog: Yes, it's only a little, private blog, made just for fun and English practice, but I didn't like its current URL from the very start. Originally I wanted its address to be philosophy-of-art.blogspot.com, yet this URL was already taken by someone who made only one or two posts and didn't touch his blog ever since.

I tried to come up with other names for this blog and had some pretty good ideas, but they all were already taken, so I decided to stick with "Philosophy of Art". Even though this title isn't very original and (as I later found out) many people have come up with this title or similar ones for their blogs, books and essays independently of each other, it still tells what this blog is supposed to be about.

Since I couldn't use my better ideas and philosophy-of-art.blogspot.com was taken by someone who didn't even use it I simply used my username as URL. Which, unfortunately, is very hard to remember. And now I don't want to change it because of all the links to this blog.