Discursively Constructing the Art of Silent Hill

Abstract

This article explores the construction of Silent Hill-Konami's survival horror video game series-as art. Adopting a discursive approach to the notion of ''art,'' the extent to which traditional formations of cultural value are mobilized is explored across three aspects of the series' first four installments. The Silent Hill game texts are examined as evoking formal devices of art cinema, including realism, ambiguity, psychological complexity, and self-reflexivity. Next the games' advertising is considered as emphasizing these qualities, privileging narrative over ludic gaming aspects. Finally the games' representation in the documentary ''The Making of Silent Hill 2'' is discussed as positioning the series within frameworks of artistry and authorship.

Avant-Garde Art and Artists

“…Recent studies have examined avant-gardes in popular music (Lena and Peterson, 2008;Lena, 2012), jazz (Currie, 2010;Krnic, 2010), fashion design (Mears, 2008;Kawamura, 2004), culinary innovation (Hollows and Jones, 2010;Cunningham, 2008), and video games (Kirkland, 2010). These studies show the importance of the concept in understanding the emergence and development of these forms of culture.…”

“…In one case, a series of television shows in which a British chef demonstrated his intellectual and aesthetic practices had the effect of securing for him the label of 'culinary alchemist. ' Finally, an analysis of a survival horror video game series, Silent Hill, argues that the series qualifies as an art form on the basis that its texts exhibit formal devices used by art cinema, such as 'realism, ambiguity, psychological complexity, and selfreflexivity,' that its advertising emphasizes these qualities rather than gaming, and that its production has been the subject of a documentary (Kirkland, 2010).…”

Canonizing Bioshock

“…Ewan Kirkland (2010) argues that discussions of audiovisual style in mainstream games function to align them with more established art forms by highlighting ''cinematic'' atmosphere or ''painterly'' style, thus enabling direct aesthetic comparisons (p. 320). In spite of the above focus on gameplay, Bioshock's ''gloss and glorious attention to detail'' (Reed, 2007) in excess of the core is equally important to its canonical status.…”

“…Its horror elements are taken up enthusiastically by critics, who link the game's horrific impact to its evocative world building (Murdoch, 2007;Pliskin, 2008a;Reyes, 2007). Survival horror is something of a privileged genre in digital games (Kirkland, 2010), but Bioshock is doubly privileged by critics who position its particular brand of horror as restrained and psychological, over and against the ''cheap'' gore and startle scares of lesser horror games (Barratt, 2007). In film and other media, psychological ''horror from within'' is understood to represent a more sophisticated and aesthetically worthy form of horror (McKibbin, 2006, p. 51).…”

Integrating Games Into the Artworld

“…For example, one researcher offers, ''John Dewey's pragmatic philosophy of art offers a valuable framework for discussing the unique way in which video games may be art'' (Deen, 2011). Another approach is to assert that video games are art through a critical reading of a particular video game, as in a discursive discourse on the formal construction of Silent Hill (Kirkland, 2010), the examination of Portal as art by probing the conceptual metaphor of a key game mechanic (Burden & Gouglas, 2012) or by aesthetically examining the notion of challenge in the game Fallout 3 (Iversen, 2012). Others defend games as art by taking an Aristotelian approach: games have all of the formal elements, that is, they have all of the parts expected from art (Gee, 2006); or games have a pragmatic value that is the same as art (Schulzke, 2009); or that, since ''the game player's epiphany when regaining control after an aporia is similar to the metaphorical awareness of the connection between representation and meaning in other art forms'' (Rush, 2011, p. 245), games must be art as well.…”