Automatic translation of the archived Russian text. Recordings and text within images remain in their original language. Read the Russian original
About this material
Lectures on video games and art, prepared for students of the HSE Faculty of Computer Science summer school.
Key points
Yaroslav introduces games as a possible artistic medium by first asking how art itself changes. He draws on his experience in both game development and media art, using examples from painting, photography and contemporary exhibitions to challenge the idea that a work’s format alone determines its artistic status.
Technology changes artistic possibilities and incentives. Portable paint and photography illustrate how new tools can alter both what artists make and what audiences expect from them.
The question “Are games art?” is too broad. Like books or films, games are a medium; individual works need to be considered through what they express and how they are made.
Art is not limited to beauty or technical realism. A work may matter through its concept, the questions it raises and the response it creates.
Recognition also involves context: exhibitions, curators, critics and a legible authorial intention help a work enter the art world. Yaroslav presents these as practical observations, not a definitive checklist.
The questions explore collective authorship, anonymous creators, reputation and mass culture. Neither popularity nor the absence of one publicly identifiable maker settles the issue by itself.
Based on automatically generated Russian captions. Recognition errors are possible; this is a thematic summary, not a verbatim transcript.