Interview: Clive Barker
- October 23, 2007 13:09 PM PST
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Page 1.) Clive talks about crafting Jericho, and what inspired him to make the game
Page 2.) Clive talks about the heroe's journey, video games as art, and Roger Ebert
Page 3.) Clive talks about culture and video games, and making a game with a gay lead character
A common element in your work seems to be that there is a world beyond this one, one just out of our reach but that affects our reality none the less.
CB: It is a common thread, and not just in my narratives but in everything from Beowulf onwards that describes the world of the fantastic lying just around the corner. I don't write closed worlds. Lords of the Rings is something that I'd call a closed world narrative. You and I wouldn't belong there; we wouldn't make very good orcs. The interesting thing to me is to take a real world, one that we recognize, a world in which you and I could walk.
And then we turn a corner... in Alice in Wonderland you fall down a rabbit hole, or Narnia you step through that wardrobe, Dorothy being take away by a tornado. All of these are methodologies in which you cross over from the world of the real to the world of the super-real. Notice I didn't say fantastic, I said super-real. I think these worlds that we go into mean something to us because they touch our mythological sense; the idea of passing through time zones to move toward a demon or a force of evil that must be destroyed and to quote the title of Joseph Campbell's book, this is The Heroes Journey; a journey that has been taken by heroes over and over again. The definition of a hero I think is: he who does not flee when the darkness arrives on the horizon but turns to face it.
"The definition of a hero I think is: he who does not flee when the darkness arrives on the horizon but turns to face it."
When we consider videogames as an art form, the player seems to be a direct participant in the creation of that art. How do you see this doorway (in the narrative) that connects our world to that of the super-real in relation to video games as a doorway connecting participants to the super-real of the world of the game?
CB: Well, I'm not sure that we are not co-creators in all art forms. In playing a game you co-create. You make choices which mean that the experience is uniquely yours. I believe that's true of a book too. If you read my novel Weaveworld and then some one else reads the book the Weaveworlds that appear in your head and theirs are going to be two completely different things. I think the glory of video games is, and this is why I've had issues with a certain Mr. Ebert and his insulting the work of people who are making such extraordinary images and stories- this is art.
What I take seriously is that I'm giving pleasure to people through my work, to those people buying the game. That's what matters.
This is art because it has a power to move and engage, and most importantly it has the power to allow us to co-create. What Mr. Ebert doesn't seem to understand is that all art invites you into a wonderful conspiracy of creation where you use what you're given, in the case of Jericho you're given some soldiers and a landscape, and you take the controller to begin your journey. In the case of Weave World you're given a book, or with one of my paintings you're given a canvas and the person sitting next to you is going to have a different interpretation of it than you. Mr. Ebert doesn't seem to understand that there is a freedom in experiencing art, to become whatever that experience invites you to be, and that is essential to the art experience. There is an interesting issue here where gamers have only just begun this fight.
I've been in print 24 years or so, and books I published many years ago are finally being accepted as literature. I think there's a general condescension towards popular work, and video games fall in this group because they are very popular. As far as the Eberts of the world are concerned that means that it can not be of any worth.
"I think there's a general condescension towards popular work, and video games fall in this group because they are very popular."
When I first published Weaveworld, it went on the best seller list. Some of the reviews I got were hate mail, and it was mainly because I was dreaming with my eyes open and having a damn good time doing it. The people that pontificate and tell you what's good and what isn't, they didn't have the vocabulary to describe or talk about the process of what was underway in my book. Now I think a similar thing is happening to video games; there isn't the critical vocabulary available for critics address it with, and I think when this vocabulary builds up enough, with enough wit and intelligence, people will finally realize how powerful games are. It took Peter Jackson to do it for fantasy, showing that fantasies are these huge moral fables.
Now, as fantasy on the page is finding a home and coming in from the rain as it were, games have the same fight on their hands. I think in essence we have to ask ourselves whether or care or not if the people in the main stream of thought have good opinions of what we do. Personally I could give a fuck. It's kinda fun to poke my finger in Mr. Ebert's fat ass... well actually it wouldn't be fun to have my finger in his ass, let's say his fat stomach instead. The voice of the critic is not something I take seriously. What I take seriously is that I'm giving pleasure to people through my work, to those people buying the game. That's what matters. I'm assuming sooner or later the critics are going to catch up with what we're doing.
So let me throw the question back at you. Here you're writing for a journal that is analyzing this kind of work all the time. Does it concern you that game creators are somewhat pushed aside? It just seems as though the vocabulary is just not there right now when it comes to dealing with this kind of creation.
