Participation, Performance and Relation

Being an art history student I feel obliged to participate in the discussion regarding whether video games can be considered art. I think video games can fall into several realms of contemporary art, being participation art, performance art and relational art.
Participation art is when the artist uses participation as a component of art making, also participation is the project and the artist creates the framework allowing for participation with no preconceived ideas of the outcome. If we think of the game designer(s) as the artist, participation being playing the game and the framework the code it seems to tick all of the boxes, apart from one- the artist having no preconceived idea of the outcome because of the cybertext element. Performance art is in which the actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time constitute the work. If we were to think of video games as performance art we must consider the time and place, is it within the gameplay or the time and space that surrounds the physical act of playing a game. A component of Relational Art is where the artwork creates a social environment in which people come together to participate in a shared activity. Video games are social! MMPORPGs are a great example of this.
The problem is where do we draw the line between life and art. These terms can be applied to just about any daily activity.
I think time will eventually credit video games as art just as it has over new media forms.

Candace.W