What I get about your idea here...that 'audience-consciousness' is basically inextricable from 'art'...well, the same thing could be said about 'personality'. A huge chunk of what we see as being our personalities (our 'ego', in psyche talk, really) is also determined in part by our social experience. I think what most of the others here are saying is that consciously targeting an audience other than yourself is often damaging to the quality of artistic expressions, simply due to the fact that we have less ability to understand the aesthetic values of others than we do of ourselves. Add this to the idea that many people actively dislike what the perceived aesthetics of more popular expressions are, for whatever reasons (ego, social environment, brain chemistry, etc.), and you will get someone like myself who has little to no appreciation for the model of targeting an exterior audience as a valued facet of artistic expression. I mean really, what's the point? Other than some sort of financial gain?

LutherBlissett wrote:To a degree, Melville was fucking with his audience and publishers. Was he serving them? No, but the story is not some pure, inner expression. He's writing for an audience.

And, like, drama and satire and stuff. That's an art that tends to have some awareness of the audience.

This factor, I would like to disagree with.

Myself and a friend of mine, have been obsessively been creating "art" for a few years (longer if you count in the numerous writings between us) Both of our output, has never been created with anyone in mind, i.e. audience.(Our output has been massive)
I think the only people who have seen our stuff is Clocker Bob and select family members. None of it has been created with a specific or any audience in mind, just more of an entertaining thing for us.

(With exception to some gig posters, which were created for an audience.)

Nina wrote:I think the only people who have seen our stuff is Clocker Bob and select family members. None of it has been created with a specific or any audience in mind, just more of an entertaining thing for us.

I respect that policy, but I don't endorse it. I think that better art will result if the artist attempts to ignore his audience when creating it, but I do think that once the work is finished, the artist should attempt to get people to see it ( read it hear it ). The parameters of the exhibition process should be comfortable for the artist- if you're Henry Darger, maybe that's impossible- but I have no disagreement with marketing or selling art. No one should resist the urge to gratify their ego based on some 'purity' test, not if they feel their ego tugging them and their art out into the open, even if the 'open' is the marketplace. If you think you have made something good or great, that feeling of accomplishment growing inside you can be amplified by the feedback of the public. There's no shame in chasing that- we are social creatures, it is good to like other people and to like for them to like your work.

While I wish art and many other commodities ( yes, I consider art a commodity ) could be free, in the real world, much of the art I value has been sold to me, and much of that art might never have made its way to my life if there weren't openings for people to make money from it along the route.

clocker bob wrote:

Nina wrote:I think the only people who have seen our stuff is Clocker Bob and select family members. None of it has been created with a specific or any audience in mind, just more of an entertaining thing for us.

I respect that policy, but I don't endorse it. I think that better art will result if the artist attempts to ignore his audience when creating it, but I do think that once the work is finished, the artist should attempt to get people to see it ( read it hear it ). The parameters of the exhibition process should be comfortable for the artist- if you're Henry Darger, maybe that's impossible- but I have no disagreement with marketing or selling art. No one should resist the urge to gratify their ego based on some 'purity' test, not if they feel their ego tugging them and their art out into the open, even if the 'open' is the marketplace. If you think you have made something good or great, that feeling of accomplishment growing inside you can be amplified by the feedback of the public. There's no shame in chasing that- we are social creatures, it is good to like other people and to like for them to like your work.

While I wish art and many other commodities ( yes, I consider art a commodity ) could be free, in the real world, much of the art I value has been sold to me, and much of that art might never have made its way to my life if there weren't openings for people to make money from it along the route.

The only problem with our specific situation though, is that he does not want anything to do with being out there to show it, wants to stay anonymous as he is not one for attention or any kind of glory and praising. So then, how do you handle that? Have considered the flyposting idea, but I don't really want to go to jail for fucking flyposting, not at my fucking age!

Nina wrote:

LutherBlissett wrote:To a degree, Melville was fucking with his audience and publishers. Was he serving them? No, but the story is not some pure, inner expression. He's writing for an audience.

And, like, drama and satire and stuff. That's an art that tends to have some awareness of the audience.

This factor, I would like to disagree with.

Myself and a friend of mine, have been obsessively been creating "art" for a few years
<snip>

[prick voice]
You'll notice I chose Melville, not an anonymous closet artist, as an example to illustrate my point. The example of Melville doesn't deny your existence. I can assert "X" without denying the existence of "not-X." Them's how logics work.

You'll notice I said "drama" and "satire." You can stage plays in your basement for your cat and write social satire for no one but yourself, but it is more often the case that these genres imply an audience. [/prick voice]

Rayj, plenty of people bracket any consideration of reception or context for their art. Others don't. If I'm stressing this other, it's because it's being denied or denigrated here. If someone, like Aneurhythmia, wants to claim the opposite, that all art is produced with others in mind, I'd be just as quick to counter that claim, too.

I think a more expansive conception is justified, not a more reductive one. Meanwhile, if I build a hammer for personal use because it makes me feel good to build hammers--and I don't care six shits what anyone else thinks of my hammers--but someone else picks up my hammer and uses it to build a doghouse, or to chase a kid off his lawn, or to demonstrate to someone the value of tools or the superiority of physical force over rhetoric, there is a way in which my hammer has been put into service. Once out in the world it's anyone's to make use of. It "serves" purposes other than I intended. Why is art different?

If I hide my hammer away, then yeah, it serves no one but me.

You know, maybe I make a baby because I want a kid and I don't care what anyone says. Maybe someone points at my kid and says "this is what's wrong with America, right here, perfect example." Well my kid is serving someone else's purposes. Maybe my kid joins the military, if you want to get totally literal about "serving." I've gotta hide my kids away to completely stop them from serving anyone but me.

LutherBlissett wrote:

Nina wrote:

LutherBlissett wrote:To a degree, Melville was fucking with his audience and publishers. Was he serving them? No, but the story is not some pure, inner expression. He's writing for an audience.

And, like, drama and satire and stuff. That's an art that tends to have some awareness of the audience.

This factor, I would like to disagree with.

Myself and a friend of mine, have been obsessively been creating "art" for a few years
<snip>

[prick voice]
You'll notice I chose Melville, not an anonymous closet artist, as an example to illustrate my point. The example of Melville doesn't deny your existence. I can assert "X" without denying the existence of "not-X." Them's how logics work.

You'll notice I said "drama" and "satire." You can stage plays in your basement for your cat and write social satire for no one but yourself, but it is more often the case that these genres imply an audience. [/prick voice]

[bitch voice] Is it really necessary to use [prick voice?] Really now, this is JUST a discussion, isn't it? Or have I missed something? [/bitch voice]

Nina wrote:
The only problem with our specific situation though, is that he does not want anything to do with being out there to show it.

I know. The nexus of art and 'entertainment' and where they overlap is a tricky issue. I feel like the world suffers when good art is hidden. I liked the posters, I told you that, but I almost would rather not see art that I can't tell the rest of the world about.

Nina wrote:[bitch voice] Is it really necessary to use [prick voice?] Really now, this is JUST a discussion, isn't it? Or have I missed something? [/bitch voice]

I meant, 'I know I'm being a prick here, but I don't know how else to put this because you've singled out a quotation and responded to it illogically.'

LutherBlissett wrote:

Nina wrote:[bitch voice] Is it really necessary to use [prick voice?] Really now, this is JUST a discussion, isn't it? Or have I missed something? [/bitch voice]

I meant, 'I know I'm being a prick here, but I don't know how else to put this because you've singled out a quotation and responded to it illogically.'

I don't think I am responding illogically. I do admit though that I'm not being as clear as I should be. When I say there is no audience in mind, I mean that, unlike Melville or even better, here's a modern example; Bukowski, who knew that anything he wrote would be taken by Black Sparrow and published. Sitting at the typewriter, Bukowski knew that he was one part of a production process. Written, edited, laid out by the artists, printed, distributed, finally sold and read by the consumer. What my friend and I are doing are outside that process.
Compared to that, we are creating for nobody but ourselves. But the things we create are done with SOME audience in mind. Most of it is political satire, which seems to be one of the most external of all types of art.
I have more to write, but I need to get a smoke now. I hope I have clarified part of my thinking.

LutherBlissett wrote:Rayj, plenty of people bracket any consideration of reception or context for their art. Others don't. If I'm stressing this other, it's because it's being denied or denigrated here. If someone, like Aneurhythmia, wants to claim the opposite, that all art is produced with others in mind, I'd be just as quick to counter that claim, too.

I think a more expansive conception is justified, not a more reductive one. Meanwhile, if I build a hammer for personal use because it makes me feel good to build hammers--and I don't care six shits what anyone else thinks of my hammers--but someone else picks up my hammer and uses it to build a doghouse, or to chase a kid off his lawn, or to demonstrate to someone the value of tools or the superiority of physical force over rhetoric, there is a way in which my hammer has been put into service. Once out in the world it's anyone's to make use of. It "serves" purposes other than I intended. Why is art different?

If I hide my hammer away, then yeah, it serves no one but me.

You know, maybe I make a baby because I want a kid and I don't care what anyone says. Maybe someone points at my kid and says "this is what's wrong with America, right here, perfect example." Well my kid is serving someone else's purposes. Maybe my kid joins the military, if you want to get totally literal about "serving." I've gotta hide my kids away to completely stop them from serving anyone but me.

I agree with you on a few things there. Personally, the 'art' that works for me, in a major way, has been produced by those working to satisfy themselves first. A great example is in the field of, say, early Bugs Bunny cartoons. If you read interviews with Mel Blanc and the lot, they rarely fail to mention that the cartoons had to make the artists laugh first. Later, the industry as a whole became more hierarchal, and the higher-ups started putting more pressure on the studios to produce cartoons that directly targeted children. I think I can safely say that those cartoons sucked. Now I believe, based upon my own experience, that even though those early cartoons weren't really directly targeting me as a kid, well, I guess they succeeded as much as my appreciations of cartoon humor paralleled those of the creators.

I think the creative process is often complex enough to not need unnecessary extra steps. Having a primary focus on one's own aesthetics doesn't make a product 'artistically pure'...it makes it more efficient at generating an effective self-expression, whatever that expression is. It is one reason why more overt 'propaganda' reads poorly and is usually blatantly idiotic and insulting, regardless of the content. It is one reason why those sappy Hollywood orchestral movie soundtracks make me want to punch somebody or bang on a noisy guitar. The act of targeting an audience is a defining focus that often manifests itself directly in the consciousness of the product. This both saps valuable energy from the finished result, and immediately sets off warning klaxons in people like myself who feel they are constantly being barraged by products targeting them.