Is an 'audience' necessary to an Artist?
For instance - if, as an artist, you were condemned to solitary confinement (but with the necessary tools for your art) and, on your decease, all your work was to be destroyed and never seen, listened to, or experienced by another party, could you continue to create? Would your own satisfaction be sufficient?
Re: Is an 'audience' necessary to an Artist?
Who, in this situation, is doing the "condemning to solitary confinement", Simplsimon? Is it the artist themself, or powers completely beyond their control...(if there are such things).
One will talk to oneself in solitude given the absence of anyone else to speak to...and one would most certainly make whatever one is predisposed to make whether there was an audience or not. Even actors practice their scenes solo. Creative processes are, by nature, solitary pursuits.
If the confinement is actually a choice on some level, I think the question wanders more into: what is the effect of "remaining hidden" both on the artist and one the audience.
...so having answered your question, I hereby lob this one back at you.
Keld Feldspar
The difference between "hobby" and "practice" would be an interesting thread in itself. Would you like to do the honors?
Thanks Keld!
--edited late to fix dang ubb code.
Edited by: NousPoetikos at: 7/22/01 2:03:32 am
Re: Is an 'audience' necessary to an Artist? Simplsimon
The audience is totally unnecessary for me. As I note in the "Hobby" thread (thanks Keld!), I write because I need to, so what becomes of my work after my death is immaterial.
Nous, is it important who is responsible for the confinement? I think the point was like that slumber party question - if you had to listen to the same song over and over for the rest of eternity, which song would you pick? As in, the scenario is merely an illustration of the question.
Three lashes with a wet noodle for thinking me a sub EVEN FOR ONE MOMENT!
-The Admonistratrix
Simplsimon
I think "hiding" has an impact on the work one does. To expose work to the light of day is to proof it in a way which is not possible in solitude. Once public, a piece of work functions with others to inform culture (on a large scale) and to echo particuliar individual concerns and perceptions (on an individual basis).
If Harriet Beecher Stowe had not published "Uncle Tom's Cabin", there might not have been a civil war. If Braque had not attempted to show his work, there would be no Picasso...(or, assuming I'm wrong and Picasso would have stumbled onto cubism on his own, the paintings would have suffered due to lack of competition). Heck, where would the world be without Harry Potter?! How am I supposed to live without Purcell? Handel? Amon Tobin?
Art forms are a conversation of influence, culture, philosophy, aesthetic. They reach out an interact with one another creating newness and vitality within culture.
Any and all disagreement with this POV is welcome.
Re: Nous reveals her U&D fantasy........
(Given that I was given a nice welcome in the clarification thread, I'll be a devil and make a post...)
NousPoetikos, I don't know where the world would be without Harry Potter, but I do know I'd be far happier...
At the moment, as part of a literary project I am working on with a couple of other people, I am having to deal with a writer who, basically, beleives that to actually take his blessed work and...print it, that is, to finalise it, categorise it and put it out for the public to get their grubby mitts on demeans the whole project. this therefore means that we have had to employ guerrilla tactics to actually get him to do the work first of all, and escalate the subterfuge and plotting to get him to continue with it. One thing we know from experience is that right up until the point we get the bloody manuscript to print, he will be popping up, demanding that he can make one last change, or ordering us to scrap the whole thing. The last time, my collaborator was taking the text down to the printers, and was accosted at the door, with last minute corrections by this person. The only thing the collaborator could was run in the printers' door, slamming it shut behind him, and thus locking the bloody madman out temporarily. To this day, said madman proclaims the finished article (by NO means a bestseller, but generally acclaimed and well received) to be a complete disaster and lambasts my poor friend with endless homilies about how great it could have been had he just told the very busy (and charging by the hour) printer to stop everything so that he could add just that wee bit more to it. this is what we will have to put up with all over again. Geniuses are great when they're dead or someone elses' problem. If I can but grit my teeth till September and think of...what is it again...oh yes, KANSAS, I'm sure It will be grand in the end and we'll get it done. We havent told our genius who is printing this particular piece of work....
So I suppose that there is an extreme rejection of the audience -seeing the work as perpetually unfinished (when is it ever in any case?) and seeking to deny any public exposure until the non-existent date of actual perfection (never), simply because you have no trust in anything but your own creative process (not even the piece of work itself) to stand on its own merits.
I can sympathise with the concept that art is always in progress, and have even redrafted and reorientated old pieces that have been published if, at a later date, I've decided to do something different with it. But I appreciate being able to 'get it out there' (nerve wracking as that is) all the same, and in a sense, there's a dialectical thing going on which can be very useful.
But, I would say on balance, that much of creation is done alone, and that much of what I do I do because 'I' feel it is right, no-one else. So a locked room is no impediment to the process(assuming they leave me a pen and paper) though it is perhaps, a wee bit sad.
Hide it where nobody sees...
I have personally created much that was never really intended to be seen by anybody else - Also, I have uncovered some talents in others that I never knew existed because I stumbled upon their works, tucked away in note books or A3 pads...
I used to love drawing - and designed tatoos for a number of years, but only started selling them when a friend commented on having one done, and I suggested he look through some of the hundreds I'd doodled away on over the years.
Poetry was only ever read by those who I gave it to/wrote it for, but I must have written a thousand poems that were never read by anybody else, and I've often thought that my acting is simply sharing my schizophrenia with others, I mean, my whole life is an act.....
Wonderful writing style...Alasdair Gray reminiscent.
I hope you will post prose at some point.
Quote: So I suppose that there is an extreme rejection of the audience -seeing the work as perpetually unfinished (when is it ever in any case?) and seeking to deny any public exposure until the non-existent date of actual perfection (never), simply because you have no trust in anything but your own creative process (not even the piece of work itself) to stand on its own merits.
Indeed, to say one has never tried, prevents the possibility of being considered (or considering oneself) a failure.
Do you actually have instances when you firmly believe there is more to be done? Drawing is somewhat irreversible on that aspect...one mark more and the whole thing may topple...so the sense of "unfinished" (when one can no longer put one's finger one what is called for) either means:
1. Abject fear of calling it finished.
or
2. To the trash can with this piece of whimpering paper.
Re: Harry Potter...I actually haven't read them...but I do think they were "needed". My generation appears to have become so enamored with the media myths of their childhood and youth that they reconstitute these in various forms and serve them as if new. Every group needs a few uniting myths...and while I may detect your eyes rolling at this very moment, I would suggest Harry Potter is one of the few available which is native to a particular age group as opposed to grafted from an earlier generation.
New Star Wars, New Star Trek, remakes of various sitcoms, etc from the 70's, are, in effect, a sort of longing on the part of those from my generation to fashion a culture after their own image.
Each generation needs it's own stories. The fantasies which children take refuge in should be different from those of their parents...the very people from whom they long to differentiate themselves.
LaHibou
I was actually curious to see how (or even if) you would reply to this thread. (Actors are a mystery to me...I am far too bullheaded to render someone else's words and far too shy to do so in front of crowds).
Oddly, however, while roaming the streets of Los Angeles on foot (no car ) I would often see actors practicing in deserted places...I remember one, reciting a Hamlet soliloquy under lamplight in the center of a deserted parking lot...and somehow, (yes, so I spied on him for a while) the scene was more perfect than it ever could have been on a stage. It caught a moment instead of a narrative.
BTW: you won the 100th post doorprize in this forum. Edited by: NousPoetikos at: 7/23/01 9:47:07 pm
I remember once, NousPoetikos, waiting, nervous and charged, for an audition in London, close to where I once lived as a boy.
I had no idea what I would be called upon to do in this audition, probably ad-lib, read from script excerpts etc..., but nerves got the better of me and I went for a walk in a park I’d played in as a lad.
Feeling better, I went through a few personal warm-ups, which involve singing a few songs to rid the voice box of the last few fags, jumping around like a maniac loosening up the body to relax, followed usually by recitals of long remembered pieces of poetry etc to bolster the confidence....
After I had finished reciting Kipling to a tree, I turned to face tourists aghast, pensioners applauding and regular folk out to see whom the crazy guy was - such a response!
No intended audience, but the sort that most of us crave...
I think that without an audience, there is no ‘act’ – but anyone with ‘acting’ within them will tell you that it’s a permanent affliction, and the process continues regardless of who might be looking on.
Re: Is and 'Audience' necessary ......
Hey! Make room for one more pie on the plate.
That “creative processes are, by nature, solitary pursuits” seem to be what you are all saying. Though Simplsimon can think of one area of creativity from which there would be no end product if indulged in alone! And then, what about Blake? Did he not work with his muse/wife by his side?
But the question was not aimed at whether the act of creating could be conducted without an audience, but rather whether there would be the inspiration, the reason, the wish to create if there were to be no ‘audience’ to share and/or appreciate the meaning/message/emotion and, in consequence, no feed back, no encouragement.
Sure, there are individuals who create only in order to defend themselves and/or to escape from a world with which they cannot cope. Most of us have inner rooms to which we retreat from time to time and maybe that is where creativity is born. But, judging by the number of times the word ‘audience’ appears on the U-and-D message boards it would seem to Simplsimon that lack of an ‘audience’ would diminish creativity.
Quote: But the question was not aimed at whether the act of creating could be conducted without an audience, but rather whether there would be the inspiration, the reason, the wish to create if there were to be no ‘audience’ to share and/or appreciate the meaning/message/emotion and, in consequence, no feed back, no encouragement.
The creation of anything starts with desire for "other"...even if that "other" is an-other part of one's self.
There is always the internal audience...that crowd of hecklers who boo one off the stage, yawn as you start to reach the mid-point of your first reading of that just completed short story, recursively ask you what the heck that mess of black on this piece of paper is supposed to accomplish.
...and then there are others, silently sitting in the wings...who never show their faces or mutter a sound. You hold your breath hoping they will notice that you're speaking to them. Those too are yours.
So, in the sense that you originally meant...instead of the sense we misunderstood you to mean, no. One is always desiring presence when one makes.
Simplsimon Registered User
Posts: 11
(7/28/01 6:01 pm) Reply
Re: Is an 'Audience' necessary ......
Simplsimon humbly apologises for the lack of clarity in his question, and thanks all those who responded to it.
Re: Is an 'Audience' necessary ...... Smplsimon!!!!
This is one of the most "posted upon" threads in this forum.
No apologies are necassary in the least.
I am under the suspicion that you are new to message board systems (forgive me for being presumptive). If I am correct, allow me to let you in on the typical flow of most threads.
There is a general rule on message boards that nothing you say will ever be entirely understood the way you meant it...that conversations which begin with a question concerning the diet of adult male elephants will eventually turn into a discussion of quantum physics followed by a quick interlude concerning the best type of windsheild wipers to use on a 69 Ford mustang.
Although we may have misunderstood you, the idea was interesting enough that none of us strayed from the original topic...which either means that we are honestly interested in the thread topic. Be proud.
Muggleton Registered User
Posts: 1
(8/2/01 2:07 pm) Reply
Re: Is an 'Audience' necessary ......
Please, Sir Simple Simon, do not bow out before Muggleton arrives with his wares, such as they are! Must I appeal to Nous Poetikos to prevail on you to trust that the garments woven from this thread which you initially spun will suit some and not others? And indeed is it not to be preferred that respondents weave as they will so that we all enjoy a coat of many colours? For my part I have been especially drawn to this conversation and to the many twists and turns which it has takenand have concluded that the time has come for me to venture beyond the barricades where I have lurked for centuries, occasionally standing on an idle Cannon to climpse at the "beyond" -- or, as I prefer to think of it, the "Other". And I mean, the utterly "Other." Certainly not to be confused with the "Other" which is of my Entity yet which is occasionally hidden, inaccessible, subliminal, unconscious,strange, etc. Now, friends, I must introduce myself with an apology. I am an ignoble lurker -- habituated to stealth, anonymity, the comfort of "incognito", the consolation of "distance." And I know that as I write I put at risk the idle luxury of being my own audience and surrendering to the onslaught of critical posts that sometimes great a "presentation" -- whether of poem, idea, story, or quasi-spam. Yes, I will make a "presentation" because I have promised myself that such solitude as I enjoy disallows the dialectic necessary for the creation of an art object. At least, this is what I think at this moment. Tomorrow, of course, I may argue on behalf of the solipsistic matrix for the creative process, and therefore for its issue -- whether or not that "issue" is "intended" to inform or transform culture, to reach the utterly
"Other", or simply to permit the subject to be more wholly the Subject -- i.e. to give us access to the
personal Other from which we are estranged (at least in part). Yes; my mind has changed as I have given attention to your insightful questions, your arguments, your risk-taking observations, sometimes asserted with supreme confidence and other times, ventured tentatively. I stand reproached,
Nous Poetikos, although I'm sure you never imagined ME:
" .. . and then there are others, silently sitting in the wings . . .
who never show their faces or mujtter a sound. You hold your
breath hoping they will notice that you're speaking to them. etc."
I thought that I was well-armoured, NP, but something here reached an unguarded part of my soul. And this was consolation sufficient to encourage me to expose myself to the "Other" that is
represented in "U & D": "no. One is always desiring presence when one makes." I take this to mean, when one makes an art object or when one exercises with some degree of discipline their creative inclinations or necessities. To write, to sing (the poet must be a "songster"), to dance, to sculpt, to act, etc., this is a NECESSITY for such as recognize in themselves the movement of the Muse, the impulse, the urgent mandate which can only be ignored at the price of what is essential to one's very
being (Entity). This, of course, begs the important question of "fine" or "good" art. And it
sidesteps the issue of "beauty." And all of these I may comment on/ponder aloud in subsequent "posts". For now, though, I will venture this declaration. We may indeed choose for a time (for a long time) the privacy or prison or protection of being a "Single One", making art that requires no immediate audience or expectation of posthumous recognition. However, "intentionality" and "care" for
the "audience" which is Other are essential to the artistic process and project. This, of course, is not to say that the "satisfaction" inherent in the artistic activity and sometimes in the outcome/issue is not "real" and important. But the childe that is brought forth is good in itself and on his/her shoulders rests the promise of cultural renewal, transformation, the fruition of life, the survival of genes that may not be the "best", healthiest, strongest as the world measures these, but rather the ones which promise Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.
I wander and worship on weekends (and of course, work and wonder as well). But if I do not post again (perhaps on another thread) until Monday, please do not think that I have withdrawn to a more defensible position. Thank you, Mimesis, for venturing this MB: it is "classy". Trust your Childe to further fruitful conversation and to nurture those who would venture the work of creation.
And thank you "registrents" and "Posters" for making your "conversations" so inviting.
Re: Is an 'Audience' necessary ......
Welcome to the board, Muggleton!
That is truly an eloquent tome you have there and I hope to see more of them. You have very clearly stated what I was trying to unearth from my rather inflexible and limited linguistic abilities.
Beautifully put.
If you would like a title, instead of your "registered user" monikker, please let me know.
SmplSimon,
It occurs to me that you lack the same adornment. Would you like a title?
Re: Is an 'Audience' necessary ......
Shame on thee Sire Muggleton! How couldst thou "lurk" in the shadows for so long depriving us of thy linguistic delights, and thine observations. Aye, it is scary facing the footlights for the first time and, as an appreciative audience, I do applaud thy performance most heartily for thou didst leave me wanting more...
NousPoetikus
Oh dear! Was it so very obvious I was a "new boy". This is indeed the first Message Board I have visited and, therefore, my first postings.
Maybe, as you suggested, I should put some clothes on now.
How about CurrenTarTaster for a title and perhaps a pie with a portion missing. I'm still "new" and don't know how to do it myself, so please don't be ruthless on me.
Oh! and Nous, just one more thing - I'd just like to say I'm really hooked and enjoying the diversity of your Message Board.
Audience...
Just to shake the 'audience' awake - does anyone out there know of a piece of work (poetry, pottery, painting, sculpture whatever) which, when it came to public attention, appeared not to have been previously shared, shown or had an audience of any kind?
Re: not … previously shared, shown [etc.]
The musical "Cats" originally was nothing more than collected skits around the common theme of cats as characterized by the original writer. These poems were collected from the various recipients and published sources, but did not have a common theme.
After the show had been in production for a while, relatives found some works that had never been distributed and among them was the theme that was missing - the story of "Grizabella, the glamour cat". This story was used to bind the idea of the Jellicle Cats, give some idealogical history and some future to the story.
) I would often see actors practicing in deserted places...I remember one, reciting a Hamlet soliloquy under lamplight in the center of a deserted parking lot...and somehow, (yes, so I spied on him for a while) the scene was more perfect than it ever could have been on a stage. It caught a moment instead of a narrative.
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