I say, if you want to make a statement with your life, then go for it. But if you’d rather remain neutral in time, and keep your statements inside, then do that instead.
To my mind, every action is an artistic expression. Some act out; some withdraw. Dada was fun. Theatre is great. I also admire J. D. Salinger’s incredible hording of his novels to himself. There’s room for all kinds.
For the purpose of these writings, however, it is important to note, that while having a physical audience is not necessary for making art, at least having an imaginary one always helps. Of course, this leads us right around to Dadaism, or art for art’s sake …
So let’s deal with the art for art’s sake perspective right away before anything gets misinterpreted. If you want to channel yourself into art for its own sake, like Dada did, or if you’d like to only make works for yourself, like Salinger—then that’s fine. The bottom line, however, is there’s usually some sort of audience of which to be aware while creating your pieces.
If instead you choose to believe there is no, or will ever be any, audience for your work, then there is no need to read on.
Unconditional Art is intended for people who want ideas or inspiration on how to make good art. ‘Good’ is a qualifier which requires something to measure against.
There has to be an audience to interpret the positive or negative value of a work. If your response is to say, ‘I determine if it’s good or not,’ then you are the audience.
Perhaps instead you would concede there is no value to your work, but it is merely what it is, without external validation required, to which I would applaud you, but question why you’re still reading this.
You have no business here, because your work is beyond perfect. It is beyond terrible. It has no limits. It is beyond us. Good-bye.
Now, if you’re still here, I take it you’ve concluded you have some audience, however small, and you are at least willing to embrace that belief for the remainder of our conversation here. So take that audience you have in mind and define it more clearly.
Turn the audience over. Do you know all of them? Do they all enjoy the same things? Will they laugh at the same times?
Who will walk out early?
Do you still respect them for it?
Who will cry? Who will wail? Who will heckle?
The more certain you are of your audience, the more quickly you will arrive at a completed product for them to consume. Don’t worry about narrowing your artistic freedom. You can change the make-up of the audience to suit your needs.
From the get-go, you can custom tailor them to be exactly the type of people who like the work you are trying to make.
Do not be afraid of your audience being too customized to you, and clouding your judgment: The mere imagining of an audience creates a divide from yourself. At the most suspect, you will be guilty of making gripping and thought-provoking works for people like yourself to enjoy. In the best case scenario, you will succeed at creating an audience so distinct from yourself, as to illuminate the world.
An audience can never be totally real, mind you (no pun intended). But with proper seeding and diligent care, fictional characters can come to approximate our impressions of real ones, and thereby fuel our work with Shakespearean circumspection.
Ultimately, however, they are still just figments of your mind. To one another we are merely card-board cut-outs …
Now, you may encounter a road-block here, of the chicken-and-egg scenario.
Those of you who previously preferred to deny having an audience, will hesitate at imagining what kind of one would like your work.
It will feel backwards to you, like somehow these imaginary people could come alive and spoil your creation with their poor taste. But remember, you made them, so make them have whatever sort of taste you wish, which will in turn engender the art you’re after.
But you might say, ‘I will make it, and whoever likes it likes it.’ Then again I ask you why you’re here?
If you want to make your work better, you have to know what’s bad about it, by polling your audience.
Asking yourself what’s bad about your work is ridiculous. Asking real people in the real world can be demoralizing and arbitrary.
Polling an imaginary audience, however, has the best of both worlds. Your audience will always have your best interests at heart, having been screened by your mind before offering their opinion.
Also, though, they will offer you some observations from the edges of criticism to which your raw ego might not have otherwise born witness.
I think everyone already has this imaginary audience. I think we use it every day in every way. It is a mosaic blasted from the fabric of history; A patch-work of personalities we have met along the days.
It exists as a tool to guide us.
For our purposes here, it will be herein coined Our Audience, because it is the only thing we share. We are each just each other’s thoughts. We can’t say for sure that we share the same reality, because there is no We—only I’s, but we share as much reality as an author does to her characters.
Also, we share the fact that we each have an audience—which is, of course, each other.
Furthermore, we have in common that Our Audience cheers us on, or condemns us—but in both cases, they are still the puppets of our consciousnesses.
We are the instigators of our obstacles.
Those who forget this lose their free will.
Those who remember it too well grow overwhelmed and end up wallowing in excessive self-sabotage.
So now you’ve born witness to Our Audience, and we’ve established that Our Audience is at the very least a little different than ourselves—whatever work we make for them will be a little different than we would have merely made for ourselves.
Furthermore, we know Our Audience values how we translate them into the world, for without us they do not exist. So we should work hard to portray them accurately. For by reading our work, real people will subconsciously imagine Our Audience, so imagining it yourself first before they do should be considered.
To be clear, Our Audience is all characters perceived to be real or imaginary. We are Our Audience, and we witness our works—and while we do so, we imagine the others in the audience with us.
You see this in everyday life. For instance, everybody has a different sense of humour, but when an odd man out bursts into laughter, everyone can’t help but wonder what’s so funny.
But to him it couldn’t be clearer. Characters inside of him are rioting with glee and clamour. He is imagining what dead friends would have said. He is giggling at what past souls, or those not present would have bellowed out.
He can’t help but ponder on how old so-and-so would have roared the lights out.
He’s laughing at something people he knew would find funny, and with whom he once learned to appreciate the form of humour in the first place.
Comedy is curious this way it is relative, and we could laugh at just about anything if we wanted, if we thought about it. But so is tragedy. It’s all a part of drama. The laughing man could just as easily have cried—or killed himself.
Or won the lady’s heart. Or slew the beast of addiction.
Or crushed the lords of starvation.
Again, the reason the crying man doesn’t switch into light by simply deciding to laugh, is that decisions like that become hopeless, and learned helplessness sets in, and free will plummets. But grab the controls quick, for forgetting Our Audience causes this sort of languishing–and it most easily abates when washed with confidence.
So, as we might have predicted, better knowing Our Audience gives us control over our art and destiny. Plus, while Our Audience may not be the same for you and me, at least we can agree we share the fact that we both have one–and leave that debate behind.
So march on with your plans, but every once in awhile, take a moment now to look over your shoulder, and consider for whom you’re living?
Just for yourself?Are you sure?
Is it for family? Friends? Lovers? Strangers?
Which ones?
Acquaintances? Echoes? Mirages?
Sheep?
The depthless?
Pick your noun, but then go on to qualify it. The more real it is, the more real will be your art—and your life.
In fact, I would go on to say that art and life are never more real than the shadow of Our Audience will allow us.
Our Audience is the source of us. This is why dreams are so rich, when waking life is such a drag. We are just reflections of our real selves.
We are consciousnesses pretending to be real people. When we sleep, we wake up in the prototypical realm, where the types we were cast from exist in permanence. In that realm, everything is effortless. There, there is no cloud between the will and the won’t.
But here, every piece of chess moves carefully, often tripping up—never seamlessly advancing toward victory, but always progressing in an ebb and flow that climaxes and fizzles out like any story. But these stories can be stream-lined, if we just keep an eye on Our Audience.
Could we have the house lights please?
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