Do you think that people should write and perform for an audience, or for themselves? Is art that personal that we shouldn't create it with a group or a message in mind? If our message is important enough to the artist, do you think that he or she should make sure that the message is conveyed?

How do you feel when you read or see something where you just "don't get it." Do you feel inferior, or do you just write it off as "stupid?"

Do you think that journallers should write with an audience in mind? What about musicians? Authors? Screenwriters? Painters?

-- Anonymous, September 30, 1999

Answers

example: i don't get the plays of harold pinter. you can explain til you're blue in the face, i don't. get. pinter. but i love it. i love good productions of pinter. i even sometimes love not getting it. it adds a feeling of real trippiness to the whole thing.

i think that everything public should be done with an audience in mind, but not necessarily a concrete audience. just the "someone's going to see/hear/read/watch this" should be enough. the trick is to stay grounded in your creation; art is for yourself but it's also for other people. like pamie said, if you don't care what the audience thinks (and there isn't a theater person out there who DOESN'T care, no matter what they tell you), stage your production in the director's walk in closet. feedback makes things better, no matter what you say.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 1999

Well, I don't really think anyone should write for the audience necessarily, because the best stuff is usually written from the heart or from experience, but I like it when the audience is kept in mind so we don't get too lost. I loved the movie Lost Highway, but I have no idea what the hell it was about or what David Lynch was trying to tell us. And I DID feel stupid and inferior because of it, I won't lie. A neighbor told me it was his favorite movie, and I was so happy because I thought he could explain it to me, since I had watched it 3 times in a row (as in, watch,rewind,watch,rewind,watch, no days in between) and just didn't get it. He could not explain it at all, and just said "the genius of it was so obvious", so I think he didn't get it either but just didn't want to look like an idiot too. Like I said, I still enjoyed the movie, but I did feel like there was some glaring neon explanation that I just kept missing. Maybe the title Lost Highway was to signify what I felt like I was on while I watched it? I would watch it again right now, though. I guess feeling stupid doesn't bother me as much as it should.

I don't have to completely understand something, or know every painstaking detail in order to enjoy it, but when people leave out important information or use extremely vague innuendo, I get lost and irritated, and might even lose interest as a result. When it comes to songs I don't care much who they write for, as long as the music itself is good. Hardly any songs make sense, really, but I'll still bob my head to 'em if they're catchy, and well put together.

Journals definitely should not be written for the audience, in my opinion, because they are meant to be personal, even if a person is brave and kind enough to put it out there for the world to see. That's their real life, and nobody else has to like it or agree with it, or even understand it. Still, I have a great appreciation for people like Pamie who do keep their readers in mind enough to have everything make sense. It's easier to relate when you don't feel like a complete outsider, or like you aren't in on the inside jokes.

Creativity and originality shouldn't be about what you think everyone else wants to see...again, just my opinion. I think it should be about something that you find interesting, and that people might not have thought about consciously, but would enjoy seeing put in a dramatic, amusing or entertaining way. That didn't make much sense, did it? Ok. Me go now...

-- Anonymous, September 30, 1999

Ok, that is NINE Questions! Nine!

This is my personal take on art/personal expression. It should be created by the artist without consideration for others. That said, however, if the artist is working from the truest part of themselves, the audience will connect with the work as if it was created with them in mind.

This might be called the "If you build it, they will come" theory of artistic expression.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 1999

I think that understanding the commonalities between you and your audience, and second guessing what other people are going to like, are two different things. Pamie is a character-seeking personality, and writes to that sensibility. People who identify with that come back everyday. I'm not a character-seeking personality, so, even though I know that Pamie is one, and if I tried to write to that sensibility to get more readers, I would not only drive away readers, but be miserable writing.

I thought Lost Highway was about the uncertainty people live in about the good or evil they do in their lives. The main character(s) were uncertain if they had committed any mortal sin, until he (they) deliberately did an act of evil, and then he (they) knew for certain. Maybe it's just me, but I liked the movie's statement about living in uncertainty, and a little bit of fear, because that seems how it is in real life. If you read Dante, he comments how fortune tellers are damned, if I remember correctly, by walking around with their heads backwards. I don't own a copy, can anyone confirm or deny this?

-- Anonymous, September 30, 1999

I don't believe in compromising for an audience. If you're trying to please everyone, it's like becoming a sell-out.

If an author/performer/artist wishes to convey some sort of message, then they should work on integrating that into their work. There's just a fine line between portraying the points made and pushing them onto the audience, however. That's something that any one will recognize with time/experience.

If I don't understand what I'm reading, I think I'm either reading it wrong or that it's been written in a way I'm not comprehending. Sometimes I might feel it's stupid, yes, or I might feel that I don't know enough about the subject to feel I should understand.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 1999

Personally. I'm torn. Actually, I'm a walking contradiction most of the time, and I kinda like that. "Art for art's sake" is great and all, but it doesn't pay the rent. I LIKE to be entertained almost as much as I like to entertain others. I am an actor/singer/artist/author/dancer yada yada yada, and while I do not do these things for the sole purpose of pleasing others, it sure is nice to get that compliment, applause, or paycheck for it. (The majority of my stuff is never seen by anyone besides those little people in my head)

I like what I like. If someone WANTS to write/perform/etc. for an audience, more power to 'im. If someone WANTS to write/perform/etc. for themselves, I don't think they should necessarily subject an unwitting audience to it, but hey... someone might REALLY like it and start a new trend.

Think... bongos and beatniks. Yeah... it didn't last, but how many people REALLY DUG it, man? (I plead the fifth on this one)

-- Anonymous, October 01, 1999

This is like asking: whose interpretation of an art work is more valid, the artist's or the viewer's?

Both. Neither. The whole thread makes me think of a bad essay topic posed by an overzealous grad student TA to her freshman lit class.

Some of the journals I enjoy feature writers who say outright that they don't give a shit whether or not you like what they write about. They don't write with an audience in mind. That's what I like about them. But this is just my personal taste.

And some journals I enjoy feature writers who do their best to keep me entertained. They write with the audience in mind, and I don't think badly of them for doing so. This too, is just my personal taste.

Should journallers write with an audience in mind? Well, I think it's wrong to say that journals in general "should be doing this" and "shouldn't be doing that." It's wrong to say that journals of "type x" are good journals and that journals of "type y" are bad ones.

Personal tastes. Freedom to choose what you read and what you write, and to hell with the trends and popular opinions of the online journalling community. There aren't any bad journals, there are only journals that you just don't read.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 1999

Is it better to write/create/perform for an audience or for oneself alone? I think that is probably up to the individual artist... and yet, if the artist does it only for himself or herself, isn't that really like the difference between masturbation and sex with a partner?

-- Anonymous, October 04, 1999

Well, let's face an audience is what gets you accepted, what pays the bills, so to speak.

Anything personal or expressive that I do (I don't necessarily call it "art"), however, I do for myself. Otherwise, you are going to be a slave to the opinions of others and you are bound to censor yourself. Certainly with a journal, if you are not going to be honest, than you have no damn business calling it a journal. I know when people are making stuff up and consequently, I usually stop reading their online material. Too many people today lie about everything; I want something real, dammit, and I'm not going to apologise for it! "To thine ownself be true" should be the artist's first rule.

If I don't "get" someone's art, that's OK. That doesn't invalidate it. On the other hand, I don't feel compelled to surpress my opinion just because I don't understand it.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 1999

Every time I think about my audience, I start to go screwy.

Absolutely haywire. Its not even funny. I start second guessing myself - what would they think of this, won't they think I'm an idiot, stuff like that. I become hyper self deprecatory, over analytical of my writing, just plain psycho.

But I know that I -should- think about it, gauge it for them a bit.

Where does this leave me? Far gone... So I try to forget anyone visits my site. And given my counter - that isnt too hard... heh...

-margaret

-- Anonymous, November 11, 1999