Notgames Forum

The word is not important. The question is what expectations an artist can have of his or her audience. Should the artist just produce and release work and then leave the spectator alone? Or should he or she try to guide the spectator? Towards interpretation? Towards pleasure? In my experience, the effect of guidance is different on different kinds of spectators. For some people it helps to understand/enjoy a piece. For others it destroys their appreciation. So that complicates things.

Right, that's a reasonable point - I do, in fact, think it's just fine for the artist to give guidance to the viewer.  In fact, it's OK to want the viewer to see the work a certain way.  But the fact is that not everyone is going to get it, and the more expectations you have of the viewer, the more disappointed you will ultimately be.  Art is a mercurial beast.  If you try to control the presentation too much after it's already left your studio, you will do damage to it.  The world changes.  The media of your work ages, for better or for worse.  Every person brings different eyes to the piece.  Contexts constantly change.  You can't control any of that, and if you try you will either reduce your audience away to almost nothing, or tick people off such that your work is viewed in an undeservedly negative light.  Create your piece, give your guidance, then let it, and its viewers, find their own way from that point.  Don't insist on the viewer's eventual destination.

I also do believe that the creative process is at root a wild thing, and that the best art, that truly deserves to be called art, comes from a place within that's not really within our control, and we are as much facilitators as creators.  Yes, you have to have the mechanical tools and talents to wrangle and produce that wild thing, but the wild thing itself is, well, wild.  I realize not everyone will be on board with me on this last part, but that's why I separate it from the first paragraph.  I do believe it, though.

You should read Chaos, Territory, Art by Elizabeth Grosz!

She argues that art is a form given to fractions of the cosmos, or even only a frame around such a fraction. The artist shows a bit of the incomprehensible chaos that underlies existence, because showing all of it would drive us mad. And once in a while a spectator will "get" it. She even goes as far as saying that art might be produced purely instinctively, randomly even, with the same result. And she also claims that art is not exclusively human. That animals do it to, for instance during mating rituals when they dance for each other.

Intriguing - this seems to be the polar opposite of what I find interesting in art; creating order in the chaos and to show exemplary 'cases' of otherwise abstract or vague notions. I think this is why I am incredibly unread in more recent art, because it disagrees with me in this principal level. I would go as far as saying I value empiricism for singular order and I value the arts for their pluralistic order.

This is why I see the artist as a guide; he has something to teach to me about life. And in that sense, I feel rather nonplussed by someone offering to pull the rug from out under me and show me chaos. I would not claim that showing me the chaos is easy, rather that is just is going against my grain.

Thanks, I'll check it out!

I guess my feeling is that it's the artist's job to try and touch those truths that cannot be objectively communicated through words, math, etc.  A lot of chaos in it, but the chaos is also the most potent source of things and of order (see the alchemical concept of massa confusa, the creative chaos).  That's a whole new discussion, though.

I think by "chaos" the writer really means "the divine" or "the truth of the cosmos". "Chaos" is her word for "everything that exists", I think. I think her recognition of that as being far beyond our human tolerance is astute. When I stand in front of a Botticelli, crying, I know that this is about as far as my emotions can take me. I feel connected to the "chaos" that is "all" but I am not equipped to directly touch it. That would be the death of me. So art becomes a filter that shows us small fragments of the divine beauty and incomprehensible immensity of the universe.

A disciplined way of art creation, such as the classical method, seems appropriate here. Because we cannot simply unleash the chaos, the truth, the cosmos. It would just look like gibberish to us. (This is probably where modernist art has failed.) The artist is standing in front of a closed door and needs to open it only slightly, while immense forces are pushing from the other side. He should not give in to the temptation of exposing the spectator to the bright light behind the door. Because it is death. Instead, he should show, by example, through metaphor, a glimpse of the beauty behind the door, so it may inspire us to feel this connection with the cosmos, truth, chaos (without the need to understand it -which is beyond our capabilities; we are simply too small, all we have is our sensations).

I like this clarification, it helps me make sense of the idea much better. Very poetic. And yeah, I like that perspective on what art is. Maybe art can be other things as well, but that is an interesting way to look at it, and it helps me understand what I find beautiful about certain things, and how that feeling might come across in a game.