Hi Alison,

i'm confused as to how i suggested anything such as an 
'audience-orientated work'? Am i gone further nuts?

I've got little doubt(s) that every body-mind inflects and reflects 
differently.  Those differences will be there even in the shelling of 
peas. The points being made were towards a diffusion of the relative 
importance of the linkage between such inflections and the societal 
pomp of individual 'authorship', that struggle to assert and maintain 
the pose of a brand.

Also, I was suggesting that artists bought into (and are still 
subscribing to  -  because it flatters their ego and stokes their 
longing for 'essence') this inflated sense of the romance of self en 
masse (there's the paradox) fairly recently (18th-20th century 
broadly  -  ..) but that at least some artists are now moving towards 
self as more transparently mediated.

Meanwhile some constructions of audience are predicated on the 
absorption of an heroic  genius model. That is, audiences (of which 
we are all part) have now been educated / inculcated into this model 
of consumption  -  hence the residual poignancy (for those who still 
treasure this view of the artist) for the arguments of Dana Goia. 
Other concurrent audience (inclusive) realities are more orientated 
towards works and creative teams for specific projects than 
individual practices and the romance of presence. This does not at 
all do away with individual inflection and the tormented gorgeousness 
of that. Yes, there was a hint at arguments pointing up some 
connections between our situation now and aspects of medieval 
consciousness. But these differing audience tendencies (follow the 
artist / engage with the work) have become almost hopelessly 
intertwined with marketing as you suggest. That mystique which so 
many shroud their work in contributes to this dull brew.

The twist was intended to be planted in respect of practice.

At 12:53 +0000 9/11/2000, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>| Think more about ciphers and samples and indexes and archives and
>| codes and filters in respect of what you write.
>
>We don't have to. That's all we are thinking about.
>
>Most of what we call thinking is screen display with minimal front end
>processing

Would that more of a transparency of this sensing of contemporary 
consciousness was embodied in the writing of contemporary poetry.

Would that more readers read with this understanding as base and then 
moved into the resultant mesh with curiosity, rather than fear (born 
in part from this adherence to the idea of the artist-remote) that 
what they meet is somehow not connected to their own sense of 
themselves. Gawd, i'm making a lentil's pocket out of this, do you 
see what I'm getting at? Audiences (of which are all part) are still 
grappling with art works as if they should be approached via the 
model of the great genius or nobody  -  approximations to the heroic 
stature. That's why they are disappointed and confused at times. We, 
broadly collectively, still sustain this passing phase, but it was 
not always thus, nor need it be.

We are in the forest (in which those cans of worms have been 
abandoned and are now rusted open). The clearings in written thickets 
which we navigate are between words (sometimes between letters) and 
from assemblage to assemblage and from line to line and site to site.

The choices are to show the cuts or hide them? Pour on the seamless 
gloss or let the seams glow  -  allow the strings of our language 
puppets to be visible or ? Maintain the status quo or turn it about?

just rummaging

love and love
cris




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