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'Hear, hear', as they say across the tables: here. If I remember right the original print of 'Paradise Lost' was 1000 copies two-thirds of which were 'pulped'. I always like to imagine William Blake applying for funding from an Arts Marketing Board. To add a widener, the ' audience-oriented model of art' is also affecting the circulation of literature via the libraries, where Simon Armitage or Barbara Cartland are abundant in their charms but insignificant flat-earthers like Arno Schmidt or Heiner Muller increasingly invisible. Dana Gioia's essay mentioned by Chris Hayden contains the unintentionally amusing statement that it has never been easier to earn a living as a poet, which may be true of the context of suburbanite tenured pseudo-poets he is discussing and of the circus but newly generated over here but which one has to regard with astonishment in the wider world. I think he ought to have a conversation with someone like Alison one day, a very serious conversation. As I speak the BBC is broadcasting a programme airing the work and views of Roger McGough and Wendy Cope. The cutting edge of British culture. david ----- Original Message ----- From: <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2001 11:17 PM Subject: Re: space fat/some quick, loose thoughts > Gillian wrote: > > >Accordingly, I am very > >glad for the new emphasis at OZco on Audience Development. Some of their > >initiatives have been quite good, others seem to be naive. > > I don't know how much you have to do with the end of things where people > are attempting to inform others about their work, Gillian. There seems > to be this expectation among some in the Oz Council that "marketing" will > solve everything, and that as soon as the populace at large knows how > fabulous, exciting etc etc some work is, they'll rush out with their > dollars in hand and buy it. There is apparently some great unplumbed > pool of audience out there. > > That sadly is a complete mirage. There are some art forms here which are > only ever going to attract small audiences, no matter how brilliantly > they are executed. What bothers me is that this small audience, no > matter how committed it might be, is by virtue of its smallness > considered worthless. This is where the insane economic model of > "growth" begins to be very damaging. Large audiences are not in > themselves a virtue; there are experiences available between a small > audience which might have value in themselves. At this point that > mindset begins to seem very like censorship. The audience-oriented model > of art takes no account of the staying power of great works, many of > which sold very badly in their time - Paradise Lost, for instance, is > still selling centuries later, despite going nowhere near the bestseller > lists when Milton wrote it - nor of the fact that _none_ of us know which > works which will stay, and which won't. Eliot was quite serious when he > wrote, after a lifetime of writing poems, that he had no idea whether > he'd been wasting his life or not. > > Of course, by saying they were "flat earthers", I meant Samuel Beckett et > al took no notice whatsoever of any "potential market". > > >I've just submitted a tender to OZco for a $140,000 research project to > >measure the effectiveness of the program in the first year. I asked about > >Key Performance Indicators and long term effectiveness measures. But none of > >that has been articulated yet. The $5mill program is a poorly formulated > >knee-jerk reaction. And so is the evaluation of it. Still, I figure that, > >given that the funds are allocated, I could do some good with the $140,000 - > >plus it would put food on the table for a while. My pact with the devil. > > It's difficult not to point out that (so I will) $140,000 is way way more > than any of the annual grants available to writers, which top at about (I > think) $40,000. It's a sum which would run a small theatre company for a > year. And this $5 million which is being spent on this "poorly > formulated" program is $5 million which does not go to publishers, > writers, and so on, to actually _make_ art. > > I know the arguments for marketing, and am not against it per se. But in > bureaucratic/corporate cirles it has a kind of magical aura, and is a > dominant orthodoxy, I think at the expense of what is actually supposed > to be being "marketed", especially as far as art is concerned. The > underlying ideology of that bothers me deeply. > > Best > > Alison