sus
Moderator
There are two models of what art "is" I hear get bandied around. The first model, people say things like "All great writing is to an addressee," and "Bad art is by no one to no one." The second model, people say things like "Art transcends communication," "Art is the song of myself." Maybe a really radical version—which I've seen, I'm not making these up—is "Great art is by no one to no one"—it transcends the personality of its author, and avails itself to some humanity or sentience as a whole.
Probably both of these positions are flawed or partial, but I'm curious where people fall on this. Wolfgang Iser says things like, "Art creates its ideal audience"—that the audience doesn't exist until it encounters the work. I can't quite picture how that works out in the particulars, tho.
I know people around here like I Love Dick—or even if they didn't like it, per se, they remember it, they had a visceral reaction. That's good. That book is squarely to someone from someone. After reading ILD I had a big letters phase: Hugh Kenner & Guy Davenports (incredible), Gaddis's, Elliot's. But why doesn't the lit scene writ large get more mileage out of the epistolary form? That shit hasn't been popular for a quarter millennia. And why didn't Gaddis or Elliot's letters hit me the way Hugh & Guy, or Chris & Dick's, did? Suppose that's on me to figure out.
One possible angle is that true "to no one from no one" art is basically autogenerated stuff, found writing, Oulipian constraints, chance operation. Pulling the expressive choice out of it, killing the author. The result of this is that the work basically appeals to no one—you can like it theoretically but in practice no one reads past the first page or two of those types of texts, they're more proof of concept than they are readable texts.
Probably both of these positions are flawed or partial, but I'm curious where people fall on this. Wolfgang Iser says things like, "Art creates its ideal audience"—that the audience doesn't exist until it encounters the work. I can't quite picture how that works out in the particulars, tho.
I know people around here like I Love Dick—or even if they didn't like it, per se, they remember it, they had a visceral reaction. That's good. That book is squarely to someone from someone. After reading ILD I had a big letters phase: Hugh Kenner & Guy Davenports (incredible), Gaddis's, Elliot's. But why doesn't the lit scene writ large get more mileage out of the epistolary form? That shit hasn't been popular for a quarter millennia. And why didn't Gaddis or Elliot's letters hit me the way Hugh & Guy, or Chris & Dick's, did? Suppose that's on me to figure out.
One possible angle is that true "to no one from no one" art is basically autogenerated stuff, found writing, Oulipian constraints, chance operation. Pulling the expressive choice out of it, killing the author. The result of this is that the work basically appeals to no one—you can like it theoretically but in practice no one reads past the first page or two of those types of texts, they're more proof of concept than they are readable texts.