I want to explore the performer-audience relationship. Specifically, I want to show how a particular audience's attitude and receptiveness can effectively change the outcome of an artist's work. This includes literal censorship, the criticisms of the audience and the community at large, and the pressures of an audience's expectations on the mind of the artist.
I want the audience to feel their impact on the performer's artistic freedom. I want them to decide exactly what the performers limits will be, and see how those limits take effect. I want the performer to make the best of it.
I've looked into particular incidents of artists' reactions to audience responses, and the effects on their later work. I’ve also looked into the works of artists that have explored their relationship to the audience and to their selves.
I drew inspiration from the two works that have affected my life the most: Neon Genesis Evangelion and Ren & Stimpy.
Knowing the demands of the audience, John Kricfalusi and Spümco studios fought tooth and nail with Nickelodeon to air episodes of Ren & Stimpy that eventually became classics. Nickelodeon then fired the original crew and attempted to make new episodes mimicking the style of the original ones. Most of them missed the point, relying entirely on sight gags, gleaning over the complicated relationship between the titular characters.
The tale of Ren & Stimpy is one of deceit and woe. Even after attaining critical success and a dedicated audience, it turns out that artists can still be screwed over by their producers. Still, while their happiness was brief, it was still there – an uncompromising understanding between artist and audience.
Director and writer Hideaki Anno received death threats from fans in response to the series finale of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and then used scans and screenshots of these death threats in the End of Evangelion movie. Fans complained about a complete lack of sex and violence in the series finale, and requested that the movie fix this problem. So Anno wrote some disturbing scenes involving voyeuristic masturbation and brutal evisceration – not exactly what fans had in mind.
Anno started by seeking sympathy from his fans, and eventually began to regard them as something like adversaries to be overcome. Despite their wishes, he always made the work that he wanted to make. Interestingly, despite this tension, the fate of Anno and Gainax studio was the opposite of Spümco’s – the Evangelion franchise is still growing and accumulating a new audience.
Sure enough, this revelation ties into the findings in my field research.
I am a moderator at the RPG Maker Pavilion message board. I don’t use any of the RPG Maker programs anymore, but I stick around because it’s a nice, smart, funny community. Many people here are creative sorts, writers and drawers, and some still make RPGs. So in a topic of my own creation I asked point blank: “Is the artists' job to speak for the audience in their work, or to do whatever the hell they want and hope the audience can appreciate it?”
The answers I received were kind of obvious, and I figured I probably should’ve framed my question a little more tactfully.
EvilNixon666: “If I'm doing work for myself, then I create what I want to see. If other people like it, woo. If they don't, it still appeals to me. Work for money means it has to appeal to someone else, too, and maybe a lot of other people. So I guess it depends on the situation.”
The Ice Cream Man: “A true artist creates for him/her self and if people like it good. However, if you're trying to make money, well you better appeal to your audience.”
highwind: “i write stuff that makes me laugh. on rare occasions, other people laugh too. i write music that i want to play. some people kinda like it. there's my answer!”
One person by the moniker of “Perversion” gave a very detailed account of his own experience.
My first game for RPGM, Series 1, followed the traditional RPG formula, albeit adding things to that formula that to that point had not been done with RPGM3. Meaning, it was meant to appeal to the widest majority of people in the community who download and play RPGM games. It had/has a respectable amount of downloads.
For the "Extravaganzicon" contest, I decided to make a game for myself, not necessarily a game to win the contest. I had made a poetry topic … and it was met mostly with indifference. So I decided to base an RPGM game around my poetry and short stories, and included about 15 minigames/puzzles to add actual "gameplay" to the game. There is no story. There is no character development. You basically play minigames and solve puzzles in order to unlock and be able to read my angsty writing.
I predicted that I'd be lucky to get 30 downloads in the first 6 months for the game, A Series Aside, due to the somewhat esoteric nature of the game. But lo and behold ... even though it was released more than half a year after my first game (which was more traditional, and thus, I thought, able to appeal to a larger audience), it currently has more than 50 more downloads than Series 1, my first game. A Series Aside has over 500 presently … while Series 1 has not even broken 450 (I think).
The point being, I'm of the opinion that if an artist follows his own path, and creates something that is meaningful/relevant/enjoyable to himself, a prospective audience will most likely be able to pick up on this, and begin to form a stronger fanbase for the artist's work, while those creating specifically for "the masses" will soon be forgotten.
More than anything, I just found this answer to be very heartening. I agreed that above all, a work should be honest, and should come from the heart. This energized me and renewed my verve.
I began to get an idea of what I wanted to do. I dipped into the well of knowledge provided by my Living Art in Real Space class, and discovered Marina Abramovic.
In Abramovic’s 1974 performance piece, Rhythm 0, she placed many objects on a table and invited the audience, via sign, to use any of them on her as they wished. Among them were scissors, a knife, a whip and a gun with a single bullet. In the six hours that the performance took place, the audience moved from hesitation to out right aggression, pricking her and cutting away her clothes. Someone went for the gun, but was ultimately dissuaded from using it. Abramovic discovered that, in leaving your fate in the hands of the audience, “you can be killed”.
The idea of giving oneself over to the audience was the crux was my whole idea. Not only did it demonstrate the effect of the audience’s presence, it got them to actively participate. In that way the work in itself becomes a collaborative effort. Of course, I did not want my performance to be potentially fatal.
So I borrowed some sense from another performance artist I had learned of: Matthew Barney.
Barney was recruited by Yale for its football team. That didn’t pan out, so he began focusing on making art - what he calls “restraint pieces”, environments in which he made drawing as difficult as possible. For example, by attaching himself to rubber cords and straining up an incline to make a mark on the ceiling. They were "facilities designed to defeat the facility of drawing."
Barney demonstrates that, like a sport, art involves strategy and intuition. "Being the subject of that kind of manipulation is an interesting way to learn about how flexible an image can be … how the subject must have the ability to evacuate his or her body in order for the transformation to take place."
It’s been said over and over that restrictions can be quite freeing in the creative process. However, I wanted the restriction in itself to mean something. I believed that the ideas presented Barney’s and Abramovic’s work might actually compliment each other quite well. One examines the role of the audience. The other, the process of the artist.
And so I had my idea. I would invite the audience to restrain me to whatever degree they please. Then, having been restrained, I would attempt to create some kind of artwork. I would dictate the tools at their disposal, and similarly, they would dictate the tools at my disposal.
Now that I was certain in my goals, there was one more thing I wanted to know: the safest way to use duct tape in a performance. So I sent an email to my academic advisor, stage combat guru Ted Hewlett.
Hey, Ted.
I'm shooting a scene in a movie where one of the actors is supposed to be tied up rather uncomfortably to a chair, rendered mostly immobile. The actor said he'd be ready for any kind of treatment, but I want to make sure.
Would you know the most effectively safe way to restrain someone to a chair while keeping it as convincing as possible? Our initial plan was to use duct tape, and adhere their arms to the arms of the chair, and their legs to the legs.
Mainly, I'd like to know if, when we finally take the tape off, the hair on their arms and legs will be pulled right off or not. That's something that only just occurred to us.
He responded promptly and in great detail, giving all sorts of solutions to the hair problem, in a numbered list. The very first solution was the most obvious: “Costume the actor in long shirt/pants. You'll still be able to restrain him by taping him to the chair, but it won't be right up against his flesh.”
So that’s why I decided to wear my GAP sweatshirt for the performance.
In addition to duct tape, I also purchased rope – mostly for its difference from duct tape, aesthetically. I also decided to include toilet paper and plastic wrap in the inventory for finer control. The important thing is that there were enough implements for everyone to share.
I obtained the big sheet of paper from Fajitas & ‘Ritas. It was the same paper they use as placemats. All I had to do was ask.
It was important that I use a print notice to enact the whole restriction process. To have written it makes it seem as though it comes from a different mind, from fate or something else. If I verbally asked everyone to do it, it would seem more like a dare or a challenge. I felt like that would undermine everything.
It was also important that I was sitting. That way, the chair, as a place of comfort and power, could become a burden under the proper circumstances. Also, being tied to myself just doesn’t seem that restrictive.
I was very nervous that the invitation would fall flat altogether. I wasn’t sure the atmosphere was right. In my Living Art class, people are on their feet all the time. The lecture set-up of our classroom, though, made me nervous.
I thought, at most, a handful of people would even bother to check the notice. Imagine my delight when the whole class came like a wave towards me. I’m sure a bunch of them were kicking to get out of their seats. Maybe some were just glad to be part of something as opposed to listening to more hypothetical performances. Nothing against them. I just wish there were more straight up performances. All those performers in the class, afterall.
Anyway, the class’ enthusiasm was wonderful. The restriction process went exactly as I had hoped. No holds barred and all that. I didn’t expect my ears to be stuffed with toilet paper, but I welcomed it. It didn’t quite work, though.
Something I didn’t expect was the use of the Crayola pencils as some sort of gag. The pencils were my only means of creation. I thought at first that I should separate them from the rest of the tools on the table, but if I put them too far away, I might not have been able to get them once I was restricted. Also, we were short on time. So I just put them on the table.
It’s a good thing someone came up with the idea of the gag, though. When I started the creation process, I couldn’t find the package of pencils on the table. I couldn’t reach very far to search, either, since my wrist was taped tight to the chair. I didn’t find out until after the performance that the package was knocked onto the floor, anyway.
Moving myself and the chair was tougher than I anticipated. The blindfold made it tough for me to sense were I was going, but there was enough space at the bottom for me to lean my head back and see through. I could locate the trash bins and the class, so I just had to get through them to reach the paper on the wall.
As soon as I got past the bins, I couldn’t move any further. I had been tied to the door of the classroom with rope. I wasn’t entirely surprised, but I played it up like I was. I heard Steve or Grant talking about it while everyone was tying me up. Secretly, I had hoped someone would be cruel enough to do it. It turns out that I knew my audience better than I thought I did. I considered it might happen, and fortunately I was close enough that I could go through with plan B.
I leaned down towards my lap and let my Crayola gag fall out of my mouth into my hands. I won’t lie; I was pretty disappointed that my only options were yellow, blue and brown. But, like everything else, I had it coming, so I rolled with it.
I had no idea what the pencils would taste like, but I trusted that they were non-toxic, since they were Crayola products. As it turns out, colored pencils are absolutely tasteless. At least, these were. I wasn’t especially sensitive to how much of any color I was chewing up. I knew that blue and yellow made green, but once you added brown to the mix, anything could happen. I gave up the idea that I would be able to control what color the resulting mixture would be and I focused just on the composition.
I really wasn’t sure my plan would work. I’m not a very good spitter to begin with, and I wasn’t sure I could make the distance between the wall and me. Fortunately, there was no rush. I licked all the specks of waxy graphite or whatever out of my teeth and gathered it up, along with some mucous to give it some weight.
I enjoyed the reaction I got from my first barrage. I believed that my Living Art class might have actually waited respectfully, in silence throughout the whole performance, but I think I appreciated the wiseass jeers from all of the actors much more.
On my second spit, I could just barely see Sisskin-Fernandez jump out of her seat. For I moment I was worried that I might have sprayed a little and hit her. I felt really bad, but it’s very easy to get over things when you’re tied to a chair.
I thought that, by throwing one of the pencils like a dart, I could make some sort of mark that I could consider a signature. It didn’t work out that way, but I’m okay with that.
Saying “Thank you” to end the piece didn’t occur to me until just then. I kind of a wish there was a way to signal the ending without speaking, but it just happened that way.
The responses I received on paper were overwhelmingly positive, though very few of them actually had anything to say about the performance. One wondered if the purpose was a statement about grotesqueness. I hadn’t considered it to be an issue, but I was flattered that they would use the word “grotesque” to describe it.
One person expressed mild confusion, but was reaffirmed that “you can make art no matter what”. A few other people were able to gather the same conclusion. I’m very glad that there was something positive to be extracted from it.
I was absolutely prepared to answer any questions that anybody had after the performance. I wanted people to know that real work and thought went into the preparation of it. Having it end the way it did, though – without a resolute discussion, without class-wide closure – was just perfect. Right now, I think I have my own answer to the artist/audience equation. I didn’t want to hand it to everyone. I didn’t want my work to be about answers. That they had time to think to themselves instead of speak was fantastic.
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