The artist is always confronted with the enigma of who his audience is and what they want and does he work for them or does he simply work. It's a conflict that seems to be invented and then reinvented time and time again. As a writer, I was sloted into boxes. As a video artist, I was never supposed to have been a writer in the first place. As a writer, I was supposed to stay in the box. As a video artist, I am supposed to be new at this (the NY Times says I have found a new home) when, in fact, I've done video far longer than I've been writing. The audience for both is supposed to be different but I am not so sure. As a writer, I was constantly being told my job was to give them what they want; there were a zillion tricks one was supposed to employ to engage the reader. It was not at all unlike being a whore and I've been that, too. Artists are poor and a young (I am no longer that) whore can earn far more from whoring than creating art. As a whore, one becomes quite depressed with the analogies; neither technology or sex necessarily make the art any better. All three -- technology, sex, and art -- are what you make of them. The question remains: do you give them what they want or do you give them what you want and can give to them. You can try (you won't succeed, I didn't) to burn the house down, reinvent both ART and YOU, and embrace revolution as a cause. But Art resists revolution because it is the accouterment of culture and culture does not embrace change with enthusiasm. Most revolutions fail. One grows jaded and old and bitter and downright hateful and giving up takes many forms. If one is lucky enough (or stubborn enough) they can find themselves still doing their art. Having left whoredom and boxes behind. While everyone else around you continues to scream that it is the audience that matters and it is the job of the artist to reach them and give them what they want in ways that are effortless for the audience to access (this means they don't have to think too hard), you know this: the art, the artist, and the audience will all disappear soon enough, and you are doing what you do because it is what you do. For them. Against them. In spite of them. You become less and less aware of them and you become focused like a laser beam on the art which grows to assume a life of its own. This is called a BODY of work and young whores, young novelists, young journalists, young composers, young dancers and choreographers, young painters, young makers of film, young actors and waiters, and young bartenders don't have this because TIME has more impact on Art than even revolution. How do you engage the fickle audience. The whore primps and markets until it can't primp or market anymore. The writer hears the words and the voice and this does not mean the music of the editorial dog and pony show that feeds off his work. The painter confronts his death. The dancer transcends the body. The composer reaches for that which is not ephemeral even in the face of evidence that implies dance as performance itself is ephemeral. The sculptor listens with his hands. The musician becomes his own instrument. You find the life that has been drained from you by the culture you once played master and slave to and now out of sheer revenge you make something that TIME can barely endure but it has no choice because what you have created is that compelling. "Better" is something of an illusion. Subjectivity is eternal. Revenge is often far more engrossing than sex, technology, curatorial guidelines, NEA paperwork, any resume, all the MFAs combined, starvation, a gallery owner's attitude, a museum's indifference, a rotten or unfair review, applause, or revolution.

As I read this piece I began to wonder what was the reaction at the time to the introduction of the printing press. Certainly it was revolutionary in its time and presented artists (monks mostly, I'll assume), publishers (mainly the established Church) and the reading public (growing with the availability of the printed word) with many of the same questions. My God, now everyone (who can afford the technology) can make a book! Look at all the choices. How can I possibly make the right time investment choice with so many books available? And yet for many decades we have easily managed that particular Arts overload.
I think participation is the new technology if you will. It's not necessarily the delivery systems that are important but rather the notion that our needs for the arts is changing. As a boomer I look for more involvment personally. I'm not so much interested in a passive experiance and I certainly don't want/need a third party imprimatur to decide if the experiance is/was valuable. No doubt my children and the next generation feel the same. I think you're correct in observing that the 20th century Arts paradigm was an anomaly of sorts, however that doesn't mean we are going back to a previous approach to the Arts but rather creating our own engagements based on our relative values. Technologies are accelerators and facilitators to changes already in the works, maybe?

New technology is one thing. New thinking is another. New technology is dependent upon new technology. New thinking is dependent upon thinking people. There are no new people. Only old ones imbued with all the tired masquerades of the sacred critic. You decide. Which is the more compelling. Or relevant. The critic or the artrist. Is the thing a CHOICE. Sadly. Probably. Few things are reliable. The censorship of this -- or whatever else That Other Voice might write -- is definitely one of those things. Totally reliable. Most brick walls designed to keep thought out, do.