I will later reply more directly to comments in relating threads, however, I thought that maybe we have a lot of theoretical talk about this issue, and it might be useful to try and point out some practical points regarding audiences.
I feel that in the theoretical talk about audiences we refer to practicalities and "things that go on" in relation to process of art work and audience - hence I will try here to keep the points as I see them, or as I experience them to begin with, and hope to refer to them later in a more theoretical manner.
The following points are based on my personal experience, as I am not seeking to make a definitive assessment, but hopefully, this could serve as points of reference and place to add others.
* Funding. It seems that any thought/consideration, let alone process, of funding - requires what Ola rightly in my view, terms binary approach. There is you, the instigator, and you should show/prove the funding organisation/body that whatever you want to do - has an audience, a group of people, that will somehow "gain", or interact with your project's product/outcome.
(Indeed, this approach means that you are pre-judged to have a product/outcome of sorts.)
* Personally involved group. I use this term as a holder for "people you do stuff with", for example, a camera person, a musician, etc. These people, at times, require to either:
Feed, cloth, entertain, etc. themselves - hence need some money for the time they get involved in the work.
Or
Hope the involvement in the work will add something in their CV, contacts, etc.
Both these reasons make for a consideration of a group of people designated as "audience" almost, or invariably, implicit.
(I have tried to get people who I was personally involved with to break that cycle - but was left alone in the rain. I think its because I didn't do it in the right way..)
* Authorship. Both the process of funding and getting people to help in the work, produce a perception of someone, or a relatively small group of people, that is perceive as "authors". The author/s has the ultimate responsibility, and therefore - power. Since, it seems, that for many preconceptions the rules of the game state that someone has to have the power, there is an expectation for that to happen. even to the extent that when/if power is not seen - people ask you to take it, or stop cooperation.
* Fear. Fear, in this context and in my view, belongs to the economy of respect. What I mean is, that there's is a personal fear that one's efforts will somehow not be recognised. None recognition can mean that you will not get enough means to put food on your plate. I am saying it like that, because this fear, I think, is basic - hence hard to shake. This fear, I think is also a shared fear, so it signs the silent contract between "instigator/s", "funding" and "personally involved people". Each relies on this fear existing "there" for appropriating their position and producing a system where one is bound.
* Intent. I think that for many endeavours, it seems important for us, on personal, individual and social levels - to have an intent.
Because of the practice that emerges from the elements I pointed above, the intentions seem to drive stuff from one person/group to another person/group.
I want to give you a hand. I want to give you a present. I want to shock you. I want to ignore you. I want you to think of the aesthetics of irresponsibility. I want you to think of cleaning. I want people to enjoy the view. etc.. It drives and gives the impetus for people to do stuff together, a shared intent - or a feeling of a shared intent.
These are, I think, forces of compeltion. They compel, or seem, to do and think stuff in a certain way - hence form a practice of perception for artistic endeavours, and the economies in which they operate.
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