Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it 'creative observation.' Creative viewing.
Interpretation
Observation is essential for existence; artists create by perceiving and hoping others will see their work.
William S. Burroughs highlights the relationship between observation and existence, suggesting that things only come to life when they are seen or acknowledged. For an artist, this means that their creations gain meaning and life through the viewer's perception, linking the act of observing with the act of creating, which Burroughs terms 'creative observation'.
In practice
During an art class when discussing the importance of perspective.
God save the Queen and a fascist regime … a flabby toothless fascism, to be sure. Never go too far in any direction, is the basic law on which Limey-Land is built. The Queen stabilizes the whole sinking shithouse and keeps a small elite of wealth and privilege on top. The English have gone soft in the outhouse. England is like some stricken beast too stupid to know it is dead. Ingloriously foundering in its own waste products, the backlash and bad karma of empire
Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn't. Most people aren't cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness ... Elegance, grace, delicacy, beauty, and a lack of self-consciousness: a creature who knows he is cute soon isn't.
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered.
Language is a virus from outer space.
One very important aspect of art is that it makes people aware of what they know and don’t know they know... Once the breakthrough is made, there is a permanent expansion of awareness. But there is always a reaction of rage, of outrage, at the first breakthrough... So the artist, then, expands awareness. And once the breakthrough is made, this becomes part of the general awareness.
When the uncreative tell the creative what to do, it stops being art.
This is the very coinage of your brain: this bodiless creation ecstasy.
I'm not a playwright. The people in my songs are all me.
If gaming were seen as an art, the important question would be not whether games are good for us but whether they are good, full stop.
Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.
It’s a curious thing. I suppose most people think of artists as impatient but I don’t know of any first-rate artist who hasn’t manifested in his career an appalling patience, a willingness to wait and to do his best now in the expectation that next year he will do better.
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