Withholding explanatory material makes an artwork demand active audience participation.

Evidence

It was clear that the songs weren’t complete in themselves, but part of a larger fictional system to which listeners were only ever granted partial access. “I used to write a lot of prose on and off”, Smith would say later. “When we were doing Hex I was doing stories all the time and the songs were like the bits left over.” Smith’s refusal to provide lyrics or to explain his songs was in part an attempt to ensure that they remained, in Barthes’ terms, writerly. (Barthes opposes such texts, which demand the active participation of the reader, to “readerly” texts, which reduce the reader to the passive role of consumer of already-existing totalities.) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1165

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains Barthes’ writerly/readerly distinction through a concrete music case, making the abstract opposition tangible.
• XREF: connects to: Leaving unfilled space in art lets rare events gain significance — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 428; Attending to a work can itself constitute an artistic act — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 437; Texts impose preferred readings that constrain audience interpretation. (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Texts impose preferred readings that constrain audience interpretation. #contradicts (0.80)
• Both creating and receiving art demand skilled labor on attention #expands (0.80) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 435
• Leaving unfilled space in art lets rare events gain significance #qualifies (0.78) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 428
• Attending to a work can itself constitute an artistic act #corroborates (0.75) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 437