Intent and Interpretation

Which is more important: what the designer intended or what the audience experienced? I'm not sure this discussion happens explicitly all that often around board games, but it exists as an undercurrent when we discuss offensive themes and artistic freedom. 

Here's my take. Authorial intent is important—inasmuch as the original context of a work is important. Audience interpretation, however, is more important to the longevity of a work. Yet, I remain convinced that you cannot make good art without clear intent. Where does that leave us? 

I think it is easier for someone who works in theatre to remember that all art is a collaboration between the artist(s) and the audience. When the artist is siloed from large swaths of the audience it is easier to believe that their interpretations matter less than my artistic vision. After all, my vision is the only thing I can control, isn't it? 

This blog defines art as any craft that places a particular focus on the emotional response of the audience to the work. As I have written previously, artists can create emotions in their audience predictably. After a fashion, skilled artists are skilled manipulators. Sad songs make us cry; happy songs make us dance. To a thoughtful artist, audience interpretation is bound up with artist intent. I intend my audience to feel and thus interpret those feelings. 

But what if an audience interpretation pulls the work in a far different direction than the artist intended? To make art publicly is to give your art to audience for interpretation. In other words, if you don't want any sort of audience interpretation, don't share your work. To make art is to run the risk that the art will be set aside by the audience or that it will live on in a changed state that barely resembles your vision. 

Part of audience interpretation will include what you meant to make when you produced your art. But the value of the art to the audience is a value that arises from within the viewer. The viewer cannot be told how to value your art. 

If the audience finds fault with your art, you have the choice to stand by your original intent regardless of audience interpretation or you can change your art to more effectively communicate your intent to your audience. (Unless your intent is to offend, in which case you have succeeded.) 

Change your art? Who does that? Other than movie directors, Renaissance painters, musicians releasing remixes.... Art is a conversation with an audience. If you want the audience to listen, you have to be listening as well. 

ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.