Some work is kinda fun and kick-ass and plays well to a mixed and untrained audience.
In Chicago both the Video Data Bank and Chicago Filmmakers have held outdoor public space screenings aimed at the general public, passersby, etc. in the summer night. Some years ago Fred Camper wrote a hilarious piece that answered politicians' complaints that people on welfare were just loafing and arts funding went to coteries by suggesting that the unemployed be required to attend avant garde film screenings to receive their benefits, thus providing an audience for earnest experimentalists.