tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57238011007005193222024-03-06T08:18:20.246+00:00Notes on metamodernismEditorialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552460369811047907noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-15617853819208557862010-11-17T07:39:00.001+00:002010-11-17T13:44:09.171+00:00Notes on metamodernism has relocated!<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dear reader,</span></span><br />
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</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Notes on Metamodernism</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Robin van den Akker & Timotheus Vermeulen</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Paper addressed at Thinking in Unity Conference Ludwig Maximilian University Munchen, Germany, 12-13 November 2010</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></b></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> The ecosystem is severely disrupted, the financial system is increasingly uncontrollable and the geopolitical structure has recently begun to appear as unstable as it has always been uneven. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">CEOs and Politicians express their ‘desire for change’ at every interview, voice a heartfelt ‘yes we can’ at each photo-op. Planners and architects increasingly replace their blueprints for environments with environmental ‘greenprints’. And new generations of artists increasingly abandon the aesthetic precepts of deconstruction, parataxis and pastiche in favor of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">aesth-ethical</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> notions of reconstruction, myth and metaxis. These trends and tendencies can no longer be explained in terms of the postmodern. They express a (often guarded) hopefulness and (at times feigned) sincerity that hint at another structure of feeling, intimating another discourse. History, it seems, is moving rapidly beyond its all too hastily proclaimed end. As Linda Hutcheon put it: let’s face it: the postmodern is over.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In this paper, we will seek to outline, or sketch, the contours of this emerging structure of feeling. We will pay particular attention here to the material sphere of economics, the ethical sphere of politics, and the aesthetic sphere of the arts. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">We will call this structure of feeling, or sensibility if you will, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">metamodernism.</span></i></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> According to the Greek-English Lexicon the prefix ‘meta’ refers to such notions as ‘with’, ‘between’, and ‘beyond’. We will use these connotations of ‘meta’ in a similar, yet not indiscriminate fashion. For we contend that metamodernism should be situated epistemologically </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">with</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> modernism and postmodernism, ontologically </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">between</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> modernism and postmodernism, and historically </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">beyond</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> modernism and postmodernism. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Some remarks, finally, on our approach. As the paper’s title, ‘Notes on metamodernism’, suggests, we intend what follows as a series of linked observations rather than a single line of thought. We seek to relate to one another a broad variety of trends and tendencies across current affairs and contemporary aesthetics that are otherwise incomprehensible (at least in terms of the postmodern vernacular), by understanding them in terms of an emergent sensibility we come to call metamodern. We do not seek to impose a predetermined system of thought on a rather particular range of cultural practices. Our description and interpretation of the metamodern sensibility is therefore </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">essay</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">istic rather than </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">scient</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">ific, rhizomatic rather than linear, and open-ended instead of closed. It should be understood as an invitation for debate rather than an extending of a dogma...</span></span></div><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><u><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Economics and Politics</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It can be argued that the postmodern has been marked by a slow but steady development towards political stability and economic prosperity, at least from a western perspective. After the turmoil of the 1960s and, to a lesser extent, the 1970s and, to a much lesser extent, the 1980s, the 1990s might be described, in the words of Charles Krauthammer, as ‘a holiday from History.’ The so-called 'peace' brought by the steady rise of Empire and the formation of the European Union, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall; and the so-called 'wealth’ brought by the deregulation of the financial system and the transition to a white-collar economy, the flexibilisation of the job market and a credit-driven consumerism all seemed to confirm Fukuyama’s </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">End of History.</span></i></span><u><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">These trends and tendencies might be best illustrated from the perspective of national politics and domestic policy, as these domains can be conceived as a mediating level between the global and local, the point of contact between the space of flows and the space of places, the moment of intersection between World History and personal life narratives.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Seen from this perspective, then, it can be argued that the postmodern era led, slowly but surely, to the appeasement of political oppositions and the blunting of ideological contradictions, up to the point where the differences between Adam Smith and Karl Marx, the invisible hand of the market and the clinched fist of the commune, liberals and socialists, progressives and conservatives were slowly but surely rendered invisible by political stability and economic prosperity. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Consider, for example, the continuation of Thatcher&Reagan’s Neoliberalism by Blair&Clinton’s Thirdway-ism, a development that seemed to legitimize Thatcher’s slogan that There Is No Alternative </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">and</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> a development that was neatly summarised by Dutchman Wim Kok (former-Union-leader-cum-Prime-Minister and ‘spiritual father’ of the Third Way) as ‘shaking off the ideological feathers’ . All was quiet on the Western front. Or, so it seemed.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #141413; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">To be sure, we do not wish to suggest that all postmodern tendencies are over and done with. But we do</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #8d8e8d; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #141413; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">believe many of them are taking another shape, and, more importantly, a new </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">sens</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, a new meaning, and direction.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #141413; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020;">History, in other words, has resumed its course. For the 2000s were haunted by the specters of immigration and multiculturalism, terrorism and populism, climate crisis and credit crunch, the failed attempt to establish a Constitution for the European Union and the Euro-crisis, the demise of American unilateralism and the rise of economies such as Brasil and Russia, India and China, the so-called BRICs.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #141413; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In sum, the emergent sensibility we have come to call metamodernism must be situated within the context of a threefold “crisis”. To our minds, this triple crisis consists of a collapsing political centre, the climate crisis and the credit crunch. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #141413; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The disintegration of the political center, for example, results on both a geopolitical and a national level in a multi-polar and polycentric political landscape, which forces us to restructure the political discourse and to re-position ourselves within political debates. The climate crisis, moreover, urges us to decentralize the production of alternative energy and find solutions to the waste of time, space, and energy caused by (sub)urban sprawl, and, thus, forces us to re-imagine a sustainable material landscape and a transformation of our modes of production and consumption. The credit crunch, lastly, causes severe feelings of anxiety as stock-markets plunge and expenses are cut, houses are foreclosed and people are axed on a scale unheard of since the 1930s. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #141413; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The threefold crisis of a collapsing center, a changing climate and the credit crunch infuses doubt and inspires reflection about the basic assumptions of Western culture, economics and politics, as much as it inflames political debates and provokes dogmatic entrenchments. Indeed, if, simplistically put, the modern outlook vis-a`-vis idealism and ideals could be characterized as fanatic and/or naive, and the postmodern mindset as apathetic and/or skeptic, the current sensibility can be conceived of as some sort of informed naivety, pragmatic idealism or moderate fanaticism. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Looking back at the end of the decade it is easy to see that the realm of domestic politics altered accordingly, as the political centre collapsed and political contradictions resurfaced. Let me illustrate these points by means of a few examples. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #141413; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">n the US, recently, the election of President Obama rallied the country behind a progressive agenda of social reform, leading to bills that attempt to restructure the financial sector and to reform Health Care. Meanwhile, the Republicans have won heavily in the recent mid-term elections… thanks to a radicalized conservative wing, spearheaded by Sarah Palin, Fox News and the infamous Tea Party. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In the UK, recently, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats formed the first coalition since the Second World War to govern the country. Meanwhile, Labour is redirecting its course after the apparent failure of Blair’s Thirdway politics and the disastrous spell of Gordon Brown. After a dramatic race between the Milliband brothers, the natural heir to Blair’s legacy, David, lost to the favorite of Labour’s left wing, Ed, who was elected the new Party leader, and this is telling, as the result of the support of the Unions.</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In the Netherlands, recently, the first minority cabinet since the Second World War got installed, headed by the first Liberal (rightwing) Prime-Minister since the First World War and made possible by the support of Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam party. Meanwhile, Labour distanced itself from their former Thirdway politics by means of a dismissive speech of Wouter Bos (still leading the party at that time) and the Unions organized the longest strike since the Great Depression. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">We could go on and on and on. We could go on about the consecutive minority coalitions in Denmark, supported by the rightwing populists of The Danish People’s Party, the wave of strikes that will undoubtedly engulf Europe, the historical first seat for the extreme-right in Swedish Parliament, the need for much contested reforms concerning the climate crises and the credit crunch, the recent start of the debate concerning the multicultural society in Germany and so on so forth… But the list is intended to be illustrative, not exhaustive. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">All of the above mentioned examples, however, point towards a similar political reality: the constant need to both create an re-create small majorities or large minorities and position and reposition oneself within an increasingly polarized political landscape.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><u><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The arts</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In the arts too, the landscape is changing. The leading American art critic Jerry Saltz has observed the surfacing of another kind of sensibility oscillating between beliefs, assumptions and attitudes that he described as follows:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: .55pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I’m noticing a new approach to artmaking in recent museum and gallery shows. It flickered into focus at the New Museum’s “Younger Than Jesus” last year and ran through the Whitney Biennial, and I’m seeing it blossom and bear fruit at “Greater New York,” MoMA P.S. 1’s twice-a-decade extravaganza of emerging local talent. It’s an attitude that says, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I know that the art I’m creating may seem silly, even stupid, or that it might have been done before, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t serious</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">. At once knowingly self-conscious about art, unafraid, and unashamed, these young artists not only see the distinction between earnestness and detachment as artificial; they grasp that they can be ironic and sincere at the same time, and they are making art from this compound-complex state of mind—what Emerson called “alienated majesty.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Saltz writes exclusively about tendencies in American Art, but one can observe similar sentiments across the European continent. Only recently, the established BAK Institute in the Netherlands initiated a group exhibition that was called ‘Vectors of the Possible’. The exhibition, curator Simon Sheikh explained, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #202020;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">examines the notion of the horizon in art and politics and explores the ways in which art works can be said to set up certain horizons of possibility and impossibility, how art partakes in specific imaginaries, and how it can produce new ones, thus suggesting other ways of imagining the world. Counter to the post-1989 sense of resignation, [it] suggests that in the field of art, it is the horizon - as an "empty signifier", an ideal to strive towards, and a vector of possibility - that unites...and gives...direction. The art works in this exhibition can be seen as vectors, reckoning possibility and impossibility in (un)equal measures, but always detecting and indicating ways of seeing, and of being, in the world.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">And the much lauded up-and-coming Gallery Tanja Wagner in Berlin introduced its opening exhibition with the remarkably analogous words:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1b2131;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The works [at display] convey enthusiasm as well as irony. They play with hope and melancholy, oscilliate between knowledge and naivety, empathy and apathy, wholeness and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity, … looking for a truth without expecting to find it.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1b2131; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Even the applied arts, from architecture to cinema, the Internet to television, are undergoing changes. </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The film critic James MacDowell has noted the emergence of the so-called ‘quirky cinema’ associated with the films of Michel Gondry and Wes Anderson. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">MacDowell describes quirky as a recent trend in Indie cinema characterized by the attempt to restore to the cynical reality of adults a childlike naivety – as opposed to the postmodern ‘smart’ cinema of the nineties, which was typified by sarcasm and indifference</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1b2131; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Whatever you call these changes, these moves away from a distrust in metanarratives to a cautious belief in them, from irony to an informed naivety and sincerity, from parataxis to metaxy, from the conceptual to the affective – reconstructivist, renewalist, or indeed, to use the well chosen terminology of our host, performatist – they signal a move away from the postmodern into another kind of modernism – for, and this is important, we have not moved beyond modernity.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">To date however, metamodernism appears to have found its clearest expression in an emergent neoromantic sensibility, and it is therefore this particular movement that we want to pay some more attention to here. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Now, of course, Romanticism is a notoriously pluralistic and ambiguous (and consequently uniquely frequently misinterpreted) concept. Arthur Lovejoy once noted that there are so many different, often differing definitions of the concept that we might rather speak of Romanticism</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">s</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> And Isaiah Berlin, one of our time’s most adept critics of the Romantic worldview, observed that Romanticism, in short, is </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">unity and multiplicity. It is fidelity to the particular…and also mysterious tantalising vagueness of outline. It is beauty and ugliness. It is art for art’s sake, and art as instrument of social salvation. It is strength and weakness, individualism and collectivism, purity and corruption, revolution and reaction, peace and war, love of life and love of death.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">If we speak about neoromanticism, then, we are not speaking about all these Romanticisms. We feel that the current neoromanticism above all evokes an attitude similar to, or perhaps even modelled after, an attitude common to early German Romanticism. For argument’s sake, we will define this attitude primarily in terms of the oscillation between the kinds of opposite poles Berlin outlined. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Not entirely, but primarily. For us the Romantic attitude is about the attempt to turn the finite into the infinite, whilst recognizing that it can never be realized. As Schlegel put it, ‘that it should forever be becoming and never be perfected’. Of course, it is also specifically about </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Bildung</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, about self-realization, about </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Zaïs</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Isis</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, but for our purposes, this general idea of the Romantic as oscillating between attempt and failure, or as Schlegel wrote, between ‘enthusiasm and irony’, or in Jos de Mul’s words, between a ‘modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony’, is sufficient. It is from this hesitation also that the Romantic inclination towards the tragic, the sublime and the uncanny stem, aesthetic categories lingering between projection and perception, form and the unformable, coherence and chaos, corruption and innocence.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It is somewhat surprising that we appear to be among the first academics to discern in contemporary arts a sensibility akin to this Romanticism. For in the arts, the return to the Romantic, whether as style, philosophy or attitude, has been widely professed. In 2007 Jörg Heiser, co-editor of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Frieze</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, curated an exhibition in Vienna and Nurnberg called ‘Romantic Conceptualism’. A mere two years earlier, The Schirnhalle in Frankfurt hosted ‘Ideal Worlds: New Romanticism in Contemporary Art’. In addition, the TATE Britain has recently held a Peter Doig retrospective, the MOMA looked back at the life and work of Bas Jan Ader, while various museums have shown a renewed interest in the works of the likes of Friedrich and Bocklin. And then we have not even mentioned the multitude of galleries exposing the often-figurative paintings and photographs of twilights and full moons, ethereal cityscapes and sublime landscapes, secret societies and sects, estranged men and women and strange boys and girls. It appears that, after all those years, the parody and pastiche of Jeff Koons, the Chapmans and Damien Hirst, the ironic deconstruction of Cindy Sherman and Sarah Lucas, and the nihilist destruction of Paul McCarthy, are finally as out of place as they always pretended to be – but, in times where ‘anything goes’, hardly ever were.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This Romantic sensibility has been expressed in a wide variety of art forms and a broad diversity of styles, across media and surfaces. It has been visible in Herzog and de Meuron’s negotiations between the permanent and the temporary; in Bas Jan Ader’s questioning of Reason by the irrational; in Peter Doig’s re-appropriation of culture through nature; and in Gregory Crewdson and David Lynch’s adaptation of civilisation by the primitive. It can be perceived in Olafur Eliasson, Glen Rubsamen, Dan Attoe and Armin Boehm’s obsessions with the commonplace ethereal, in Catherine Opie’s fixation with the quotidian sublime. It can be observed in Justine Kurland, Kaye Donachie and David Thorpe’s fascination with fictitious sects, or in Darren Almond and Charles Avery’s interest for fictional elsewheres. And one can see it in the plethora of works of artists anew attempting to come to terms with their unconsciousness. What these strategies and styles have in common with one another is their use of tropes of mysticism, estrangement and alienation to signify potential alternatives; and their conscious decision to attempt in spite of those alternatives’ untenableness.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Indeed, both Ader’s attempts to unite life and death – and Reason and the miraculous, and self-determination and faith – and Rubsamen’s efforts to unify culture and nature might have been more ‘successful’ had they employed other methods and materials. Ader could have equipped himself with a better boat in order to sail the seas (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In search of the miraculous</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, 1975); and he could have trained himself better in the art of tree climbing in order to longer hang on to branches (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Broken fall</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, 1971). Similarly, Rubsamen could have applied strategies of simulation and/or techniques of post-production in order to make the electricity poles and lampposts (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve brought you a friend</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, 2007 look more like the magical trees and ethereal bushes they are supposed to resemble. The reason these artists haven’t opted to employ methods and materials better suited to their mission or task is that their intention is not to fulfill it, but to attempt to fulfill it in spite of its ‘unfulfillableness’. The point of Ader’s journey is precisely that he might not return from it; of his tree climbing precisely that he cannot but fall eventually. Similarly, the point of Rubsamen’s pursuit too is exactly that it cannot be fulfilled: culture and nature cannot be one and the same, nor can any one of them ever entirely overtake the other.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">One should be careful however not to confuse this oscillating tension (a sort of both-neither) with some kind of postmodern in-between (a neither-nor). Indeed, both metamodernism and the postmodern turn to pluralism, irony and deconstruction in order to counter a modernist fanaticism. However, in metamodernism this pluralism and irony are utilized to counter the modern aspiration, while in postmodernism they are employed to cancel it out. That is to say, metamodern irony is intrinsically bound to desire, whereas postmodern irony is inherently tied to apathy. Consequently, the metamodern art work (or rather, at least as the metamodern art work has so far expressed itself by means of neoromanticism) redirects the modern piece by drawing attention to what it cannot present in its language, what it cannot signify in its own terms (that what is often called the sublime, the uncanny, the ethereal, the mysterious and so forth). The postmodern work deconstructs it by pointing exactly to what it presents, by exposing precisely what it signifies.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><u><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Metamodernism</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So how should we understand these trends and tendencies inflecting our material, ethical and aesthetic experience? What do they signify? And how do they relate to one another? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It has become something of a commonplace to begin discussions of the postmodern by stressing that there is no one such thing as ‘the’ postmodern. After all, ‘the’ postmodern is merely the ‘catchphrase’ for a multiplicity of contradictory tendencies, the ‘buzzword’ for a plurality of incoherent sensibilities. Indeed, the initial heralds of the postmodern, broadly considered to be Charles Jencks, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Fredric Jameson and Ihab Hassan, each analysed a different cultural phenomenon – respectively a transformation in our material landscape; a distrust and the consequent desertion of meta-narratives; the emergence of late capitalism, the fading of historicism and the waning of affect; and a new regime in the arts. However, what these distinct phenomena share is an opposition to ‘the’ modern – to utopism, to (linear) progress, to grand narratives, to Reason, to functionalism and formal purism, and so on. These positions can most appropriately be summarized, perhaps, by Jos de Mul’s distinction between postmodern irony and modern enthusiasm.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> In similar vein, the various trends and tendencies across economics, politics and the arts that we have come to call metamodern… too can be related to one another in contrast to the postmodern – and indeed, the modern. Tendencies as varied as the credit crunch and the ensuing reconstruction of the financial system, the disintegration of the political centre and the subsequent constant repositioning between ideologies and popular ideas, and the impossible artistic practices of Herzog and de Meuron, David Thorpe, and Kaye Donachie, all oscillate between a postmodern knowingness, irony and fragmentation, and a modern naivety, enthusiasm, sincerity and longing for coherence and unity.</span></span><span lang="EN" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The current sensibilities acknowledge that history’s purpose will never be fulfilled because it does not exist. Critically however, they nevertheless take towards it </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">as if</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> it does exist. Inspired by a modern naïveté yet informed by postmodern skepticism, the metamodern discourse consciously commits itself to an impossible possibility.</span></span><span lang="EN" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">If, epistemologically, the modern and the postmodern are linked to Hegel’s ‘positive’ idealism, the metamodern aligns itself with Kant’s ‘negative’ idealism. Kant’s philosophy of history after all, can too be most appropriately summarized as ‘as-if’ thinking. As Curtis Peters explains, according to Kant, ‘we may view human history </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">as if</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> mankind had a life narrative which describes its self-movement toward its full rational/social potential … to view history </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">as if</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> it were the story of mankind’s development.’ Indeed, Kant himself adopts the as-if terminology when he writes ‘[e]ach … people, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">as if</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> following some guiding thread, go toward a natural but to each of them unknown goal’. That is to say, humankind, a people, are not really going towards a natural but unknown goal, but they pretend they do, so that they progress, morally as well as politically. Metamodernism moves for the sake of moving, attempts in spite of its inevitable failure; it seeks forever for a truth that it never expects to find. If you will forgive us for the banality of the metaphor for a moment, the metamodern thus wilfully adopts a kind of donkey-and-carrot double-bind. Like a donkey it chases a carrot that it never manages to eat because it is always just beyond its reach. But precisely because it never manages to eat the carrot, it never ends its chase, setting foot in moral realms the modern donkey (having eaten its carrot elsewhere) will never encounter, entering political domains the postmodern donkey (having abandoned the chase) will never come across.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Ontologically, metamodernism oscillates between the modern and the postmodern. It oscillates between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naïveté and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity. Indeed, by oscillating to and fro, back and forth the metamodern negotiates between the modern and the postmodern. One should be careful not to think of this oscillation as a balance however; rather it is a pendulum swinging between two, three, five, ten, innumerable, poles. Each time the metamodern enthusiasm swings towards fanaticism, gravity pulls it back towards irony; the moment its irony sways towards apathy, gravity pulls it back towards enthusiasm. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The metamodern is constituted by the tension, no, the double-bind, between a modern desire for </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">sens</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, and a postmodern doubt about the sense of it all. Of course, there is much more to the metamodern. We have not discussed, for instance, the increasingly important concepts of atopia and metaxy, of affect and materiality. But we nonetheless hope to have given you an indication of how we think we might be able to begin to understand what is happening all around us, whilst acknowledging that we will fail to grasp it in its entirety. And that attempt, in itself, seems to us to be pretty metamodern.</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Thank for you for your time.</span></span></div><div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><div id="edn" style="mso-element: endnote;"></div></div>Editorialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552460369811047907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-59908398615120565632010-11-10T13:27:00.001+00:002010-11-10T13:29:29.936+00:00The door opens inwards (2)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Some weeks ago, Galerie Tanja Wagner curated the first </span></span><a href="http://www.tanjawagner.com/de/exhibitions/current/die-tuer-geht-nach-innen-auf/pr-en-die-tuer-geht-nach-innen-auf.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">exhibition</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> explicitly linked to the metamodern. It would be an understatement to say that the exhibition was a success in terms of either popular appreciation or critical acclaim. Art glossy Monopol instantly put Wagner on the front page. Art-Magazin called her the ‘absolute Newcomerin’. Der Tagesspiegel spoke of Wagner as the future of the Berlin art scene. And Die Zeit put lavish praise on the five young artists.<br />
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Notes on metamodernism decided to have a look for themselves. Timotheus Vermeulen reports.</span></span><br />
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Beforehand, the exhibition’s titular thematic, a door opening inwards, struck us as evocative as it seemed elusive. The idea of a door opening inwards evokes images of inviting one into one’s private sanctuary, of letting one in on a secret. But it also raises questions, the kind of questions indeed a generation of artists raised in the eighties and nineties is likely to ask: opening onto what, opening from which point, opening by whom?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
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To be sure, none of the works on display physically opens a door. In fact, no work even offers a representation of an opening door. Yet throughout the performances, installations, and paintings, this tension, between a public gesture and a private sphere, or between an unclear somewhere and an unknown elsewhere, is unmistakable present. As the exhibition catalogue puts it: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“By opening the door inwards, these artists do not extract public issues onto a private scale. Nor do they exhibit their personal concerns and quirks onto a public stage. On the contrary, they invite us into a public space as if it were their private sanctuary. (…) </span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The door opens inwards is a journey of discovery. It is a journey without destination, a journey of which the artists might not return. It is a journey embedded in the gravity of reality, but embodied by the weightlessness of the imagination. The journey explores the tension between the representation and the present, the discourse and the material. It oscillates between the possible and the impossible, desire and disappointment, hope and melancholy, sincerity and irony. By opening the door inwards, the artists seek to re-establish the trust necessary to create new communities, shared beliefs and even truths…” </span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The exhibition, by opening the door inwards, by inviting in one sphere, one space, one discourse, one sensibility, one subjectivity, into another, take a stand, or, to use that art scene’s buzzword du jour, a position. The artists on display say: this is my place, too; I take responsibility for it, too; I derive rights from it, too; and I can decide what I want it to be like, too.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Much has been written about Routes Award Laureate Sejla Kameric’s installation Mashallah - God Bless Tears (below). Marshalla - God Bless Tears is a collection of neatly displayed, neatly folded, neatly pressed, white woolen baby cardigans adorned with a golden broche in the shape of a tear on which is imprinted the Arabic verse ‘Mashallah’: good luck. Kameric juxtaposes form and meaning, meaning and form. The manner in which the jumpers are displayed evoke at once the standard of the military and the seriality of fashion. The cardigans themselves however invoke the irreducible innocence of children. And if the golden broches connote the luxury of the transient, they also carry with them a truth that is soberingly transcendental: life is not life without tears.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TNqWic5PcJI/AAAAAAAAAD8/BYL3q_yAEdU/s1600/Wagner1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TNqWic5PcJI/AAAAAAAAAD8/BYL3q_yAEdU/s400/Wagner1.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
God Bless Tears opens a door to the future of a people, onto and from an artist’s individual past and vice versa. It is a door that oscillates between a universal capitalism and a particular cultural sensibility, between transience of fashion and the transcendentality of religion, between the unclear somewhere of life and the unknown elsewhere of death, in order to create another, alternative space of longing and belonging.<br />
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Issa Sant paints red and yellow brushstrokes, bloodlike streams and blotted knots on a whitish, ungrounded set of canvasses (below). The strokes intimate figures that are entrapped between the foreground and the background, between centre and periphery, between their disconcerting relationship to one another and their disintegrating individuality, between a desire to move and a distressing immobility, between flowing arteries and constipated carcasses, between a Bacon-esque present and a cave paintings-like past. Indeed, Sant’s entrapped figures deconstruct human subjectivity, in all its uncertainty, ambiguity, and bleakness.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TNqWdVNRjmI/AAAAAAAAAD4/oRZctNj14Z4/s1600/Wagner2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="398" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TNqWdVNRjmI/AAAAAAAAAD4/oRZctNj14Z4/s400/Wagner2.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
Yet for Sant, entrapment is not merely a deconstructive tool. It also offers them a reconstructive rope. Her figures are ensnared between where they want to be and where they were, between a future that has not yet materialized and a past that has already disappeared. But </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Ensnared</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">: that is to say, in a web, in a frame of reference, of possibilities and impossibilities – found, ultimately, not lost, forever. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
The much praised Mariechen Danz’s performance Learning Cubes of no Body (below) is a retrogressive retrainings of her body through which she seeks to gain a sensual understanding of the human corporeal experience. Danz, by oscillating between elaborate choreography and spasms of the body, between pop songs and humming Ur-sounds, seeks to open a door onto a space in which the Apolinian soul and the Dionysian body meet. She does not merely want to deconstruct the human corporeal experience as the binary tension between discursivity and materiality however. Instead she wants to reconstruct it. Danz deconstructs our corporeality in order to reconstruct alternative relationships between discursivity and materiality: unexpected linkages, as yet unknown frictions. Danz’s Learning Cubes are tools to enable us to learn another corporeal language.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TNqWm-IWNZI/AAAAAAAAAEE/NvRPesf7CoE/s1600/Wagner3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TNqWm-IWNZI/AAAAAAAAAEE/NvRPesf7CoE/s400/Wagner3.jpg" width="260" /></span></span></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Angelika Trojnarski’s vistas (below) take us to abandoned battelegrounds, uninhabited homes and sailless ships. The paintings might be cold contemplations on the ahistoricity or wastefulness of contemporary society, but the paintings never feel like it. On the contrary they have quite a warmth to them. Trojnarski imbues the objects with an almost Romantic necessity of presence, melancholy and mysteriousness that makes one wonder whether these obsolete and obblivious creatures to have something akin to a story or even soul to them.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TNqWoW6nprI/AAAAAAAAAEI/jNMO8W-wfoo/s1600/Wagner4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TNqWoW6nprI/AAAAAAAAAEI/jNMO8W-wfoo/s400/Wagner4.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
The promising Berlin born artist Paula Doepfner finally, attempts to store her dreams in ice cubes, archive her desires in lava. She fails, of course. But that is the point: to try and store dreams in ice cubes knowing that storing is a process of eternity while dreams are ephemeral, but moreover knowing that one cannot store dreams in ice because it melts; to try and archive desires in lava knowing that archiving is a process of ordering while desires are rhizomatic, but moreover knowing that one cannot store desires in stone because lava solidifies. Indeed, Doepfner, in failing, creates a truly fascinating piece of art.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TNqcTuOdP3I/AAAAAAAAAEM/GWcaOIH0eQI/s1600/wagner5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="259" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TNqcTuOdP3I/AAAAAAAAAEM/GWcaOIH0eQI/s320/wagner5.jpg" width="320" /></span></span></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
What these artists share is a desire to seek for a truth that they never expect to find, in materials in which they most certainly will not find it. But they look out for it; and they look out for not in not in discursive monopoly or theoretical scrabble or conceptual lingo, but in the material, in the brushstrokes and the canvas, the wool and the ice, the body and the voice. Indeed, what is perhaps most remarkable about these works, is their attention first and foremost to the material experience: they draw the eyes, the ears, the nose. It is only in a second instant that the mind comes into play.<br />
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The power of ‘The Door opens inwards’ lies in intimating a truth that all of us are looking for but never find. Perhaps because we do not dare to look. Perhaps because we do not know where to look for. Perhaps because what we are looking for cannot be found. Perhaps because it should not be found. The power of the exhibition lies in stating, and daring to state, that the mere fact that we are looking means we are never lost. Or at least not for ever. And that simple truth or truism, indeed, is something that no one has dared to say for a long time. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Metamodernism: truth or dare.</span></span></div>Timotheus Vermeulenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13927897942308903962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-18118860940175373292010-11-07T11:10:00.001+00:002010-11-07T11:13:50.483+00:00The Limits of Postmodern Theory (from a gaming perspective)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU35IuhuICdlRe5sWr4yAOJw9yLyK12Cu-57wdQlofMnND2EmH8Chl0nmWPnLe97goGPLzMS_TWz8sYneYrEZj2SUrLQy2AUPI7WgOBFVlcbQE2be8_xoCu618zoYTaeOELt1r2nFlZ2zS/s1600/legacy-of-kain-defiance-game.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-iQdUcX8Eg80tULKfVhikNlY0JNtgiiromuGIaUY3T2WHnMaMrMAd3MR0ltmv2FXUDlpTz9zIL4Ab1BX-vrdGr02IT81j1dFGOBHE4_g1kr741eXl1106AHZC8_njKJZE1C8Kutqrg9D/s1600/legacy-of-kain-defiance-game.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-iQdUcX8Eg80tULKfVhikNlY0JNtgiiromuGIaUY3T2WHnMaMrMAd3MR0ltmv2FXUDlpTz9zIL4Ab1BX-vrdGr02IT81j1dFGOBHE4_g1kr741eXl1106AHZC8_njKJZE1C8Kutqrg9D/s320/legacy-of-kain-defiance-game.jpg" width="320" /></span></span></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">From time to time, we receive an interesting mail in our mailbox. Michael McKenny's mail is one of those, so we will post it integrally, below. Michael analysed the limits of postmodern theory. He argues that postmodern theory is not sufficient for a proper understanding of the gaming experience. The following is an excerpt from his BA Thesis, aptly titled "Paradigm shifts" (2009). If you also have an insightful contribution to make to our blog in particular and our research program in general, send an email to: mtmdrn@gmail.com. Meanwhile, enjoy the following post - the editors.</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
In this early part of the twenty first century, the medium of videogames appears to be growing into a level of maturity, as it moves out of the fringes of society and into the realms of popular culture. The evolution of new such forms of communicating a narrative to the masses has profound implications for society, as Marshall McLuhan speculates: “Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men [and women] communicate than by the content of the communication” (McLuhan and Fiore 1996: 8).</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I would like to point out how it is tempting to look to the theories laid down through the postmodern discourse in order to conduct this analysis, yet I would also like to highlight the problems with this approach and why established modern theory cannot be rejected; that videogame analysis must be quintessentially metamodern.<br />
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Jean Baudrillard’s definition of simulation lends itself to the study of a medium whose very existence lies within digitally created renditions of fictional worlds. Yet the most important point to take from Baudrillard’s contribution to the discourse – from a videogame studies perspective – is the breakdown of established subject-object positions and, subsequently, the individual’s freedom to play with and to freely construct their identity. This in turn invokes Jean-Francois Lyotard’s championing of the rise of the individual’s little narratives, in opposition to society’s metanarratives dictating what its subject should believe.<br />
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Videogame players should be understood in terms of an evolution of the active spectator; not only do they negotiate the meaning, they also interact with the narrative, controlling the pacing and the editing. At times they even dictate the order in which the story is told, what dialogue is spoken and the gender and race of the protagonist(s). Despite all of these elements, which would point toward the liberating fervour of postmodernism’s little narratives along with the emergence of bottom up meaning creation, there still exists extensive sets of rules that are dictated by the writers and programmers involved in the game’s production.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This appears to be where the split in this emerging academic area arises: The study of videogames has been largely dominated by a debate between narratology and ludology; that is the debate surrounding whether videogames are an evolution of established narrative forms, or if they are a revolutionary rupture that demand an entirely new analytical model.<br />
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Ganzala Frasca epitomises the ludologist’s approach: “Video games imply an enormous paradigm shift for our culture because they represent the first complex simulational media for the masses” (2003: 224); whereas the approach taken by Jan Simons scrutinises the ‘freedom’ that the ludologists’ ‘simulation’ brings, proposing that narrative stories are confined by the author, only “as much as computer-generated simulations are constrained by the algorithms written by the designer of the model” (2007).<br />
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It is this space between the two that videogames currently occupy: testing existing notions of fixed narrative production along with the fixed subject-object positions prevalent throughout modernity, yet in many ways, not able to completely break away from them. Rather, these new forms of interactive narratives allow a certain amount of negotiated meaning creation through play and ludic experimentation, yet within a predefined set of rules. Videogames can therefore be viewed as part of a wider movement prevalent in new media, slowly wearing down the old top-down monocratic systems of meaning production, yet from a familiar position that is easy to engage with.<br />
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Bibliography:<br />
Frasca, G (2003) ‘Simulation versus narrative: Introduction to ludology’ in Mark J.P. Wolf and Bernard Perron (eds) </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Video Game Theory Reader</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. London: Routledge pp 221 - 236</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">McLuhan, M and Fiore, Q (1996) </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (Digitalized edition. 1st edition 1967). San Francisco: Hardwired</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Simons, J (2007) ‘Narrative, games, and theory’ in </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Gamestudies.org</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. Vol. 7 No. 1 (August) [online] available at </span></span><a href="http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/simons"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/simons</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> accessed on 01.05.2009</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><blockquote><i>Michael's biography:</i></blockquote></span><i><blockquote><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"I Graduated from the University of Bolton in 2009 with a first class BA(hons) degree, joint between Film Studies and Business Studies. I am due to begin an MA in Film Studies at the University of Bradford, but have to wait until September 2011 for personal and financial circumstances to allow. I currently write for </span></span></i><a href="http://www.filmandfestivals.com/"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Film&Festivals Magazine</span></span></span></i></a><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, providing feature articles and film festival coverage. My particular areas of interest concern contemporary popular mythology; particularly how new technologies and accompanying cultural paradigm shifts are forcing us to revise (though not reject) previous interpretations of myth in popular culture."</span></span></i></blockquote></i></div>Editorialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552460369811047907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-4531334022233805572010-10-26T13:55:00.007+01:002010-10-26T18:26:55.090+01:00Domestic politics in metamodern times<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; text-indent: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTEQ48Noaee7hVpk2TET_xOlrdcZZ9DV87-JelhteW8XW1L6cEEJ9B6xQkisukYhuvot8WOLNk0hEmS0IDRK2B1gLbPD80s38lKUcdN5LUnyPTmmSTLcePUMhbXrhJYJogUrZebZ9-x1E/s1600/miliband" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTEQ48Noaee7hVpk2TET_xOlrdcZZ9DV87-JelhteW8XW1L6cEEJ9B6xQkisukYhuvot8WOLNk0hEmS0IDRK2B1gLbPD80s38lKUcdN5LUnyPTmmSTLcePUMhbXrhJYJogUrZebZ9-x1E/s200/miliband" width="200" /></span></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'The 1990s', Charles </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Krauthammer once famously wrote, ‘have been a holiday from History.’ After the turmoil of the 1960s and, to a lesser extent, the 1970s and, to a much lesser extent, the 1980s, the 1990s were marked by relative (geo)political stability and economic prosperity, at least from a western perspective. The so-called 'peace' brought by the steady rise of Empire and the formation of the European Union, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall; and the so-called 'wealth’ brought by the deregulation of the financial system and the transition to a white-collar economy, the flexibilisation of the job market and a credit-driven consumerism all seemed to confirm Fukuyama’s thesis in </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The End of History and the Last Man </span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(1989).</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; text-indent: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was reflected in the realm of domestic politics. For it can be argued that the postmodern era led, slowly but surely, to the appeasement of political oppositions and the blunting of ideological contradictions, up to the point where the Left and the Right were barely distinguishable. Consider, for example, the continuation of Thatcher & Reagan’s 1980s rightwing Neoliberalism by Blair & Clinton’s 1990s leftwing Thirdway-ism, a development that was neatly summarised by Dutchman Wim Kok (former-Union-leader-cum-Prime-Minister and ‘spiritual father’ of the Third Way) as ‘shaking off the ideological feathers’. In the 1990s, all was quiet on the Western front. Or, so it seemed.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; text-indent: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, however, History resumed its course. The 2000s were haunted by the specters of immigration and multiculturalism, terrorism and populism, climate crisis and credit crunch, the failed attempt to establish a Constitution for the European Union, the demise</span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of American unilateralism and the rise of the BRICs. Looking back at the end of the decade it is easy to see that the realm of domestic politics altered accordingly, as the political centre eroded and political contradictions resurfaced. A few examples of recent trends and tendencies suffice, here, to demonstrate these developments...</span></span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the United States of America, the election of President Obama rallied the country behind a progressive agenda of social reform, leading to bills that attempt to restructure the financial sector and to reform Health Care, while the Republicans appear to be winning heavily in the coming elections and the radical conservative wing of the Republicans, spearheaded by Sarah Palin, Fox News and the infamous Tea Party is gaining momentum.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; text-indent: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the United Kingdom, recently, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats formed the first coalition since the Second World War to govern the country. Meanwhile, Labour is redirecting its course after the apparent failure of Blair’s Thirdway politics and the disastrous spell of Gordon Brown. After a dramatic race between the brothers David Milliband, natural heir to Blair’s legacy, and Ed Milliband, favorite of Labour’s left wing, the latter was elected the new Party leader as a result, and this is telling, of the support of the Unions.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; text-indent: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In France, Sarkozy’s keenness to further a Neoliberal social-economic agenda and his trademark populism is being increasingly met by demonstrations, rallies and general strikes. Although this willingness to protest perhaps is typically French, the most recent general strike of employees, students, and school kids seems to be both a rehearsal of a phenomena that had been long gone and a forebode of similar things to come.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; text-indent: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Germany, recently, the debate about the multicultural society, or its supposed failure, commenced; an event that provoked both encouragement and outrage in a country that had been burdened, for so long, with feelings of shame, guilt and nervousness concerning its xenophobic past.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; text-indent: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the Netherlands the decade held, amongst others and in chronological order, the start of the fierce debate on the multicultural society, the murders of rightwing politician Pim Fortuyn (by a leftwing fundamentalist) and filmmaker Theo van Gogh (by a Muslim fundamentalist) and, as of today, the installment of the first minority cabinet since the Second World War, headed by the first Liberal (rightwing) Prime-Minister since the First World War and made possible by the support of Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam party. Meanwhile, the government nationalized several banks, Labour distanced itself from their former Thirdway politics by means of a dismissive speech of Wouter Bos (still leading the party at that time), the Unions organized the longest strike since the Great Depression and many organisations are preparing similar events in the face of heavy social-economic setbacks.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; text-indent: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We could go on and on and on by giving examples. Such as the political impasse in Belgium or the consecutive minority coalitions in Denmark, supported by the rightwing populists of The Danish People’s Party, or the historical first seat for the extreme-right in Swedish Parliament, or the need for much contested reforms concerning the climate crises and the credit crunch… But the list is intended to be illustrative, not exhaustive. All of the above mentioned examples, however, point towards a similar political reality: the constant need to create an re-create small majorities (much smaller, in any case, than in postmodern times) or large minorities in an increasingly radicalized, polarized and fragmented socio-cultural landscape. Metamodern times, it seems, have most definitely arrived. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image: courtesy GettyImage</span></span></div>Robin van den Akkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17234790851406248691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-38314941328167290852010-10-14T17:41:00.000+01:002010-10-14T17:41:51.227+01:00What meta means and does not mean<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNfCfYbClFQIidQYVSbHVAP5K9aDxLV4u5nkJr4ynia9Ob4bzO6vyEvaJi9qtcXoFTy8BAF4HzcuU8DvKxA_EU8nplSNXtyCqjRyBjYO5P8s8kWFhaYAFQp9dmwETznEGa4unQs-dYGhao/s1600/ader_boot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNfCfYbClFQIidQYVSbHVAP5K9aDxLV4u5nkJr4ynia9Ob4bzO6vyEvaJi9qtcXoFTy8BAF4HzcuU8DvKxA_EU8nplSNXtyCqjRyBjYO5P8s8kWFhaYAFQp9dmwETznEGa4unQs-dYGhao/s400/ader_boot.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
Over the last few months, there has been much discussion online as well as at parties, galleries and conferences, about the meaning of the prefix meta- in metamodernism. Now, of course, each and everyone is free to define, re-appropriate and use it in any one fashion. Metamodernism as a term - but not as a concept - is or has been associated with altermodernism, reflective modernism, reflexive modernism, and a counterstrategy within modernism. And it has been applied to developments and disciplines as diverse as economics, politics, architecture, data analysis, and the arts. But (or So) we feel compelled to once more establish what WE mean with the prefix meta - and, perhaps even more important, what we do not intend by it. In a <a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/07/etymology-of-term-metamodernism.html">previous post</a> we described it as follows:</span></span><div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The prefix 'meta' has acquired something of a bad rep over the last few years. It has come to be understood primarily in terms of self-reflection - i.e. a text about a text, a picture about a picture, etc. But 'meta' originally intends something rather more colloquial. According to the Greek-English Lexicon the preposition and prefix ‘meta’(μετά) has several meanings and connotations. Most commonly it translates as 'after'. But it can also be used to denote qualitative 'changes' or to designate positions such as 'with' and 'between'. In Plato's Symposium, for example, the term metaxy designates an ontological betweenness (we will return to this in more detail in a later post). The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the following description:</span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">prefix meaning 1. "after, behind," 2. "changed, altered," 3. "higher, beyond," from Gk. meta (prep.) "in the midst of, in common with, by means of, in pursuit or quest of," from PIE *me- "in the middle" (cf. Goth.miþ, O.E. mið "with, together with, among;" see mid). Notion of "changing places with" probably led to senses "change of place, order, or nature,"</span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">When we use the term 'meta', we use it in similar yet not indiscriminate fashion. For the prefix 'meta-' allows us to situate metamodernism historically beyond; epistemologically with; and ontologically between the modern and the postmodern. It indicates a dynamic or movement between as well as a movement beyond. More generally, however, it points towards a changing cultural sensibility - or cultural metamorphosis, if you will - within western societies.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Thus, although meta has come to be associated with a particular reflective stance, a repeated rumination about what we are doing, why we are doing it and how we are doing it, it once intimated the movement with and between what we are doing and what we might be doing and what we might have been doing. When we use the prefix meta- we do NOT refer to the former meaning. Meta- for us, does NOT refer solely to reflectivity, although, inevitably, it does (and, since it passes through and surpasses the postmodern, cannot but) invoke it.<br />
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When we use the prefix meta- we refer to the latter intent. Meta, for us, signifies an oscillation, a swinging or swaying with and between future, present and past, here and there and somewhere; with and between ideals, mindsets, and positions. It is influenced by estimations of the past, imbued by experiences of the present, yet also inspired by expectations of the future. It takes into account and affect the here, but also the there, and what might or might not happen elsewhere. It is convinced it believes in one system or structure or sensibility, but also cannot persuade itself not to believe in its opposite. Indeed, if anything, meta intimates a constant repositioning. It repositions itself with and between neoliberalism and, well, keynesianism, the "right" and the "left", idealism and "pragmatism", the discursive and the material, the visible and the sayable. It repositions itself among and in the deconstructed isms and desolate ruins that rest from the postmodern and the modern, and reconstructs them in spite of their un-reconstructableness in order to create another modernity: then one, then the other, one again, and yet another. Bas Jan Ader's quest for the miraculous, Charles Avery's quest for an imaginative elsewhere, Mona Hatoum's search for another socio-personal identity, <a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/08/selja-kameric-1.html">Sejla Kameric</a> longing for another ethnic-personal epistemology, Mariechen Danz's longing for the pre-discursive, <a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/07/ragnar-kjartansson.html">Ragnar Kjartansson's</a> desire for what is always just beyond his reach…<br />
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Meta- does not refer to one particular system of thought or specific structure of feeling. It infers a plurality of them, and repositions itself with and between them. It is many, but also one. Encompassing, yet fragmented. Now, yet then. Here, but also there. </span></span></div>Editorialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552460369811047907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-14375604368980356182010-10-13T09:19:00.001+01:002010-10-13T11:00:36.500+01:00Russel Brand from mannerism to metamodernism?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A remarkable bit of television on the BBC last week. Embodiment of the postmodern Russell Brand no longer wants to be postmodern. He professes to yearn for something else, something beyond irony, eclecticism, mannerisms, and the cult of celebrity. Something "truthful". Religious freak, metamodernist, or hypocrite? You decide. Revelation around 14th Minute.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QTvZA2YV7qE?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QTvZA2YV7qE?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></span></span>Editorialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552460369811047907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-25342001723029810002010-09-23T19:41:00.000+01:002010-09-23T19:41:35.184+01:00Hard boiled wonderland - from pomo to metamo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TJtCHksIRQI/AAAAAAAAADk/arLWiKNZbaM/s1600/gregorycrewdson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="258" px="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TJtCHksIRQI/AAAAAAAAADk/arLWiKNZbaM/s400/gregorycrewdson.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
It has become somewhat of an axiom to associate certain artistic practices to specific discourses, and specific artists to certain sensibilities. It has become a truism, for instance, to link practices as diverse as eclecticism, parody, pastiche, detachment, flexi-narrative, and parataxis to the postmodern, and strategies like ‘optimism’, self-consciousness, formalism, functionalism, purism, and streams of consciousness to modernism. It has become as much of a platitude to call artists as different as David Lynch, David Fincher, Jeff Koons, Gregory Crewdson, Bret Easton Ellis and Haruki Murakami postmodern, as that it is a cliché to assume that Fritz Lang, Sergei Eisenstein, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondriaan, Marinetti, Ezra Pound and Virginia Woolf are modernists.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is easy to criticize such assumptions. Too easy. For we all need to order and schematize practices and discourses, artists and sensibilities, so that we can appreciate what any one particular stylistic choice or artist’s feature might intend or mean. Indeed, if this blog does anything at all, it is ordering and schematizing otherwise incoherent trends and tendencies by tying them to this sensibility we have come to call metamodernism.<br />
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We need to from time to time revise these clichés. Rearrange practices, reshuffle sensibilities. It is by occasionally readjusting what belongs here and who goes there that we keep the commonplaces up to date. It is by readjusting that our everyday definition of a discourse retains its aptitude for the next generation, our appreciation of an artist its value for the generation after that. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">n what follows, I will do just this. Rearrange and reshuffle.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s take a practice, an artist and a sensibility each. As practice, eclecticism. As artist, David Lynch. And as sensibility, well, you will have guessed it, the postmodern. Indeed, the three seem to go so naturally together, that one seems incomplete without mention of the other.</span></span><br />
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Eclecticism is commonly understood as the random re-appropriation of a multiplicity of heterogenous styles and strategies. Ever since Jencks and Jameson, it has become something of a catchphrase to describe the postmodern. It captures pomo’s irreverentiality, its self-referentiality, its ahistoricity, and its inclination towards plurality and fragmentation. But eclecticism was not born with the rise of the postmodern. Nor will it come to an end after its demise. <br />
</span></span><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/07/david-thorpe-1.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> David Thorpe’s</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> work is exemplary here. Thorpe’s collages draw on styles and strategies as varied as Westerns, science fiction, day time television, Friedrich’s landscapes, modernist architecture, populuxe, Japanese woodcuttings, New Age iconography, and Nietzsche’s tightrope walker. However, Thorpe uses eclecticism not as a strategy to deconstruct what is already there, but as a means to reconstruct what might once be here. His references are not merely empty gestures carelessly evoking one or another past within a ready-made present. On the contrary, they are full with history and locality, calling to mind a number of very specific pasts but also an unspecified, rather uncertain future. <br />
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The eclecticism in Thorpe’s work is irreverent towards traditions, ahistoricist, and pluralist. But at the same time it is haunted by that irreverence, steeped in history as if it were a mystery, and ultimately – and impossibly - unificatory. Eclecticism helps Thorpe rethink, that is, reimage the world we inhabit and might one day inhabit. And that is decidedly unpostmodern.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
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</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TJtCS3UZGJI/AAAAAAAAADs/Bhx_k_IN7jM/s1600/David+Thorpe+Dowhatyouhavetodo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="277" px="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TJtCS3UZGJI/AAAAAAAAADs/Bhx_k_IN7jM/s400/David+Thorpe+Dowhatyouhavetodo.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Someone else who often uses eclecticism in order to rethink the world we inhabit, is David Lynch. His films seemingly borrow and cite so many styles and strategies – from the 1980s to the 1950s, film noir to the small town movie, Hitchcock to B movies, David Hopper to Blake – without regard for their origin, that film critics such as Keith M. Booker, Matt Pearson and David Foster Wallace consider Lynch the embodiment of the postmodern. Writing about </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Blue Velvet</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span></span><a href="http://www.britishfilm.org.uk/lynch/blue_velvet.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pearson</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> writes that</span></span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lynch's world is shallow, a world of mechanical reproduction. This is acknowledged with the mechanical robin in the final sequence; the metaphor of love within the film is revealed to be a cheap prop. The film is questioning its own ability, and hence the ability of cinema as a medium, to represent life, reality and concepts such as love and evil (Jeffrey armed as a bug-sprayer is all that is required to combat the metaphor of evil, the bugs from the opening sequence). </span></span></blockquote><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it is too simplistic to call a film like </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Blue Velvet</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> a mere pastiche, or a typical example of postmodern deconstruction. As the theorist Nicholas Rombes suggests [1]:</span></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jeffrey’s or Agent Cooper’s ‘aw-shucks’ sincerity in the face of unspeakable monstrosities and violence can, if forced, be read as some kind of Quentin Tatantino-esque hip, postmodern irony, but the film is never as excessively self-aware as a Tarantino film. And this is precisely what is so curious, and ultimately significant, about Blue Velvet. If the postmodern glorifies in its own ironic artificialness, throwing itself back to the past to resurrect it with a knowing, cynical difference then Lynch’s work offers a glimpse of what possibly lies ahead, after postmodernism.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lynch, like Thorpe, does not merely use eclecticism in order to either blankly parody or deconstruct. On the contrary, he uses it so as to reconstruct something beyond its grasp. The postmodern work deconstructs the world as semiosphere by pointing exactly to what it presents, by exposing precisely what it signifies. Artists like Lynch and Thorpe – and, indeed, many artists we have come to consider metamodern, such as Gregory Crewdson, Kaye Donachie, </span></span><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/07/ragnar-kjartansson.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ragnar Kjartansson</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, Michel Gondry, Haruki Murakami and Roberto Bolano – reconstruct it by drawing attention to what it cannot present in its language, what it cannot signify in its own terms (that what is often called the sublime, the uncanny, the ethereal, the mysterious and so forth).<br />
<br />
That leaves us with our understanding of the postmodern. The examples of Thorpe and Lynch might be interpreted as an indication that it is too narrow. That reconstruction too is a part of it. Or hope, or mystery, or the inexplicable. Or it could indicate that these artists surpass the postmodern. The latter, indeed, is what I believe. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Revising our commonplace assumptions about where eclecticism goes, what kind of director David Lynch is, and what postmodernism entails, enables us to reassess meanings and moments and ultimately redraw boundaries. In retrospect, we can begin to see that certain practices cannot automatically be associated with specific discourses, or that specific artists cannot always be linked to certain sensibilities. Within and from practices and artists whose starting point might have been postmodern, sensibilities emerge that no longer fit its framework: sincerity, hope, the inexplicable, the prediscursive…</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This development is the development of the metamodern, rediscovering within the postmodern the modern, , within apathy hope, within irony sincerity, within distrust (of grand narratives) belief, within the representative presence.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[1] Nicholas Rombe, 'Blue Velvet Underground: David Lynch's Post-Punk Poetics', Erica Sheen, Annette Davidson (eds.), </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Cinema of David Lynch: American Dreams, Nightmare Visions</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (London: Wallflower Press, 2004), p. 66.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Top Image: Gregory Crewdson, Untitled 2005. Courtesy Luhring Augustine.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Below Image: David Thorpe, Do What You Have To, 1998. Courtesy Saatchi Gallery</span>.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div>Timotheus Vermeulenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13927897942308903962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-41872687666665104492010-09-18T19:36:00.007+01:002010-09-19T07:28:02.926+01:00Vectors of the Possible<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc8d9ie3jUk50Rr9ecTZyLKBqxieUJcWaAQWqKnf_VOW-5H3nQ4Yj3LwG2RoGjV5OhJoHeGZfLZ57bQgd4AesueuEayJGFm7zPG2cO96rd5eDVYlpdlSxmDghEQyHJhEcvKoUejavN7foF/s1600/image_Lagomarsino&Tiren13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc8d9ie3jUk50Rr9ecTZyLKBqxieUJcWaAQWqKnf_VOW-5H3nQ4Yj3LwG2RoGjV5OhJoHeGZfLZ57bQgd4AesueuEayJGFm7zPG2cO96rd5eDVYlpdlSxmDghEQyHJhEcvKoUejavN7foF/s400/image_Lagomarsino&Tiren13.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Waiting for the Demonstration at the Wrong Time</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Lagomarsino & Tirén (2003/2007)</span></span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last week the group exhibition </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vectors of the Possible</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> opened at </span></span></span><a href="http://www.bak-utrecht.nl/?click%5Bid_projekt%5D=80"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BAK</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in Utrecht, the Netherlands. As the </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">press release looked promising (very promising, indeed), and the exhibit was curated by Simon Sheikh, some of our writers</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> decided to attend the opening</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span></span></span></i></span></span></i></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The exhibition examines the notion of the horizon in art and politics and explores the ways in which art works can be said to set up certain horizons of possibility and impossibility, how art partakes in specific imaginaries, and how it can produce new ones, thus suggesting other ways of imagining the world. Counter to the post-1989 sense of resignation, curator Simon Sheikh suggests that in the field of art, it is the horizon - as an "empty signifier", an ideal to strive towards, and a vector of possibility - that unites...and gives...direction. The art works in this exhibition can be seen as vectors, reckoning possibility and impossibility in (un)equal measures, but always detecting and indicating ways of seeing, and of being, in the world. The exhibition thus suggests an </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ontology of the horizon</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">..."</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although most of us could relate to the intentions of many of the works on display, we could not avoid feeling slightly disappointed by the lack of expressiveness of the exhibition as a whole. An intention to transgress boundaries was still too often expressed by means of mere deconstruction, so that instead of a moving apparition of the future, the horizon more often than not became a haunting specter of the past. This is not to say that </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vectors of the Possible</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is not worth the visit - it most definitely is. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For us, two pieces are particularly worthwhile. The billboard art of </span></span><a href="http://www.freee.org.uk/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">FREEE</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and </span></span><a href="http://www.matthewbuckingham.net/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Matthew Buckingham's</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> depiction of Mount Rushmore, 50.000 years from now. We will extensively review </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vectors of the Possible </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and these pieces at a later date, but for now we are keen to hear your thoughts.</span></span></span></i>Editorialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552460369811047907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-11814033750012608732010-09-16T08:01:00.063+01:002010-09-19T07:31:56.947+01:00Galerie Tanja Wagner opens its doors - onto the metamodern<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQIuP0FlCMVZy15oCahh-qqdtmgvYuF24FQGVwyaCIsZZRFghF5rRVpPdIrpLkoRiy2CFrmRj3PkEr0Iv0hd6XaONo8zs3SG17AkQPK4ifre0ed1U8IRWvR75bieLLzCBHHxOzGW3XbLn4/s1600/gtw_opening.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQIuP0FlCMVZy15oCahh-qqdtmgvYuF24FQGVwyaCIsZZRFghF5rRVpPdIrpLkoRiy2CFrmRj3PkEr0Iv0hd6XaONo8zs3SG17AkQPK4ifre0ed1U8IRWvR75bieLLzCBHHxOzGW3XbLn4/s400/gtw_opening.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the 25th of September, </span></span><a href="http://www.tanjawagner.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: lime;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Galerie Tanja Wagner</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: lime;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">will open its doors with the much anticipated, aptly titled exhibition 'Die Tur geht nach Innen auf'. But what is it that we encounter inside?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"Galerie Tanja Wagner</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: lime;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">inaugurates its space on September 25 at Pohlstraße 64, Berlin-Schöneberg with the group exhibition Die Tür geht nach Innen auf (The Door Opens Up Inwards).</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Doors can prohibit the passage from one room to the other, but they can also facilitate it. Most of them do both. Doors negotiate between a somewhere and an elsewhere; the outside and the inside; between one room and the next.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The exhibition Die Tür geht nach Innen auf presents works by </span><a href="http://www.tanjawagner.com/de/artists/mariechen-danz/works/selected-works.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: lime;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Mariechen Danz</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span><a href="http://www.tanjawagner.com/de/artists/paula-doepfner/works/selected-works.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: lime;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Paula Doepfner</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span><a href="http://www.tanjawagner.com/de/artists/sejla-kameric/works/selected-works.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: lime;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Šejla Kamerić</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> [see also our earlier </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: orange;"><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/08/selja-kameric-1.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">post</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, ed.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">], </span><a href="http://www.tanjawagner.com/de/artists/issa-sant/works/selected-works.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: lime;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Issa Sant</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> and </span><a href="http://www.tanjawagner.com/de/artists/angelika-j-trojnarski/works/selected-works.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: lime;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Angelika J. Trojnarski</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. Even though the artists engange with different subjects and materials, they each seek to create a tension between two situations, indeed, between two spaces. All works negotiate between the sayable and the visible: between what can be said and what can be shown, representation and presence. However the first impulse is always set by the art work. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The works convey enthusiasm as well as irony. They play with hope and melancholy, oscilliate between knowledge and naivety, empathy and apathy, wholeness and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity, while looking for a truth without expecting to find it; which corresponds to what Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker have termed metamodernism."</span></blockquote></span></span>Editorialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552460369811047907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-82804426629589982472010-09-08T11:08:00.051+01:002010-09-08T18:17:55.748+01:00The New Weird Generation (part 1)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcd2yD6rpfaQLjr_wTvMJCJ5iXAW6_ZHt_kL1UVtppiD3pLLk11VJEnOjv9LD-zTj_PSMLgEjeN1bP7HswWZwqwwx-Ieb4UJUf9QwUcWqwvJyjkkZ3GOMPcrPlWqXeGjfuBIelHAPP9-Q7/s1600/wirecover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="cssfloat: left; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWn14hO9oLQeJD2hC10_Uol-W3sGivjFAOFwQnK0RGBd86PxVpwp82I_rUunawSta_J90E-nrONinJF6eCObYQM_0pp_UC-s_6H0Y5kCmwDbUt5notraKakBnMyYdmxtKohyphenhyphen0L3g_JwsYW/s1600/Devendra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWn14hO9oLQeJD2hC10_Uol-W3sGivjFAOFwQnK0RGBd86PxVpwp82I_rUunawSta_J90E-nrONinJF6eCObYQM_0pp_UC-s_6H0Y5kCmwDbUt5notraKakBnMyYdmxtKohyphenhyphen0L3g_JwsYW/s400/Devendra.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the documentary </span></span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Eternal Children</span></span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (see also </span></span><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/08/cocorosie.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘CocoRosie’ </span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">), Antony Hegarty, lead singer of the pop ensemble Antony and the Johnsons, perceives the waning of a postmodern sensibility, and the rise of something else.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<blockquote style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think this is a more wake period in culture. That was a horrible period. You know, the early nineties, you had like Kurt Cobain. The only thing that could manage to break through that wall was this scream of depression and rage that was Kurt Cobain. But other than that, what was there? Things sort of radically diversified after the new millennium. […] Suddenly, there was this frolicking group of outrageously colourful young people with their eyes wide open. But not like naïve, but almost emerging from a basic need to survive and to live… […] There was something very primary and very beautiful about what they were doing, and creating spaces that had the potential for hope to exist in them. […] It’s not cynical, that’s the thing.</span></span></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, something has drastically changed since the beginning of the new millennium. Something, or someone, managed to break through ‘that wall’ - without screaming or raging (as grunge did in the early nineties), or without becoming apathetic (as punk did in the late seventies and eighties). During the past decade a generation emerged that does not turn to anger or defeatism, but instead seeks to create alternate spaces for hope and desire. T</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">his generation reflects a cultural shift, a shift from a period of cynicism towards a more ‘wake period’, as Antony tends to describe it</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. I am talking, of course, about the latest folk revival in western history mostly referred to as free-, NU- or freak folk. A musical genre that is exemplary the rising of the New Weird Generation and (it’s) New Romanticism.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Antony wasn’t the only one though sensing the end of postmodernism in popular music. As early as 2003, Scottish music journalist David Keenan prophesised the emergence of a generation that no longer shares the postmodern attitude. In an article on a two-day music festival held at a cotton mill in the wooded area of Brattleboro, Vermont – the Brattleboro Free Folk Fest – Keenan introduced his readers to the rise of the New Weird America: ‘a groundswell musical movement rising out of the USA’s backwoods [l]oosely called free folk’. With the term New Weird America he referred to the making of a counter culture in the early sixties of the 20th century, when among artists such as Bob Dylan (and The Band), John Fahey and Joan Baez there was a communal counter movement that occurred in reaction to the Vietnam war and excessive capitalism. Just as in Brattleboro, the heart of this counter culture was formed by folk music inspired by the American ‘hillbilly’ and ‘blues’ tradition once recorded by ethnomusicologist and mystic Harry Smith on his still legendary album </span></span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An Anthology Of American Folk Music. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Invisible Republic </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(1998) music journalist Greil Marcus called this tradition Old, Weird America.</span></span></span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span></span></span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, what is New Weird America?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whoever glances at the programme booklet of the Free Folk Fest will see that the names of Devendra Banhart, CocoRosie, Joanna Newsom, Akron/Family, and Antony & the Johnsons are missing. While these very artists are now called the standard-bearers of the genre, more obscure acts were listed such as the extremely rhythmic, psychedelic freak rock of Sunburned Hand Of The Man, the minimalism of the Charalambides, and the acid folk of Six Organs Of Admittance, among others. The Brattleboro festival nonetheless should be called the cradle of free folk, mainly because many of the artists present at the festival were selected a year later by Devendra Banhart for his limited edition album </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Golden Apples Of The Sun</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, an album he put together at the request of the American art magazine Arthur. On this album, as well as music by direct friends such as the already mentioned CocoRosie, Joanna Newsom and Antony Hegarty, Banhart also selected the music of Jack Rose and Matt Valentine – two key figures at Brattleboro. Matt Valentine of the band Tower Recordings even was the one who co-organized it. The Free Folk Fest, in other words, already contained the binding elements of the otherwise miscellaneous musicians on Banhart’s compilation album. As different as they might be, they belong to the same musical family.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What then are these binding elements?</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> One important characteristic of free folk is the merging of genres. Listen to</span></span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Golden Apples Of The Sun</span></span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and you will hear psychedelic rock, acoustic folk, opera, metal, hip hop, free jazz, noise, tropicália, country, blues, funk, soul, drone, and much more. This mixing of music in New Weird America is used as a way to provoke enthusiasm and empathy, as well as renewed sources of inspiration, commitment, and meaning. Free folk musicians want to jack into the musical cosmos of the past in order to push the boundaries between genres and to create something unique and authentic. The two main features of free folk concerts, moreover, are improvisation (the constant switching of styles on stage) and the application of the drone (the constant, almost hypnotic repetition of a chord or note it). According to most of the musicians present at Brattleboro, it was all about becoming immersed in the crowd, the instruments, the music. John Moloney, front man of Sunburned Hand Of The Man, dictates the following in David Keenan’s article:</span></span></span></span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“There always is a loose plan that goes right out the window the second we plug in. Always. Like in Brattleboro, the music just took control, the sounds, the power. I feel like we conjure up the sounds from the beyond or from right next door. I honestly feel like we are some sort of channelling device or medium. Not some New Age bullshit but some sort of conscious coincidence. It’s a real uplifting experience and we are proud to be the ones to make everyone smile and come out of themselves a little.”</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, the free folk concerts I visited (especially the Akron/Family-concert at the 2007 Motel Mozaique festival) had this exact same vibe. Performers were constantly getting off-stage and handing out instruments and children’s toys to some of the most enthusiast spectators, sharing the same musical experience with them in order to construct some sort of carnivalesque fest. Indeed, this stage performance was something quite different from most of the punk and grunge performances in the eighties and early nineties, when instruments and sound systems were being destroyed and musicians were spitting at their audiences.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Cq3h2iCRiAI?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Cq3h2iCRiAI?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></span></span><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The desire of immersing in the music and the crowd is very Romantic. One can for example think of Nietzsche’s description of Dionysian ecstasy or his enthusiasm for Wagner's </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gesamtkunst</span></span></i><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span></span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> It is the desire of the Romantic to return to an authentic state of being </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">– that of the tragic Greek, the free playing child and, of course, the 'return to nature'.</span></span></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Performing improvisational music ‘to get folks moving’ isn’t the only Romantic characteristic of free folk though. In free folk, the Romantic quest for authenticity is omnipresent. In the first place, it is for example why New Weird America is into folk music rather than being into techno. As Keenan describes it, Folk music is one of the most 'original and ancient of all human expressions'. It is why the Brattleboro Free Folk Fest took place in a cotton mill in the wooded area of Vermont, just outside of the big cities of Boston and New York, although most of the musicians were, and still are, city-based - because ‘the music doesn’t sound right when you are not harmonious with nature’. It is why free folk concerts are like small social events, why the scene feels like a musical family, and why some of the musicians are living in communes (Akron/Family, CocoRosie). It is why acoustic instruments such as the harp, the banjo, the mandolin, and the guitar are most frequently used. As Ben Chasny, front man of Six Organs Of Admittance explains, ‘because it is a less mediated form of expression than electric music’. It is also why children’s toys are so often used as instruments, why artists like Bianca ‘Coco’ Cassady and Joanna Newsom sing in a voice that hovers between that of Björk and a toddler, and why Devandra Banhart is so often singing about behaving as a little child although facing the inevitable process of becoming older (listen to e.g. the sonds “Longhaired Child”, “I Feel Just Like A Child”, “Chinese Children” and “Little Boys”, all on his third album </span></span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cripple Crow</span></span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">). It is why free folk musicians sing about living in a dreamlike world of elves and fairies, and why they share a desire for spiriting nature again. Consider, for example, the Akron/Family song “River”, or the songs on the latest Antony and the Johnson’s album </span></span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Crying Light</span></span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. It’s because the everyday is regarded as too rational, mature, artificial, technological, et cetera – and, in the famous words of Novalis, ‘must be romanticised’ again. The world must be authentic again in a way nature, the child’s imagination, and ancient folk music are regarded or constructed as being authentic.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PhW7FLo6peU?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PhW7FLo6peU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></span></div>Niels van Poeckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14504529953461864128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-73467533311446448442010-09-05T13:14:00.002+01:002010-09-05T14:37:36.497+01:00The Fountain - A call to discussion<span style="font-size:small;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LWcVrkQlWTE/TIH05WOrW7I/AAAAAAAAAAU/4EUcspEmsM4/s1600/Tree.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512956684935060402" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LWcVrkQlWTE/TIH05WOrW7I/AAAAAAAAAAU/4EUcspEmsM4/s320/Tree.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 307px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; width: 409px;" /></a></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">In their essay </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Notes on Metamodernism</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker discuss the way in which metamodernism seems to be characterized by oscillation. As part of their deliberations on the concept of the metamodern, they invoke the words of German thinker Eric Voegelin to help explain the nature of this oscillation:</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 45pt; margin-right: 55pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Existence has the structure of the In-Between, of the Platonic </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">metaxy</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, and if anything is constant in the history of mankind it is the language of tension between life and death, immortality and mortality, perfection and imperfection, time and timelessness, between order and disorder, truth and untruth, sense and senselessness of existence; between </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">amor Dei </span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">and </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">amor sui</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">l’ame ouverte </span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">and </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">l’ame close</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">;</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> …’</span></span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5723801100700519322#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="">[1]</a></span></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 45pt; margin-right: 55pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">In this post, I would like to initiate a discussion of Darren Aronofsky’s 2006 film </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Fountain</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> as a metamodern text visually articulating various kinds of oscillations concerning the experience of our mortality. Conceived as a ‘metaphysical post-Matrix-Science-Fiction-Film’</span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5723801100700519322#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">[2]</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Fountain </span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">formulates a central concern that has been a ‘constant in the history of mankind’, namely the meaning of our existence. Ultimately, the film seems to suggest that the journey from life into death is what constitutes humanity. However, this journey is not one with a clear beginning and an end. In stead, the acceptance of our mortality allows us to experience this transition in a metaphysical sense. Life and death becomes an oscillation, rather than a simple beginning with an end. In my view, this challenging film overtly visualizes the formation of the ‘In-Between’, which Voegelin speaks of, in that it structurally oscillates between three distinct narrative lines.</span></span></span></div><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><a name='more'></a></span></span></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;">Firstly, a scientist (Tommy Creo), searches desperately for a cure in order to save his beloved wife Izzi from the inevitable effects of terminal cancer. His drive escalates into a bitter obsession that seeks to perfect our one true imperfection – our mortality. To him death is merely a disease in need of a cure.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The second narrative string flows from the pages of Izzi’s novel, telling the story of a conquistador’s quest to find eternal life. Believing the tree of life to be hidden in the jungles of South America, he leaves Spain in search of the holly sap. His journey however brings him face to face with the skepticism of his men, who believe their quest to be completely senseless.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The last strand exists on a different plain of consciousness. A man with tattooed arms and a shaved head silently flows through time and space. His only interaction is with a withering tree and a mystical female figure asking him to ‘finish it’. When he finally agrees, he breaks out of his uterus-like sphere to be swallowed by the atmosphere. In a final explosion of this strange cosmos the man finds himself reborn.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Our existence is thereby given a metaphysical meaning, which allows all three narrative strands to end with the acceptance of death as the continuation of life. The film is thus characterized by a visual and structural oscillation between the concepts of life and death.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">A</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">s an initial post on the film, I would like to invite readers to contribute to the reading of this film within the context of metamodernism. In my opinion, this film is a profound example of the complexity of current filmic texts that venture beyond the confines of modernism and postmodernism to reenter the metaphysical. It illustrates an artistic return to more encompassing questions that seek to determine the nature of our experience of existence.</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></span></span><br /><span lang="EN-US"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><u><object height="385" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/isEKcADK_Do?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/isEKcADK_Do?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object></u></span></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><br /><div><hr size="1" style="text-align: left;" width="33%"><div id="ftn1"><div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-left: 9pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -9pt;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5723801100700519322#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">E</span></span><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">. Voegelin, ‘Equivalences of Experience and Symbolization in History, E. Sandoz (ed.), </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin</span></span></i></span><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, vol. 12 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), pp. 119-120.</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin-left: 9pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -9pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5723801100700519322#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Scheiber, Roman, ‘Quell der Erkentnis’, in </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Ray</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, Vol. 4, no. 7, pp. 9-14</span></span></span></div></div></div>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-11614441932734196672010-08-30T20:48:00.006+01:002010-08-31T11:04:06.207+01:00Henrik Vibskov<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyOWTyQPUZcqNqqRfANnHPwc56CCFZ7rzcFO_S4VKimHsxDpF2-sohcK3BUIroazvvmEN8IJ2vGSukTT3ZYWCT1sNwzxSDRBM8nKSc4iSXVc4iNPO6XkPbuG-j4kYIsvNwtFm2rsiGopfM/s1600/henrik+vibskov_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyOWTyQPUZcqNqqRfANnHPwc56CCFZ7rzcFO_S4VKimHsxDpF2-sohcK3BUIroazvvmEN8IJ2vGSukTT3ZYWCT1sNwzxSDRBM8nKSc4iSXVc4iNPO6XkPbuG-j4kYIsvNwtFm2rsiGopfM/s320/henrik+vibskov_1.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">T</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">he Danish fashion designer Henrik Vibskov doesn’t like to be pigeonholed. Besides designing four collections a year for both men and women, Vibskov plays drums in the live band of electronic musician Trentemøller and is part of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Fringe Project</span>, together with visual artist Andreas Emenius. Everything Henrik Vibskov does has only one goal: to create his own surreal universe where the sky is the limit. Vibskov, a true romantic at heart who only applied to the fashion design course at Central Saint Martins because a girl he fancied was going there, finds his inspiration in Nordic folk traditions and childhood memories of his hometown in Jutland, Denmark. But it’s never just about the clothes with Henrik Vibskov; to present his collections he creates extravagant narratives, filling catwalks with bicycles, wooden boats, shiny boobies, humongous hamster wheels and black carrots, like a little boy’s fantasy that has come to life. His style is best described as whimsical and quirky, with show titles as <span style="font-style: italic;">The Fantabulous Bicycle Music Factory</span> (SS08), <span style="font-style: italic;">The Human Laundry Service</span> (AW 09/10) and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Last Pier Pandemonium</span> (SS11) that sound like Roald Dahl stories. Vibskov’s world looks like it’s made of Lego with colorful designs that sometimes seem to belong in the circus instead of on the catwalk, but they never stop being wearable, they never completely lose touch with reality.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="opacity: 1 ! important;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eRD8axxx5tE?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eRD8axxx5tE?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"></span></span><br /><div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Image: Henrik Vibskov's <span style="font-style: italic;">Big Wet Shiny Boobies</span> collection (SS07)</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Video: Henrik Vibskov's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Human Laundry Service</span> collection (AW 09/10)</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"> </span><br /><style></style>Hanka van der Voethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881217703722973784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-40977098907010443992010-08-26T07:17:00.001+01:002010-08-26T07:19:36.792+01:00James Franco<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSzsrV1yvfpBjAZQnd52h_BEOJl691fDoMqesCRtrLXowzmhePlUZqSSbjuEQpKghVLwD_YWeAKxkfXDlnMBKxXp28j72xbOU9s6Q6rkWEFHSvzXcVqifkLGRkvtGsdl2z0sfapacxyxbR/s1600/franco2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSzsrV1yvfpBjAZQnd52h_BEOJl691fDoMqesCRtrLXowzmhePlUZqSSbjuEQpKghVLwD_YWeAKxkfXDlnMBKxXp28j72xbOU9s6Q6rkWEFHSvzXcVqifkLGRkvtGsdl2z0sfapacxyxbR/s320/franco2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">He can’t be serious. James Franco has recently emerged from being an actor with a cult following (with roles in television and film ranging from <i>Freaks and Geeks</i> to <i>Spider-Man</i> to <i>Eat, Pray, Love</i>) to an artist that counts acting among his many other interests: Franco has seemingly become a super-charged, professional dilettante. After dropping out of UCLA after his freshman year, he returned, ten years later, to finish his degree in two years before then going on to pursue degrees in, among yet others, film at NYU, writing at Columbia, and, the piece de resistance, a PhD in English at Yale. After becoming involved in the art world, he emerged as an artist in his own right and garnered a </span></span><a href="http://www.artonair.org/archives/j/content/view/3184"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">solo exhibition</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> at the Clocktower Gallery in New York. After despairing of a career that was becoming too Hollywood mediocre, he nabbed a recurring role on <i>General Hospital</i> in which his role as “Franco,” an artist, was </span></span><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574570313372878136.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">a self-proclaimed piece of performance art</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">: “I disrupted the audience's suspension of disbelief, because no matter how far I got into the character, I was going to be perceived as something that doesn't belong to the incredibly stylized world of soap operas. Everyone watching would see an actor they recognized, a real person in a made-up world.” Yet, in the fulfillment of his many interests, whether it be as a student, artist or actor, Franco has combined a wandering and cryptic free spirit with a seeming need for the approval of the establishment: is Franco the embodiment of an earnest, overly scheduled, and artistically inclined </span></span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/the-organization-kid/2164/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“Organization Kid”</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">? As Sam Anderson writes in his </span></span><a href="http://nymag.com/movies/profiles/67284/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">profile of Franco</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> in </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">New York magazine, </span></span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Franco is perhaps the “world’s most ironic earnest guy.” It is never really clear whether Franco is just playing around, being played, or playing with us. In any case, at the least, this act has propelled him to even greater fame: you’ve got to fake it to make it. </span></span></span></div>David Lauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17364119681238762229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-70705858269262733862010-08-23T16:05:00.022+01:002010-08-26T17:17:49.568+01:00The rise of the BRICs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyx3ragZWTF3brfbnXl0e1-KaFUgarXaI8903OnCf5AfW0-c0_yeRcGg1K8TwMKNm67b_Da6zVVZ5eeymzrbtd2sPuks7ohIyUdU3Ok3v69OqDuCFQBOCRiMXBybeZ2cTMKEvpI_zLzKEM/s1600/bric2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; height: 131px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; width: 326px;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyx3ragZWTF3brfbnXl0e1-KaFUgarXaI8903OnCf5AfW0-c0_yeRcGg1K8TwMKNm67b_Da6zVVZ5eeymzrbtd2sPuks7ohIyUdU3Ok3v69OqDuCFQBOCRiMXBybeZ2cTMKEvpI_zLzKEM/s320/bric2.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">At the beginning of the decade, just after the events of 9/11, Goldman Sachs' chief economist Jim O'Neill coined the remarkably apt acronym BRIC to describe a </span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">group of nations that would become, in his view, the main contenders of Western economic dominance. This group consists of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), and, since the early 2000s, it has grown into a loose assembly of sorts. In 2009 and 2010, for example, the BRIC countries held their first ever summits.These summits can be conceived of as a reflection of a changing, if not already drastically altered, geopolitical landscape. Or, in the words of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the host of the 2010 summit: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">"We are countries where everything happens on a large scale. We represent nearly one half of the world population, 20 per cent of its land surface and are rich in natural resources. Today, the BRICs have become essential players in major international decision-making. As such we are acutely aware of our potential as agents of change in making global governance both more transparent and democratic. This is the message Brazil offered at the second BRIC Summit, held here in Brasilia, where the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China gathered on April 15. [...] We are committed to building a joint diplomatic and creative approach with our BRIC partners in order to tackle...global challenges."</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">How to describe this emerging landscape of power? As multi-polar? Perhaps. As multicentric? Maybe. One thing is sure, though. In the coming decades, the so-called West needs to come to terms with the economic and political rise of the BRICs. One way or another.</span></span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Illustration: courtesy VKblog.nl</span></span></span>Editorialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552460369811047907noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-36413594641160943862010-08-19T08:18:00.003+01:002010-08-19T08:25:22.144+01:00The New Museum goes metamodern?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TGzcIAAAmLI/AAAAAAAAADM/MXXFPq9nlIM/s1600/Neuenschwander%27s+I+Wish+Your+Wish+installation+at+the+New+Museum+-+participatory+art.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 262px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RX_u5UBNpX8/TGzcIAAAmLI/AAAAAAAAADM/MXXFPq9nlIM/s400/Neuenschwander%27s+I+Wish+Your+Wish+installation+at+the+New+Museum+-+participatory+art.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507018474364377266" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The New Museum goes </span></span><a href="http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/423"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">metamodern</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">?</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"></span></span></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Eu desejo o seu desejo / I Wish Your Wish</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (2003) is installed in the lobby gallery as part of the exhibition </span></span><a href="http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/423" style="text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other"</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. Visitors are invited to select ribbons printed with a wish to tie around their wrists. When the ribbon falls off, tradition has it that one's wish will be fulfilled. Visitors may write another wish and place it in the empty hole. This work of art is based on a similar practice that takes place at the church of </span></span><a href="http://www.google.com/images?q=Nosso%20Senhor%20do%20Bonfim" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Nosso Senhor do Bonfim</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (Our Lord of the Good End) in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.</span></span></blockquote></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image: Rivane Neuschwander, I wish your wish (2003). Courtesy Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.</span></span></span></div>Timotheus Vermeulenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13927897942308903962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-67179321311129778962010-08-16T07:33:00.003+01:002010-08-30T20:00:19.300+01:00CocoRosie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivF7Ign_GQBuT9MgHIJBEOqWcrakj5iPYf7rxjGiW1Q4jlQ9wYP__Ac9mn9jHqEssR0zgXGjL9ZSd8JXJAbIXJMMoMlfcUOjcuamWhjnfPRlW32uOvMWi443-tdjDO-2aLFh2VjURjZCi_/s1600/Cocorosie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivF7Ign_GQBuT9MgHIJBEOqWcrakj5iPYf7rxjGiW1Q4jlQ9wYP__Ac9mn9jHqEssR0zgXGjL9ZSd8JXJAbIXJMMoMlfcUOjcuamWhjnfPRlW32uOvMWi443-tdjDO-2aLFh2VjURjZCi_/s320/Cocorosie.jpg" border="0" /></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">“To engage with </span></span><a href="http://www.myspace.com/cocorosie"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(166, 77, 121);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">CocoRosie</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> requires absolute suspension of disbelief”, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Guardian</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> once wrote about the sister-duo CocoRosie. Anyone who has been to one of their live shows or has seen </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Eternal Children</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, a documentary on the so-called freak folk movement made by Dutch filmmaker David Kleijwegt, knows exactly what </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Guardian</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> is talking about. Bianca and Sierra Casady live in a dream world, populated by elves, unicorns, fairies and other dreamlike creatures. This can be tiring at times and I learned the hard way that you’d best restrict yourself to the records and not visit live shows. But when you do succeed in suspending that disbelief, when you get past all that gibberish about elves and whatnot, CocoRosie can be magical. With their junk-shop kiddie instruments, the angelic voice of Sierra and the childlike squealing of Bianca CocoRosie creates her own nursery rhymes, blending hip hop and opera along the way. And although they might seem innocent, their songs are anything but. Heart wrenching is the duet </span></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVh3WQtx_pw&feature=related"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(166, 77, 121);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Beautiful Boyz</span></span></span></i></a></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> with Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons: </span></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Born illegitimately / To a whore, most likely / He became an orphan / Oh what a lovely orphan he was / Sent to the reformatory / Ten years old, was his first glory / Got caught stealing from a nun / Now his love story had begun</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">. True, at times CocoRosie seems too gimmicky, too ironic, to the point where it almost gets cringeworthy, but in the end their enthusiasm prevails. CocoRosie may not make you believe in fairy tales in the end, but you’ve got to appreciate them for trying. And who knows, they might make you wonder if, just if...</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eaarYY62_BQ?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eaarYY62_BQ?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:courier new;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:courier new;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">video: CocoRosie's first single </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Rainbowarriors</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"> from their third album </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">.</span></span> </div>Hanka van der Voethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881217703722973784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-4229303312608960852010-08-15T09:27:00.000+01:002010-08-15T09:27:56.761+01:00The wondrous post of Anis Shivani<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrwqosOU-YSIib2L_mLHgCNll1QaI3An3eXm9Mx0ZV0IF2KRqNWaAEx2QlMQi4bkB78_-dzH47YmIpY9lOA4IX43DxPqUrRpTB3wd0CGw_4LpbDPlo7voZfT-HfeKCpgYwxcMh49yoQnks/s1600/SafranF.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrwqosOU-YSIib2L_mLHgCNll1QaI3An3eXm9Mx0ZV0IF2KRqNWaAEx2QlMQi4bkB78_-dzH47YmIpY9lOA4IX43DxPqUrRpTB3wd0CGw_4LpbDPlo7voZfT-HfeKCpgYwxcMh49yoQnks/s400/SafranF.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anis Shivani. Very keen critic or very angry (or disappointed, or hurt, or 'misunderstood') author? You <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/the-15-most-overrated-con_b_672974.html#s123719"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">decide</span></a>. At least his damning critique of pomo writing is very, very funny. Read for example what he has to say about celebrated poet John Ashbery:</span></span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">More responsible than anyone else for turning late twentieth-century American poetry into a hermetic, self-enclosed, utterly private affair. Displays sophomoric lust to encode postmodern alienation into form that embodies the supposed chaos of the mind. (...) Ran away with postmodern irony, eccentricized it to the point of meaninglessness. Now we have no working definition of irony anymore--thanks, John Ashbery! (...) Among the writers listed here, I want to like him the most--it's too bad he's been a parody of himself for so long.</span></span></blockquote>Editorialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552460369811047907noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-60921100507185931302010-08-13T01:32:00.015+01:002010-08-13T18:18:14.406+01:00Quirky<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSHKmQdsbg0VQ5MG34ULiT7QYEdY3zC4ZBFTx3FZTe36hpWSZ3IpUbabtn_-ql1O46boUFXiRxgOP6Lv4BV3Tq7PzjeyAlTjev8o_Dfhb2TceOSb1k4FeHdOw-mxu3XXK1QL0xo_TJSZOp/s1600/4+tenenbaum+kids.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504686776693473762" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSHKmQdsbg0VQ5MG34ULiT7QYEdY3zC4ZBFTx3FZTe36hpWSZ3IpUbabtn_-ql1O46boUFXiRxgOP6Lv4BV3Tq7PzjeyAlTjev8o_Dfhb2TceOSb1k4FeHdOw-mxu3XXK1QL0xo_TJSZOp/s400/4+tenenbaum+kids.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 168px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Quirky is a word that critics apply to American ‘indie’ movies with a tiresome predictability – indeed, it sometimes seems to be treated as synonymous with the contemporary American independent film landscape as a whole. However, while it certainly </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">can</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> be used merely as a tedious buzzword, I would also argue that – properly defined – it may also be the best shorthand we have for one observable strand of recent American film – specifically: the sorts of comedies and comedy-dramas conjured up by names such as Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, Jared Hess, Alexander Payne, David O. Russell, Miranda July, and so on. I have recently published </span></span><a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/movie/contents/notes_on_quirky.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">an article</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> in the new </span></span><a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/movie"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> which lays out in detail my interpretation of the term; what follows is a condensation and reformulation of a few of the arguments that I make in greater detail in that piece.<br /><br />Quirky is a sensibility that can be recognised most easily by its tone, which we might broadly describe as walking a tightrope between a cynically ‘detached’ irony and an emotionally ‘engaged’ sincerity. This tone is created in a number of ways.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The quirky’s comedy can be divided into three strands: deadpan, slapstick, and comedy of embarrassment. The deadpan is dry, perfunctory, excessively functional, taking moments that we might expect to be made melodramatic and downplaying them for comic effect. An example might be a deeply disheveled and seemingly alcohol-dependent Herbert (Bill Murray) in </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Rushmore</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> answering an enquiry as to his emotional state with a nonchalant “Mmm, I’m a little bit lonely these days” while puffing on two cigarettes simultaneously. Such comedy, which is emphatically based on distancing our emotional experience from those of the characters, might suggest that the quirky’s preferred comic style is primarily a cold or detached one. This sense is tempered, however, by the fact that the same films will often also use another style of comedy: a comedy of embarrassment (see: Barry [Adam Sandler] bursting into unfortunately-timed tears in front of his sister’s husband in </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Punch-Drunk Love</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">). This, by contrast, is an uncomfortable and painful humour resulting from a character’s emotional distress being situated as simultaneously pathetic </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">and</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> poignant – a comic address inextricably fused with relating to pain and embarrassment, and, as such, with empathy. Completing a cocktail of comic styles relatively unique to the quirky is the use of slapstick, which will often emerge unannounced, surprising us with its suddenness and borderline-surreal incongruity (e.g.: Jason Schwartzman and Mark Whalberg hitting each other in the face with a ‘space-hopper’ in </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">I Heart Huckabees</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">). Such moments bring with them a hint of the absurd, making us understand that we are to an extent dealing with a special kind of ‘artificial’ world in which physical pain can be experienced without any real consequences.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaPP_iWj3oz2kkmbcgQevm4uaHd-EZiBVTBrjKfllWR1GEqF99gEsvcLH2eb2GQonRvS00F08c70EOiB3Vl58Qp1jBsCnClndoMSzFkN7ylMRQFv0kWf3FxII2aWoYi6ucwDKm78oOuaDf/s1600/6+punch+kiss.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504690919788381330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaPP_iWj3oz2kkmbcgQevm4uaHd-EZiBVTBrjKfllWR1GEqF99gEsvcLH2eb2GQonRvS00F08c70EOiB3Vl58Qp1jBsCnClndoMSzFkN7ylMRQFv0kWf3FxII2aWoYi6ucwDKm78oOuaDf/s400/6+punch+kiss.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 225px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br />This feeling of artificiality is picked up in the quirky’s approach to style. Perhaps more than anyone, Wes Anderson typifies the sensibility’s visual style, and has perfected a kind of shot that we find across many quirky films: a static, flat-looking, medium-long or long-shot that appears nearly geometrically even, depicting isolated or carefully-arranged characters who are made to look faintly ridiculous or out-of-place by virtue of their composition’s rigidity (see the image from </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The Royal Tenenbaums</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> at the top of this post). One of the most striking aspects of these kinds of shots is their apparent ‘self-consciousness’, a fact that needs to be linked with other meta-cinematic techniques used by the movies: say, films beginning with theatre curtains opening onto the action (</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Rushmore</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Being John Malkovich</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">), the blurring of lines between characters and their real-life counterparts (</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Adaptation</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">American Splendor</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">), and so on. However, as well as conveying knowingness, there is another almost contradictory pull in these shots towards the construction of a particular kind of naïveté – their boldness, simplicity, and measured beauty seeming not only excessively calculated, but also intentionally purified, bespeaking an effort to remake the world in a less chaotic, more simplified, and, in a paradoxical sense, a more unaffected, form. This courting of the pointedly simple – or even simplistic – is reflected in the films’ music too, which tends to favour the continual repetition of the sweet and simple, lending it a sound and feel reminiscent of the tinkling purity of a child’s music box (e.g.: </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The Science of Sleep</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">).<br /><br />The childlike nature of much of the quirky’s music in turn reflects the sensibility’s preoccupation with childhood and innocence more generally. Characters’ dialogue may express a longing for childhood (Susan [Meryl Streep] in </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Adaptation</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">: “I want to be a baby, I want to be new…”), childhood items are fetishistically retained (Billy’s [Vincent Gallo] locker loaded with trophies of his youth in </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Buffalo ’66</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">), and childhood is sometimes even regained literally – if only momentarily (in </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">). Such moments simultaneously create the sense of a desire for regression to a childhood state, whilst reminding us that it can, of course, never be retrieved.<br /><br />All these aspects of the quirky contribute in different ways to the construction of its trademark tone. Its mixture of comic registers mean that we can simultaneously regard the world of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Punch-Drunk Love</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> as partly unbelievable, laugh at its flat treatment of melodramatic situations, </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">and</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> be moved by Barry’s tears. Its aesthetic can both provoke an awareness of the artificiality of </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The Royal Tenebaum</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">’s compositions </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">and</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> promote an appreciation of their charming naïveté. Its invocation of innocence allows </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Eternal Sunshine</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> both to recapture the kind of authenticity and enthusiasm that comes with childhood </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">and</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> simultaneously remind us that it must finally remain, because only fantasised about from a position of adulthood, forever out of reach. Together these elements add up to create what is perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the quirky: a tone that exists on a knife-edge of judgment and empathy, detachment and engagement, irony and sincerity.</span></span></div>James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-6469150525626591452010-08-12T11:46:00.030+01:002010-08-13T08:02:11.364+01:00Selja Kameric (1)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJtjbs2rYNhzf5xosKhdkfG9Gz18i8290KjLHutMyIVMvQWHZHFOgC8sp8w3xsTTyyWu3w-Qo7vcdqTIRCSZP9n9Ev0QLtthKBlmdP89IN7Sw_osAzkOcEg1s7qHeOy2UwMZdQavpagxDV/s1600/What+do+I+know.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJtjbs2rYNhzf5xosKhdkfG9Gz18i8290KjLHutMyIVMvQWHZHFOgC8sp8w3xsTTyyWu3w-Qo7vcdqTIRCSZP9n9Ev0QLtthKBlmdP89IN7Sw_osAzkOcEg1s7qHeOy2UwMZdQavpagxDV/s400/What+do+I+know.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It is difficult to describe what Selja Kameric’s work is about. It is about an international conflict (the Balkan wars). It is about the decline of a city (Sarajevo). It is about ethnic cleansing (of Bosnian-Herzegovians). It is about longing for a past that is lost (a culture's, a city's, the artist's). It is about the emancipation of a young girl (the artist herself). Kameric's work is political. But it is also personal. However, one would be mistaken to call the political personal and vice-versa.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />One might be tempted to argue it is about deconstruction. Works such as </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">EU/Others</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (2000) and </span></span><i><a href="http://www.sejlakameric.com/art/bosnian_girl.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Bosnian Girl</span></span></a></i><a href="http://www.sejlakameric.com/art/bosnian_girl.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(2003), which examine the relationship between representation and subjectivity, would certainly vindicate such an assertion. But then one might also suggest it is about reconstruction. The piece </span></span><i><a href="http://www.sejlakameric.com/video/dream_house_video.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Dream House</span></span></a></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (2002), for instance, situates a refugee camp within parameters that place it beyond its conventional confines. The camp’s spacetime transits from sunset into sunrise, transforms from desolate desert to desirable beach. The work thus constructs the impossible possibility of an elsewhere beyond the now-here.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />Similarly, one may feel Kameric’s work is concerned with the past. After all, many of her works address traumas and memories. Yet one cannot but feel it is equally preoccupied with the future. In </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Red</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (2008) Kameric seeks to trace what is lost. She traces marks on red brick walls left by explosive devices. In </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Green</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (2007) she tries to find expressions of what cannot be expressed. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">She photographs names carved in</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">cactuses. Each act emphasizes what cannot be regained. Each act emphasizes that every attempt will leave its imprints, or, in the example of the plants, literally, its scars. But it also stresses that one should attempt nonetheless. For it is in the act that we can find something we had not found before: a trace of a past and a hint of a future, a memory of those we loved and a dream to love them again.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />One may deem Kameric’s work an interrogation of collective identity. But it is certainly also a quest into individual idiosyncrasies. It is conscious of local traditions, but aware of the global inevitabilities. If it is alienating, it is also adamant on coming to terms with one’s position.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWY9eD4GMhPhTmhOom_J8QCxnuHnECH8g1yFwqMnFSrNeluNGb8DBSRRCJks135oYVck1SVsxmGPMSABUYvpTysqSCxdyLvMS4FmNa0ByoG1y4hfHBagAlTGQifplIfhLX79pmqaKNgULw/s1600/Green.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWY9eD4GMhPhTmhOom_J8QCxnuHnECH8g1yFwqMnFSrNeluNGb8DBSRRCJks135oYVck1SVsxmGPMSABUYvpTysqSCxdyLvMS4FmNa0ByoG1y4hfHBagAlTGQifplIfhLX79pmqaKNgULw/s400/Green.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />Anselm Wagner writes:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In Selja Kameric the dream and the trauma seem to be causally connected. She channels the pain in two quite different directions: into a biting, almost cynical criticism of political conditions and, at the same time, into a longing escapism (…) Kameric works against current clichés about victims (poor, desperate, submissively seeking help, etc.), because they only serve to produce a permanent condition of dependency, so that the ‘helpers’ can extend their position of power. At the same time, however, Kameric does not pose in the heroic role of an angry member of the resistance (which is just another cliché, even if it comes from a difference political direction). Rather, she insists on being permitted to be a dreamer, who is sometimes happy to shut her eyes to reality, who is vulnerable, who is sad, who is homesick for a Sarajevo that is more than merely a synonym for ‘breaking news’ and for a murderous war against civilians.</span></span></blockquote></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What Wagner unearths in Kameric’s work, is an oscillation between two modes of existence: cynicism and pathos, knowingness and naivety, fear and fearlessness, the victim and the revolutionary. I am inclined to say that the frightened victim is the figure of the postmodern. The fearless revolutionary, indeed, is the embodiment of the modern. The dreamer is both of them. Yet it is also neither of them. The dreamer believes in the potential of each, but realizes it cannot enact them in full. It believes in a future beyond its grasp.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image top: Selja Kameric, What Do I Know (2007). Courtesy </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.tanjawagner.com/static/kuenstler.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Galerie Tanja Wagner</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />Image bottom: Selja Kameric, Green (2007). Courtesy Galerie Tanja Wagner</span></span> </div></div>Timotheus Vermeulenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13927897942308903962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-87879716752225947972010-08-09T15:40:00.015+01:002010-08-13T07:10:29.299+01:00New Romanticism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_jtXDN_LFRxBhVNsOujsovL8ZtwFDqsviOeo6h9Q5_kmPWDNd2e4tMfdfNHv-e33CtJZmZbemh3GwlZs3S_TYj_GYRSB9zSSYd31CU8tc0E3cp307B4bIyUlrUx-O3mjiONyuFhJkYl2/s1600/Fullmoon+Quatrain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_jtXDN_LFRxBhVNsOujsovL8ZtwFDqsviOeo6h9Q5_kmPWDNd2e4tMfdfNHv-e33CtJZmZbemh3GwlZs3S_TYj_GYRSB9zSSYd31CU8tc0E3cp307B4bIyUlrUx-O3mjiONyuFhJkYl2/s400/Fullmoon+Quatrain.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The world must be romanticized. In this way its original meaning will be rediscovered. To romanticize is nothing but a qualitative heightening. In this process the lower self becomes identified with a better self. (...) Insofar as I present the commonplace with significance, the ordinary with mystery, the familiar with the seemliness of the unfamiliar and the finite with the semblance of the infinite, I romanticize it. </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Novalis</span></span></i></blockquote><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">These lines were long suppressed by the paradigms of modernity; ignored by discourses dominated by the postmodern. Yet over the last decade or so they have gradually begun to reappear. In the early 2000s they were anxiously uttered at art shows in Berlin and London; they were nervously repeated in polemical pamphlets and papers in New York; they were hesitantly replicated in Frieze, cautiously copied in the FAZ, the Observer, and The New Yorker. But by 2005, they had recurred so frequently, and so widely, that the tone with which they were re-iterated had become more confident. When, later that year, they were reprinted in Hans Hollein’s catalogue Ideal Worlds: New Romanticism in Contemporary Art, they were expressed with such conviction that there could be no further doubt about it: a novel sense of the Romantic had emerged.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">It was seen in the sudden re-appraisal of Bas Jan Ader’s questioning of Reason, in the attention for Peter Doig’s re-appropriation of culture through nature, and for Gregory Crewdson’s adaptation of civilization by the primitive. It could be perceived in Olafur Eliasson’s obsession with the commonplace ethereal, in Catherine Opie’s fixation with the quotidian sublime, in </span></span><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/08/herzog-de-meuron-1.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Herzog & de Meuron</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">’s</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> attempts to unite the transient and the timeless. And of late it can be observed in in Justine Kurland’s and </span></span><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/07/david-thorpe-1.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">David Thorpe’s</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> fascination with fictitious sects, or in Charles Avery’s interest for fictional elsewheres. Indeed, concentrating on the tragic and the sublime, the uncanny and the mystical, often figurative representation and what appears to be beyond the figurative categories, these artists present the commonplace with significance, the quotidian with mystery, the familiar with the aura of the unfamiliar and the finite with the appearance of the infinite. But theirs is a presentation which inevitably – and necessarily – fails. No commonplace ever becomes wholly significant, no quotidian utterly mysterious. Nor should they. For that, if we are to believe Novalis’ contemporary Friedrich Schlegel, is the essence of Early German Romanticism: ‘that it should forever be becoming, and never be perfected’.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br />Romanticism is often misunderstood. Nature, nobility, dreams, a soothing sensibility and what not. We have so far given two interrelated intimations of Romanticism: the act of presenting the commonplace with significance, the ordinary with the mysterious, etc., and this undertaking’s inevitable and necessary failure. Of course, these intimations hardly characterize all that Romanticism is about, let alone that they define it. As Arthur Lovejoy noted in the 1920s, there are so many different, often differing definitions of the concept that we might rather speak of Romanticisms. Indeed, Isaiah Berlin commented years later in his canonical The Roots of Romanticism, if there were any one word to define Romanticism, it would be contradiction. Romanticism, he argued, is, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">in short, unity and multiplicity. It is fidelity to the particular…and also mysterious tantalising vagueness of outline. It is beauty and ugliness. It is art for art’s sake, and art as instrument of social salvation. It is strength and weakness, individualism and collectivism, purity and corruption, revolution and reaction, peace and war, love of life and love of death.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The key is to understand Romanticism as a sens rather than as a system of thought, a sensibility rather than a paradigm, an attitude more than an aesthetic regime. Romanticism is about the attempt to turn the finite into the infinite, whilst recognizing that it can never – and should never – be realized. Of course, it is also specifically about Bildung, about self-realization, about Zaïs and Isis, but for our purposes, this general idea of the Romantic as oscillating between attempt and failure, or as Schlegel put it, between ‘enthusiasm and irony’, is sufficient. It is from this hesitation also that the Romantic inclination towards the tragic, the sublime and the uncanny stem, aesthetic categories lingering between projection and perception, coherence and chaos.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcuEbyngVM-_R8X6OWUKl6YVpeP3urLCzkHWr1Nv3m8wBLn0E7_jNk8jPPk1CN5qqdMBwPK_fumuh1jLf5K1XLy7CqRuGurC-5Cgj2OHVBN1PlaK0xvqKli-DgKDnBAhJhdAKMRWiaEJ_L/s1600/Avery+aleph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcuEbyngVM-_R8X6OWUKl6YVpeP3urLCzkHWr1Nv3m8wBLn0E7_jNk8jPPk1CN5qqdMBwPK_fumuh1jLf5K1XLy7CqRuGurC-5Cgj2OHVBN1PlaK0xvqKli-DgKDnBAhJhdAKMRWiaEJ_L/s400/Avery+aleph.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br />Interestingly, many of these artists engage with the most unlikely of realms: the everyday, the commonplace. Armin Boehm, for example, paints aerial views of commuter towns as at once enchanted and haunted. Gregory Crewdson photographs towns haunted by the nature they repress, disavow or sublimate. In his work tree-lined streets, white picket-fenced gardens and picture-windowed houses are sites for inexplicable natural events, from local twilights to people shovelling earth into their hallways and planting flowers in their lounges to robins picking at limbs buried below ground. And Glenn Rubsamen presents the most mundane objects as exceptional, the most artificial ones as natural: electricity poles turn into pine trees, lamp posts become oaks.<br /><br />These artists’ engagement with the everyday and the commonplace is not surprising. After all, New Romanticism is a response to both the modern and the postmodern, just as Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment. The category of the everyday has been central to both the modern and the postmodern. Modernity can be characterized by an anxiety to reconstruct the everyday in the name of this or that universalism. Postmodernity can be described as the neurosis to deconstruct it along the heterogenous lines of race, gender, and place. New Romanticism attempts to both-neither reconstruct and-nor deconstruct the commonplace. It seeks to come to terms with the commonplace as it is while at the same time imagining how it could be but never will be. It presents us with the impossible possibility of another here-and-now.<br /><br />The New Romantic engagement with the commonplace is often mistaken for the postmodern interest in it. Indeed, the two concepts, Romanticism and postmodernism, can be easily confused. De Mul has asserted that Romanticism can be understood as the irresolvable tension between postmodernism and modernism. Whatever other implications this might have, it implies that it inevitably has quite a few traits in common with both. Like Romanticism then, the postmodern discredits the teleological enthusiasm of its predecessor and distrusts its belief in Reason. Like Romanticism also, it turns to pluralism, to irony and deconstruction; it relishes chaos and ambiguity, it revels in fragmentation. But there is, as de Mul has noted, a crucial difference: in Romanticism, this rather ‘postmodern’ irony is employed to hold the somewhat ‘modern’ aspiration in check; in the postmodern it is used to annihilate it. Romantic irony is intrinsically bound to desire; postmodern irony is inherently tied to apathy. The Romantic art work deconstructs the modern piece by emphasizing what it cannot present, what it cannot signify: that which is beyond reason; the postmodern work deconstructs it by emphasizing exactly what it presents, by exposing precisely what it signifies.<br /><br />But why now? Why have artists taken to these Romantic sentiments all of a sudden? Our answer is that Romanticism provides them with the vocabulary and iconography to express a </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-is-metamodernism.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:orange;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">dissatisfaction about a present that is increasingly uninhabitable, and a desire for a future whose blueprint has yet to be drawn</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">. New Romanticism expresses the transition from a place not yet left behind, to another space it has not yet entered, and probably never will. Ominous ruins as symbols for the cliffs of the past. Mysterious sects in situ the shores of the future. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><div><div></div></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image top: Darren Almond, Full Moon @ Quatrain 1 (2005). Courtesy Galerie Max Hetzler.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image below: Charles Avery, Untitled (2008). Courtesy Doggerfish</span></span></div>Editorialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552460369811047907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-70392516942259652612010-08-08T22:10:00.001+01:002010-08-08T22:10:44.608+01:00Rodarte<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLsv8Z5CCiqB1jveneCXiLrNXC1xskzk3gLiDuoycu_dOzx7-3RW-qxf-YgGKHyoXGrPKrXLFThMSqzQVLz09neAQ2vL2Vz6uIyJpGNCIF9c85hPL-pwoRpd0AViojdG2_-ZOgf2_CyRJr/s1600/Rodarte+Vogue+US+March+2010.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5503136157033753314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLsv8Z5CCiqB1jveneCXiLrNXC1xskzk3gLiDuoycu_dOzx7-3RW-qxf-YgGKHyoXGrPKrXLFThMSqzQVLz09neAQ2vL2Vz6uIyJpGNCIF9c85hPL-pwoRpd0AViojdG2_-ZOgf2_CyRJr/s200/Rodarte+Vogue+US+March+2010.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 164px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 200px;" /></a><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fashion is mostly an endless repetition of something you already have seen before. Season after season trends are recycled to awaken a new desire within the consumer, making fashion the ultimate post-modern expression. But every now and then someone tries to escape this endless cycle of repetitiveness. Kate and Laura Mulleavy of </span></span><a href="http://www.rodarte.net/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6aa84f;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rodarte</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> have tried to do so ever since they presented their first collection in the spring of 2005 in New York. In their parent’s garden house in Pasadena, California, the self-taught Mulleavy sisters first started creating dresses for their Barbie dolls, and even though Rodarte is now one of the most anticipated shows of the New York fashion week, Kate and Laura Mulleavy never really escaped that doll-like dream world. Their intricately and obsessively handcrafted designs show an otherworldly desire. Even though the Rodarte girl – she is always a girl, never a woman - is more than equipped to deal with reality in her spiked and studded heels, her camouflage body art and her tribal dresses, she above all projects a childlike naivety. A naivety that is corrupted and innocent at once, whether it is the Japanese horror goth from their Fall/Winter 2008 collection, the post apocalyptic warrior negotiating between culture and nature from their Spring/Summer 2010 collection or the ethereal Mexican sleepwalkers from </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the troubled border town of Ciudad Juárez</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">represented in their Fall/Winter 2010 collection.</span></span></span><br />
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</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image: Daria Werbowy in Rodarte SS10 photographed by David Sims and styled by Grace Coddington for Vogue US March 2010</span></span><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div>Hanka van der Voethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881217703722973784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-37805671254696442662010-08-05T14:29:00.005+01:002010-08-09T15:28:12.183+01:00Herzog & de Meuron (1)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7w6E32L4Gz9BKRDVH6Lgikpw-6Ate1JjDrKB_-WXco3ooA4ZnNlWFo21PoeKfhNfUjmZwrOUErNPLu5nIEUsphhngIwUlGLi9owXF-iLg0Y5NGiV5JNqxIfiVUkyZbL1PesqstyB0oZ2/s1600/dzn_The-Elbphilharmonie-by-Herzog-de-Meuron-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7w6E32L4Gz9BKRDVH6Lgikpw-6Ate1JjDrKB_-WXco3ooA4ZnNlWFo21PoeKfhNfUjmZwrOUErNPLu5nIEUsphhngIwUlGLi9owXF-iLg0Y5NGiV5JNqxIfiVUkyZbL1PesqstyB0oZ2/s1600/dzn_The-Elbphilharmonie-by-Herzog-de-Meuron-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7w6E32L4Gz9BKRDVH6Lgikpw-6Ate1JjDrKB_-WXco3ooA4ZnNlWFo21PoeKfhNfUjmZwrOUErNPLu5nIEUsphhngIwUlGLi9owXF-iLg0Y5NGiV5JNqxIfiVUkyZbL1PesqstyB0oZ2/s320/dzn_The-Elbphilharmonie-by-Herzog-de-Meuron-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Contemporary architectural practices do not seem to fit yesteryear’s conceptuali-zations of the modern and the po</span></span><span style="color: #1d1d1d;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">stmodern.</span></span></span><span style="color: #bb202a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1d1d1d;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Whereas modern architecture (1920s-1960s) was dedicated to the possibility of utopia and the ideal of universal progress, postmodern architecture (1970s onwards) either lost all confidence in societal change, or didn’t feel the need to adhere to a wider social agenda. If modern architects had some kind of ‘positive orientation’ towards the future, postmodern architects are condemned, in the words of Lyotard, ‘to undertake a series of minor modifications in a space inherited from modernity’. The difference between the modernist and postmodernist </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">attitude</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> towards built space can thus be best described in terms of </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">opposition.</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Previously, we used the notions of ‘modern enthusiasm’ and ‘postmodern irony’ as a shorthand to these, more or less, opposing positions.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkelBJQAE-F3C6eRKZ4AWMNIlPTSXvUfRMhvX00L5m_Iuc_sEJeFFgIfKC-xbFj9M_fNAyBzSWsrv3jbwaMxumxWRJNWI5Vc3uDp8Dx6FR-iAh1sOuNPAQEe9CtVa3dC1lG5MLdXGfnGs/s1600/le-projet-triangle-01.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a></span><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText"><span style="color: #1d1d1d;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In recent years, however, these comfortable definitions and familiar periodizations have become worn out up to the point where they seem to have lost all relevance for contemporary architectural practices. For one, as we </span></span><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/07/one-bryant-park-nyc_16.html"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">previously</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> suggested, it is hard to miss the return to commitment. While contemporary architects increasingly go back to the Future in terms of their </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">attitude</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, they almost always express this rather metamodern enthusiasm by means of more or less postmodern </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">styles</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">...</span></span></div><a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> We use the notion of postmodern architecture here as container for several “–isms” which consist of either a formal critique or a mannerist rehearsal of a High Modernism which adhered to strict functionalism (‘form follows function’), stylistic purity (‘ornament is crime’) and industrial materials (‘machine aesthetic’). Of course it can be argued that, nowadays, function once more dictates form, just as in the heydays of modernism. For architects need to somehow adapt their designs to the environmental characteristics – sun, wind, rain, oxygen - of a specific site in order to be able to build “green”. As true is this might be, contemporary architecture has been, and still largely is, dedicated to such postmodern “-isms” as aesthetic populism, historicism, deconstructivism and/or eclecticism. Again, New York’s </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Bank of America Tower </span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">is telling, here.</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Practitioners continue to employ postmodern styles, while working within a metamodern discourse. Architects, it seems, struggle to find an aesthetics proper to metamodernism. </span></span><br />
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</span> </span></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501914501929313954" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkelBJQAE-F3C6eRKZ4AWMNIlPTSXvUfRMhvX00L5m_Iuc_sEJeFFgIfKC-xbFj9M_fNAyBzSWsrv3jbwaMxumxWRJNWI5Vc3uDp8Dx6FR-iAh1sOuNPAQEe9CtVa3dC1lG5MLdXGfnGs/s320/le-projet-triangle-01.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 320px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; width: 320px;" /></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A particularly interesting exception to this rule is the office of </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herzog_%26_de_Meuron"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Herzog & de Meuron</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. In some ways, Herzog & de Meuron have always, through-out their careers, attempted to find formal alternatives to architectural postmodernism, an attempt which even tempted them to briefly return to the </span></span><a href="http://www.sammlung-goetz.de/index2.php?lang=en&pn=arch&m=Museum"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">modernist</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> purity of Le Corbusier. Their most recent designs, however, clearly articulate a metamodern </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">attitude</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> in and through a metamodern </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">style: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">New R</span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">omanticism</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. </span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This should come as no surprise. In previous posts - cf. </span></span><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/07/ragnar-kjartansson.html"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Ragnar Kjartansson</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span></span><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/07/david-thorpe-1.html"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">David Thorpe</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> and </span></span><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/07/glory-at-sea.html"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Glory At Sea</span></span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> - we have already described neoromanticism as an exemplary expression of the current structure of feeling (to use </span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Raymond Williams’</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> phrase). In a following post we will provide you with a more detailed account of the look and feel of Herzog & de Meuron’s buildings. Meanwhile, please do have a look at such fine examples as the library of the </span></span><a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/pics/sites/fastcompany.com.mba/linkedfiles/imagecache/slideshowlarge/slideshows/cottbus.jpg"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Brandenburg Technical University</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (Cottbus, 2004); the </span></span><a href="http://daily.swarthmore.edu/static/uploads/what-is-the-new-beijing/800px-beijing_national_stadium.jpg"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Chinese national stadium</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (Beijing, 2008); the residential skyscraper at </span></span><a href="http://www.eikongraphia.com/?p=2703"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">560 Leonard street</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (NYC, under construction); the </span></span><a href="http://www.softcityblog.com/?p=412"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Elbe Philharmonic Hall</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (Hamburg, under construction) or</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><a href="http://www.dezeen.com/2008/09/29/le-projet-triangle-by-herzog-de-meuron/"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Projet Triangle</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (Paris, under construction).</span></span></div></div>Robin van den Akkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17234790851406248691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-54082844931624087882010-08-01T23:03:00.065+01:002010-08-03T16:24:45.555+01:00Strategies of the metamodern<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDvGYu6RfAo6GP8pyu9dZAgrBzksSUaXk0Ign7wDX3dSVYhd9782bPPuja8pbZAgheEfzqHjiqH_CfOFeH2trPuVdt9hPi5auyCx4F7GOm5d_zHujKDGRYbNXcqfm2ZWdpIYxnMwW2cINq/s1600/Kurland2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDvGYu6RfAo6GP8pyu9dZAgrBzksSUaXk0Ign7wDX3dSVYhd9782bPPuja8pbZAgheEfzqHjiqH_CfOFeH2trPuVdt9hPi5auyCx4F7GOm5d_zHujKDGRYbNXcqfm2ZWdpIYxnMwW2cINq/s320/Kurland2.jpg" width="320" /></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The modern is associated with politics as diverse as utopism, formalism, functionalism, seriality, art for art’s sake, the flaneur, syntaxis, restless-ness, alienation, streams of consciousness, the cinematic apparatus, cubism, Reason, trauma, mass production, and schizophrenia. The postmodern tends to be associated with strategies as varied as dystopism, late capitalist flexibilisation, the ‘end of history’, formalism, différ</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">a</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">nce, relativism, irony, pastiche, the waning of affect, consumption, mult</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">i-culturalism, deconstruction, poststructuralism, cyberspace, virtualisation, pluralism, parataxis, the ‘unrepresentable’, and interesse. The French cultural philosopher Jacques Rancière has further suggested that both signify a democratisation of the relationship between the sayable and the visible.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Now, the </span><a href="http://mtmdrn.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-is-metamodernism.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">metamodern</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> too is expressed through a variety of mind-sets, practices, art forms, media and genres. Certainly, i</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">t has been expressed </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">most visibly...</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">in the emergence of a New Romanticism. Artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Gregory Crewdson, Kaye Donachie, and David Thorpe, and architects like Herzog & de Meuron no longer merely deconstruct the commonplace, but seek to reconstruct it. They exaggerate it, mystify it, alienate it. But with the intention to resignify it. With the intention to create within the commonplace an uncommonspace. Many of these artists draw on the philosophies of Schlegel and Novalis. Many refer to the paintings of Friedrich and Böcklin. Some return, significantly, to figurative practices. Their works show grandiose landscapes, ruins, lonely wanderers. (As an aside, it was this ‘movement’ that initially drew our attention to the decline of the postmodern and the rise of something else. We will come to discuss the New Romantic and its relationship to early German Romanticism in much more detail later this week.) </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitTLX7P_UGdcwcsoyCwZHx2LQkRVsE6j_UL9GteuAxRqd4O9pvfKL5reLLw6PuJ6kRBm3EjKxrQMbJpH9g-tPJavrbOaTFqZZKBWubqWUqayS-ez4O_nmQ6DtqkprA5GMQ6WPF3SFtJ-5A/s1600/Danz2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHbweOxGfTBlZ1Hr6STGoM5Op7gk511oH78HJnLXD4tY8P9bh-_4HsbwCqjrJ6NM5_-1ZdVgSZxdvU-oHfnoRBxyVFtP0mEVsHBB541xR4GxwxY9HRtjS9PZb4PIH1JuHSY8tfRUamrMcP/s1600/Danz2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHbweOxGfTBlZ1Hr6STGoM5Op7gk511oH78HJnLXD4tY8P9bh-_4HsbwCqjrJ6NM5_-1ZdVgSZxdvU-oHfnoRBxyVFtP0mEVsHBB541xR4GxwxY9HRtjS9PZb4PIH1JuHSY8tfRUamrMcP/s320/Danz2.png" /></span></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The metamodern sensibility has further been expressed by what art critic Jörg Heiser has called </span></span><a href="http://www.artandresearch.org.uk/v2n1/heiser.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Romantic Conceptualism</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. Heiser defines Romantic Conceptualism as a tendency in contemporary conceptual art that replaces </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">the rational with the affective and the calculated with the coincidental. It is also expressed in Performatism. The German scholar Raoul Eshelman defines </span></span><a href="http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0602/perform.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Performatism</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> as an act of ‘wilful self-deceit’. It is the enactment of a truth that cannot be true, the establishment of a holistic, coherent identity that cannot exist. Eshelman refers to works and texts as varied as the architecture of Kleihues, Yann Martel’s </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Pi</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, and </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Amélie</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. In cinema, it is articulated first and foremost in quirky. James MacDowell will write a post on this trend associated with the informed naivety of films such as </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Rushmore</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> and </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Juno</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> later in the w</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">eek. In pop music, it is articulated in the freak folk of Antony and the Johnsons, Akron Family and Devendra Banhart, but also in the heartfelt ballads of Best Coast. It is articulated in trends such as Remodernism, Reconstructivism, the New Sincerity and Stuckism. In unique works of artists and authors as varied as Ragnar Kjartansson, Mariechen Danz, Roberto Bolano and maybe even Dave Eggers. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And just think of developments like the restructuration of the financial system, Obama's 'Yes we can!', and environmentalism. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And so on and so forth.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
Some might argue </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">that this multiplicity of strategies expresses a plurality of structures of feeling. However, what they have in common is a typically metamodern oscillation, an unsuccessful negotiation, between two opposite poles. In, say, Bas Jan Ader’s attempts to defy the cosmic laws and the forces of nature, to make the permanent transitory and the transient permanent, it expresses itself dramatically, as a struggle between life and death. In, for example, Justine Kurland’s efforts to present the ordinary with mystery and the familiar with the seemliness of the unfamiliar it exposes itself less spectacularly, as the unsuccessful negotiation between culture and nature. But both these artists set out to fulfill a mission or task they know they will not, can never, and should never accomplish: the unification of two opposed poles. And both are concerned with Novalis: the opening up of new lands in situ of the old. Odd new lands. Untenable new lands. But new lands nonetheless.</span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Over the next weeks, months, years we will try to discuss and draw your attention to as many metamodern strategies as we possibly can. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Strategies that we feel, whatever their disparate intentions and dissimilar interests, all have the oscillation between the modern and the postmodern at its heart. We will discuss the New Romantic later this week. Quirky the next. Performatism after that. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Some might be a bit more than metamodern; others might be somewhat less. You might disagree with any one of them. Please feel free to challenge us! If metamodernism is an oscillation rather than a balance, an ongoing discussion without answer, then so is this blog. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Top left image: Justine Kurland, West of the Water (2003). Courtesy</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.miandn.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Mitchell-Innes & Nash</span></span></a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Bottom right Image: Mariechen Danz, Ye (2006). Courtesy </span><a href="http://www.tanjawagner.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Galerie Tanja Wagner</span></span></a></span></div>Editorialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552460369811047907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723801100700519322.post-42931381087469669192010-07-28T12:48:00.069+01:002010-08-15T21:47:39.431+01:00Glory At Sea<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigiuCXDstUt23qIcrpbRpw6YpO9YZ3BSNHaEEorx84J_z_uiihBkV6Lhg0sYr42KdA_S-MUmPOtMcnGjlSTv-Bv2sCWVtd5itUN2XyckDP_TDc5BDLzEI8Xog-Sop0itWmUNFfh5ZjUnmd/s1600/gloryboat1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5498951238070042162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigiuCXDstUt23qIcrpbRpw6YpO9YZ3BSNHaEEorx84J_z_uiihBkV6Lhg0sYr42KdA_S-MUmPOtMcnGjlSTv-Bv2sCWVtd5itUN2XyckDP_TDc5BDLzEI8Xog-Sop0itWmUNFfh5ZjUnmd/s400/gloryboat1.jpg" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; height: 284px; width: 501px;" border="0" /></a></div> <div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia,serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“I’m always askin</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">g my dad how that boat knew to go down right there, right over us. He laughs and says, ‘God did it.’"</span></span></span></span></blockquote></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235425/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Glory at Sea</span></a></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (2008) is a 25-minute short film about a rag-tag group of survivors of a terrible storm who together build a boat and sail out in search of the loved-ones they have lost. It is never explained why they think their children, lovers and friends are still alive; yet they simply steadfastly believe it to be true. The boat they construct is simultaneously grand and woefully inadequate to the task of sea travel; yet sail it intrepidly into the sea they do. Hurricane Katrina is not referenced by the film, yet it haunts its fabric; one need not know that the film was conceived and shot in New Orleans to feel the weight of the tragedy in its every frame. Before reading on, I would suggest that the reader watches the film </span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2hBZToDSbM"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">here</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">: it will be a brief but glorious use of your time.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />I take </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Glory at Sea</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> to be metamodern simply in the sense that it embodies one of the discourse’s many strands: a contemporary form of Romantic Irony – what Schlegel called “the eternal oscillation between enthusiasm and irony”. This is a feature that we can see reappearing in different forms in a significant number of recent movies, and one which I shall be returning to on this blog.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span><a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This sensibility emerges most obviously in </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Glory at Sea</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">’s central premise. Like </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_Jan_Ader"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Bas Jan Ader</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">’s fateful journey to sea whilst </span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T5PLNrxl6Y"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In Search of the Miraculous</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, the characters’ voyage seems a doomed act of misplaced heroism – one that moves us because we acknowledge the likelihood of its failure (“That supposed to be some type of boat? You gonna die!”). Unlike that earlier journey, however, this one actually achieves the eventual moment of transcendence that was its purpose to seek. In this sense, the film tells “some type of” traditional adventure narrative. Yet there are a number of ways in which this particular narrative is made to seem Romantic rather than classically heroic.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The film clearly invokes myth, yet it is not itself mythic. Frank Kermode once wrote that “fictions can degenerate into myths when they are not consciously held to be fictive”, and in this sense </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Glory at Sea</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> is very much concerned to create fiction rather than myth. Its ultimate nonsensical (though beautiful) supernatural plot contrivance, combined with its inescapable invocation of the terrible reality of Katrina, mark the film brazenly as wish-fulfillment, its resolution a utopia in the true sense.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The film is narrated by a child, lending it a sense of naïveté. Yet, unlike films or novels in which a child’s narration puts an ironically sweet gloss upon events which we know in reality to be horrific, the unnamed narrator of </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Glory at Sea</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> is not exactly unreliable: indeed, the voice of a nearly-drowned child seems the perfect conduit for a story that comes this close to tragedy, yet is also this Romantically committed to the eventual achievement of the sublime. That we are told the tale by a child makes us expect an irony that never finally comes – an impulse that colours much of the film. The score, for instance, is too grand, too emotive, </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">too much</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (as acknowledged by the moment of crashing crescendo that abruptly accompanies the film’s title); yet the film never encourages us to take it as parody, or even pastiche, but rather as a sincere enactment of a convention we might usually fear to take sincerely. This is one answer to the question of how to make art after postmodernism: acknowledge the very real possibility for postmodern skepticism, yet never fully indulge it – make the unreliable, against our better judgment, feel reliable.</span></span></div><div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWUinFciM_Uj48G-36ky5wtQF0EVW2FfMJXFkkhAZINyzkNbv0H5OPah3UNQ9G-h5BcU-i7_-8o-Ap21pg-vlQRM1mxcTjw5jJz4dm9Bj-ZaWiN1TDlTp33_yrX0silN7EvhuvTMq1q7Y5/s1600/Jake+Mast.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWUinFciM_Uj48G-36ky5wtQF0EVW2FfMJXFkkhAZINyzkNbv0H5OPah3UNQ9G-h5BcU-i7_-8o-Ap21pg-vlQRM1mxcTjw5jJz4dm9Bj-ZaWiN1TDlTp33_yrX0silN7EvhuvTMq1q7Y5/s320/Jake+Mast.png" width="320" border="0" height="180" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The film exudes an incongruous and valiant optimism right down to the very level of its production. Rather like the boat that its characters construct, this is a low-budget short that acts as if it believed itself to be a multi-million-dollar epic. However, as with the best metamodern art – and as in the film’s own narrative – this disjunction between aspiration and the means of its achievement leads not to failure, but rather to a kind of positively-qualified success. Of course, it can never quite be the full-scale adventure movie it seems to believe itself capable of being; yet what it can be – what it finally is – is no less inspiring because of this. Indeed, the very audacity of the endeavour becomes its own justification. It does not acknowledge its failure by, say, presenting itself as merely a fraction of an unrealised totality (like, for example, the 1978 cartoon adaption of </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Lord of the Rings</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, which breaks off mid-story because its makers had no budget to continue): instead it somehow manages to make a miniaturised instance of a genre which should surely by its very nature reject miniaturisation into something that feels ecstatically complete, whole, finished. It also – in a move that acts to further distinguish it from the postmodern – convinces us that such qualities are not things about which we should be inherently suspicious.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />Partly because of its length, the film’s narrative inevitably does not quite have the ability to fully motivate and justify the kinds of feelings it aims to elicit in us. As a result, the emotional responses </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Glory at Sea</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> engenders – because it nevertheless is indeed, to this viewer at least, deeply affecting – can at first sight seem too easy: purely the result of well-chosen musical cues and judiciously-employed archetypes. To answer this potential criticism I would suggest firstly that its deep sense of dedication to its stated project goes a long way towards counteracting our wariness of having been manipulated. However, I would also offer that, if the film still does to some extent appear to trade in unearned sentiment, then this is a part of its meaning.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If the cinematic and fictional conventions it uses move us instinctively – rather than, perhaps, ‘organically’ – then this is perhaps because, responsibly employed, they deserve to. The musical score that rises to suggest a struggle against adversity, the close-up of two people in love kissing, the crowd-shot showing a community coming together for a shared purpose: these can certainly be used cynically, but they also contain within them the kernel of something noble. </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Glory at Sea</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> is able to remind us of this precisely because its short length and resultantly distilled conventions make these devices appear at once constructed and defiantly evocative of a truth we still desire to believe in. It is important that we sense that the potential for irony is there, but it is also important that it is ultimately rejected. No amount of learned cynicism about happy endings has the power to prevent us from being moved by that final montage of embracing, desperately loving, bodies.</span></span></div></div></div></div>James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0