Where You Go When You Want to Think

This site has excerpts of my novel-in-progress, Hot Love on the Wing, as well as thoughts on post postmodernism, avant garde art, literature, music, and the community of artists in Bushwick and New York.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Death of Postmodernism


The Sisyphean goal of the author is to capture objectivity by depicting the relationships between people in a definite moment. The river of humanity flows on, the same despite the bank on which you stand.

From our current position in 2010, we view the United States joining much of the world in enacting socialism. The effects of such cultural change have been unseen since the political revolutions of the 1960's and the subsequent birth of postmodernism. The early stages of a new artistic movement, often termed pseudo-modernism, trans-modernism, and even millenialism, are imminent.  The acme of millenialism will likely be reached within 5 to 10 years. The first ten years of the twenty first century have been an attempt to sort out where we, as a culture, a nation, and a globe, stand; much like the Modernists did one hundred years ago.

It is plausible that in 500 years, future humans will view the beginning of the 20th century as the beginning of modernity.  By entering into the twentieth century, a subconscious break with the methods of the past was embodied linguistically. The traditions associated with the nineteenth and all of the other "teen centuries" were displaced by the modern era of the twenties. Shifting ideologies and a new global dynamic resulted in World War while the advent of technologies such as the car, the airplane and electricity improvements begged questions of angst.  What have the past two thousand years been leading to, and where is humanity headed?  It is the perpetual goal of the arts to answer such questions. In the early 20th century, these attempts culminated in the fractal modernism of Joyce's Ulysses and the Cubism of Picasso and Braque. 


Today, in the twenty first century, life and meaning are so disconnected by human constructs – especially those of the past few decades: television, the internet and youtube – that rather than immanent meaning, reality is abstracted from its source through representation. An example of this is reality television, which aspires to imitate. A majority of people live in this structure of representation, through which raw emotion attempts to be translated and identification between individual and art is underpinned. The choice is between entertainment and art.

The power of the internet presents immediate access to information, which  causes a reliance on technology for reassurance. Whether you want to learn how to silk screen a t shirt or how to break up with your girlfriend, you can find how to do it on the internet. Intuition and learning from mistakes is passe. What are the repercussions of this? Those motivated enough have the ability to self-teach and discover for themselves. Many seek, browse and click through the internet warehouse, retaining what they choose to, which becomes increasingly sparser as new forms of entertainment arise.  The cream rises to the top.

Where is truth? Truth lies hidden in entertainment, and entertainment is pervasive. One has to search for it, or know where to look. Interactiveness is characteristic of this movement.

I'm not the only one who believes in post postmodernism. Here's an article I found that relates a bit to the movement.

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