Re: [microsound] neo-modermism

["The pHarmanaut" <pharmanaut@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Phil. Thanks for your comments, questions and further proddings on this.

>>>>>>>>>phil:
do you think there's a way we could return to (some aspects of)
modernism without falling into the traps you identify? Is there some way
to "integrate" modernism with postmodernism in some useful way? You talk
about "the very worst sort of modernism"; what is "the very best sort?"
And maybe we should spell out what exactly is wrong with "a belief in
science and rationality." Is there another "science and rationality" we
could go (back) to without duplicating all the worst aspects of
modernity? What about Critical Art Ensemble's use of science?

I don't think that we've ever left certain aspects of modernism, so I don't
feel that there's a need to return to them. I agree with you that there's
the possibility of pulling out certain artistic and critical strategies that
have been lumped together under the historical heading of modernism. To me,
these artistic and critical strategies are more or less timeless, which is
why we can see such interesting historical anomalies, or really
anachronisms, as _Don Quixote_ or _Tristram Shandy_, both very postmodern
books from a pre-modern era.

What I was trying to get at by rejecting Manovich's apparent desire for a
return to Hegelian idealism is the notion of historical progress. I don't
accept a notion of modernism/postmodernism in terms of historical
development. I think more in terms of strategies and opportunities shaped by
both the big picture and minutiae of cultural, social, political,
imaginative, and psychological influences. I'm more interested in the minute
details, which is why Manovich's tendency to bunch things up in
'generational' terms really bothers me. For sure, I am by virtue of my age
and the fact that I work in digital art part of the Flash Generation; and
yet I don't work with this program, accept its limitations on creative
process by definition, or consider myself invested in the macromedia agenda.
This is not to say that I wouldn't use this program in the future if I had
the time, money, and inclination; I would do so if it was necessary to
fulfill a certain project's goals. But I'm wary of such broad
generational-izations that Manovich uses.

Modernism and postmodernism are already integrated, in my opinion. If we
have to look at it historically, then postmodernism extends and fulfills
modernism. This is true in terms of the strategies and techniques of many of
the artists, writers, and musicians who are placed under these general
headers. But postmodernism also anticipates modernism. Cervantes, Sterne,
and Rabelais historically precede modernism.

By placing it under the modernist header, Manovich describes "science and
rationality" in terms that recall the errors of enlightened thought, which
splits human beings from their world so that we may control that world. As
Adorno and Horkheimer point out, this absolute objectification of the world
has the end result of turning human beings into objects, so that we become
the dominated victims of our own desire to dominate the world around us.
Enlightened, the mind rejects superstition and animism so that it may
dominate the disenchanted world of objects. As other humans also come to be
seen as such objects, they become factory-fabricated products. This is the
great gift of scientific/technological rationalism. CAE is great to bring up
in this context; I believe that they are among the most superb critics of
technological rationalism. I myself advocate something slightly more along
the lines of technological surrealism, which recognizes the power of the
irrational. Surrealism, by the way, strikes me as one of the very best sorts
of modernism, at least in some ways, as does the critical theory of the
Frankfurt School, though I might have to conclude that the very best sort of
modernism is postmodernism.

>>>>>>>>>phil:
I need some clarification here. You say that the relation between
modernism and postmodernism is not dialetical. Then you use dialectical
language to describe the relationship between mod and pomo.

I'm not against the use of dialectic language. What I'd meant to suggest is
that setting up modernism as thesis, postmodernism as its antithesis, and
then this "Generation Flash" or whatever is moving toward the condition of
synthesizing modernism/postmodernism is a mistake. Modernism/postmodernism
are not oppositional. Rather, postmodernism, in my opinion, is the synthesis
of bourgeois realism and its antithesis, modernism. Cervantes' _Don Quixote_
is a great example of this.

>>>>>>>>>phil:
Is there a possibility of using the word "new" in a contingent
(postmodern) way?

Why should we have to? And why equate the contingent with the postmodern? To
me it's redundant, as postmodernism is new-modernism, but it's modernism
that had finally gotten over its obsession with the new. It just reeks of
ruptures and breaks, discoveries and ideals, the novel of all things. New
modernism, new generation (ad slogan), new aesthetics (come again?), new age
..... oh brother (where art thou?).

>>>>>>>>>phil:
Not arguing, just engaging.

Me too!
-=Trace

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