The City
This work is aimed at a broad analysis of the relationship between the everyday life and post-modernism and contemporary art. The purpose of this work is to identify the impact of the post-modernism and the contemporary art on the everyday life of society and vice versa.
Before considering in what way Postmodernism and Contemporary Art fins a situation in the everyday life of society, it is necessary to begin with an analysis of the very concepts of "post-modernism" and "contemporary art". Postmodernism is a complex, multidimensional, and intensively developing movement of the modern philosophical and socio-humanitarian thought of the West, a kind of response to the significant changes taking place in the world culture in the last third of the 20th century.
The Postmodernism outlined in the last third of the 20th century is a shift in the cultural consciousness of the Western world (after the "modern" or "contemporary"); it is the ideological and artistic currents that overcome "modernity", which, however, is understood in different ways: as rationalism of modern times, as faith in progress, based on scientific knowledge, and as a literary experiment of the second half of the 19th century, as the vanguard in the art of 10-20s of the 20th century (Fiske, 1996, p. 43).
Postmodernism is a designation of the era, state of consciousness; it is a variation of culture and philosophical paradigm of the second half of the 20thcentury. Postmodernism can be viewed as a special type of philosophy that focuses on the formation of the living space in which the main values are freedom in all, the spontaneity of human activity, and the game start. Postmodern consciousness is aimed at denying any kind of norms and traditions - ethical, aesthetic, methodological, etc., on the refusal of the authorities of any rank, starting from the state, the great national idea, moral paradigms and ending with the rules of human behavior in communicating with others (Fischer, Graham, 2014, p.29). Postmodernism (as a worldview) has a direct relationship with the daily life of each person. Also, it is associated with the production of contemporary art. The Postmodernism is the driving force of modern art; it has connection with the daily life of society. Perhaps that is the daily life and its principles that have led to the emergence of postmodernism and contemporary art (Strinati, 1993, pp. 359-360).
The world is no longer stable, orderly, and hierarchical; it does not guarantee stability in the future. An anxiety expresses the attitude of modern man in a greater degree. The semantic pattern of the European humanity has collapsed. All the meanings flowed and vanished, disappeared between edges and borders. Good and evil have become mutually reciprocal. Evil has become transparent in general. Civil society’s structures now are blurred where they have recently developed (in the West), and may not return where they have destroyed (post-communist countries). The democratic procedures are increasingly becoming camouflaged. The boundaries of liberal democracy of today are centered at the tightening of ‘order’. The total power over nature turns into total control over a man. Economists write about a new division of the world, now in ‘virtual post-economics of North’ and ‘underground economy of the South’ (McHale, 2013, p. 362).
The reason for the presentation of modern intellectual elite has found its own limits; methodological skepticism destroys the installation of modern philosophical, social, cultural, psychological and historical thought. Scientism and progressivism, faith in science and progress, written on the banner of Modern Times and the Enlightenment, inspires no longer. The ideological framework of this era is increasingly flouted not only by the elite thinkers, as it was in the first half of the 20th century.
Intellectuals who wrote about postmodernism, the exhaustion of the project ‘Big Modernity’, and postmodern, were not heard by the crowd, but could have rejoiced over the present time. Their ideas and moods picked up the psychology of the masses. While intellectuals have tried to understand the symptoms of the new phenomena, the mass human life is rapidly changing. Feeling of impending chaos, social and cultural instability, became the property of the masses (Smith, 2003, p.93). The world writhes at the bifurcation point, and all the optimism for its future megaprojects seems futile and therefore useless.
In the social sphere, postmodernism corresponds to a consumer society (Nielsen, Pedersen, 2011, pp. 566-567). All its characteristics appear amorphous, vague and fuzzy. There is no clearly defined social class structure. The level of consumption, mainly material, serves the main criterion of division into social strata, between which there is no significant opposition. It is a society of universal conformity and compromise (UNGUREANU-ATĂNĂSOAIE, 2014, pp. 122-123). It is very difficult to apply the concept of "the people" as their place is taken by some kind of a faceless mass, ‘electorate’. The same can be said about the intelligentsia: it gave way to intellectuals and professionals. The number of such persons has increased many times and became a huge, but their socio-political and moral role in society has become almost invisible (Mirchandani, 2005, 90). If intellectuals inspired earlier and led the people to the Bastille, now they make a management career. Modern intellectuals claim to be opinion leaders no longer, contenting the execution of more modest functions. According to J.-F. Lyotard, Jean-Paul Sartre was the last ‘big intellectual’ who believed in a kind of ‘just cause’ for which was worth fighting for. Today such illusions would not have any reason to exist. Hence, the name of one of the books by J.-F. Lyotard is ‘The ‘Tomb’ of the Intellectual.’
Our time has failed with geniuses. It needs a great creative gift to say something, because one can say the same about anything with much more modest talents. In fact, the era will just suffers from the lack of talent; all the gifted people wither in this world. Nowadays, it is better to be a third-Augustin than primary herald of the spirit of something is. Everyone recognizes that philosophy is in its deep crisis, the thought came to a standstill; an era of epigonism and decline has come (Gurevich, 2014, pp.30-32).
In post-modern society, ‘yuppies’ become a very typical and common figure, which means ‘a young professional citizen.’ This is a successful member of the middle class, devoid of any intellectual complexes; they entirely accept the convenience of the modern civilization, they know how to enjoy life, but not too confident in their well-being. It embodies a definite decision coming from Rousseau’s dispute between a city and a country, i.e. a life should be considered moral and clean. ‘Yuppie’ is a clear preference for the city. Even more common is the figure of ‘zombie’, which is a wholly programmed being deprived of personal qualities, incapable of independent thought. It represents a mass person in every sense; it is often compared to a VCR connected to the TV, without which it loses its vitality.
Postmodern society loses interest in not only great and sublime aims, but also in ones that are more modest. The goal is no longer a value. According to the French philosopher Paul Ricœur, today there is a ‘hypertrophy of means and atrophy of goals.’ The reason is the disappointment in ideals and values, the disappearance of the future, which turned out to be ‘stolen’. All this leads to increased cynicism and nihilism. The cynicism of a postmodern person is manifested in the rejection of many previous standards and values. Ethics in the postmodern society gives way to aesthetics, taking the form of hedonism. A postmodern person refuses self-limiting and even more austerity. They prefer to live one day, not worrying about tomorrow. Moreover, this success should not come at the end of life, but as soon as possible. Some authors call this ideology a ‘soft ideology’. It is neither left nor right. It peacefully coexists with what is used to be considered as incompatible.
Such a situation is largely due to the fact that postmodern ideology is completely devoid of a sustainable inner core. Postmodernism has destroyed the prestige and authority of the science, but it did not offer anything in return, complicating the problem of human orientation in the world.
In general, a person’s world of postmodernism can be defined as neofatalistic. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that people do not see themselves as the masters of their destiny. Apparently, that is why all sorts of countless lotteries are so widespread today. The whole life of a postmodern man seems sometimes a continuous lottery.
This is also evidenced in an unprecedented dominance of fashion, which is known to be capricious, fleeting and unpredictable. Some Western authors consider fashion not only as the defining core of the culture, but also the entire post-modern life. It performs the role that religion, mind, philosophy, and science have played before. Researchers of the postmodern society’s culture noted that the purpose of the new generation became the consumption, including a consumption of brands as sensory images (Clarke, 1997, pp. 218-220).
Basically, a person is seen as a multidimensional open system; a rational and unconscious symbiosis that has a universal ability to transform (virtually).Society has become multi-dimensional, "loose", and unstable. The new reality is associated with a variety of virtual (field) realities, where ‘everything is possible’; it is capable of reconciliation and mutual replacement. The artistic practice leads steadily to a mythologizing of consciousness, pluralism, parody, and rejection of absolute criteria. A lifestyle merged with a creative method in art; a bright example of which is Salvador Dali (Hamel-Schwulst, 1995, p. 173).
Nowadays, the technological areas are defined by the parameters of the new information, post-industrial society. The moral sphere is characterized by the rejection of absolute criteria, pluralization moral attitudes, and the emergence of moral ‘ghetto’. The religious sphere is characterized by a crisis of universal (global) religions, the emergence of ‘personal’ and malignant religions, mysticism without a deity, and the advent of evolutionary theology (Luzhkov, 2014, p. 335).
THE WAY THE COMPUTER AGE ENGAGED WITH THE HISTORY OF FORMALIST AESTHETICS
Throughout the history of humankind, the art and science interacted everywhere and multifariously (Klein, 1995, p. 276). There are areas in which the art affects technology and production, as well as areas where the process of this interaction is more than natural (an example of such cooperation is the design and architecture). The fact that technology and art are in continuous development states that their interactions are always dynamic. However, critics have identified a number of periods in history when the nature of this interaction changed qualitatively (Ticineto, 1992, p. 363). The immediate reaction and reflection of the arts to the technological developments and their implications had occurred in the recent period. This is the case with the use of certain technologies in order to create new forms of art. For example, a photography.
It is obvious that in the last two decades people have been experiencing a fundamental change. If one considers the prospects for the use of technology in order to create new forms of art, the progress in computer technology offers far more opportunities, even in comparison with such revolutionary events as the invention of photography or cinema (Rinehart, 2009, pp. 1883-1886). This is confirmed by the fact that many people who are able to become online artists, who use in their work new technologies, usually are far away from the traditional technical education and have not reached yet the level of the technical competence, which is necessary for the realization of their own artistic potential through new technical capabilities. It is obvious that a certain amount of new creative possibilities can be drawn from this rapidly growing area, but before, it is necessary to spend a sufficient amount of effort for education and support artists seeking to learn new things. People hope that the result skills obtained by the artist properly would reflect in their works (Ascott, 2000, p. 105).
The result of the technological revolution and the domination of the computer era led to the dramatic changes in all spheres of human activity, including the arts. New technologies have influenced the artistic environment and, as a result, a new phenomenon of art - digital art (Shintani, Kara, 2010, pp. 90-93). The digital art is such kind of artistic activity, the conceptual and productive base of which is determined by the digital environment. This arising neoplasm is actively discussed by experts from a wide range of related areas, such as art, culture, science and technology. The advent of digital arts led to the emergence of new artistic genres and forms. Such areas as, for example, three-dimensional animation, virtual reality, interactive systems, and the Internet have found unprecedented creative capabilities. The digital technology has also influenced an already established art form, i.e. film, two-dimensional animation, video art, music, helping to create new sub-genre (Shanken, 2002, pp. 436-438).
Basically, a use of the language of digital culture and the emergence of digital arts countered immediately the rest of art - the traditional, which is referred to the analog to digital. Digital Art is an open system; therefore, it develops in the context of the art and is actively cooperating with analog art by providing an influence on it. So, the most traditional art form, i.e. painting, drawing, sculpture, were influenced by digital arts first. Holographic images that mimic painting, sculpture, relief, even architecture, began to appear very soon. The art media influenced actively on the synthetic art - happening, performance (Ascott, 2000, pp.170).
Firstly, Web-design and VJing are closer to the salon art, with which they find a mutual understanding and fusion. Web-design and VJing use artistic means as is typical for traditional salon art, avoiding the conceptual independence and subject according to the wishes of a customer. Web-design is often confused with the net art, which has nothing to do with it and really is the know-how that has arisen as a result of digital technology, but not from the visual field and communications. Network art today is not limited to the interactive Internet projects, but it goes into reality, creating networks that bring people together and new horizontal means of communication from person to person, bypassing the propaganda of the machine to the media. In this field of art, ‘analog and digital’ experience the most interesting collisions. What began as a purely digital, net art, has evolved paradoxically into an analog. This has affected greatly such phenomena as actionism and happening (flash mob). It is noteworthy that the art of nicknames and ‘virtuals’ is connected naturally with the radical analog art, which exists only at the moment of its creation and requires the immediate presence of author / viewer / participant (Mirzoeff, 2002, pp. 237-242).
CONTEMPORARY ART IN DAILY LIFE AND CYBERNATICS
Nowadays, the experienced horrors of World War II changed radically people’s views on life, shattering the old beliefs and traditional social fabric. These changes have affected many aspects of life, but never appeared so clearly and visibly as they did in the art world. Contemporary art has a direct relationship with postmodernism. Many researchers believe that postmodernism causes the contemporary art, because if postmodernism is a worldview, the world is what creates art. Keeping pace with the changing world, the artists of the postwar years took a new look on reality. The results of these changes have become the highly controversial works; many of them seem to be completely out of art and real life. But, people will be able to understand it today (and even its most bizarre forms) with a closer look at the post-war period and realization of the fact that there had been a rethinking of the content of art.
Therefore, contemporary art is a living matter in contrast to the classical, which perfect forms are ‘frozen’ for centuries. It is something that is evolving constantly, looking for new forms of creating new trends and trying to mix different genres. Modern art is something that is happening here and now; something that is created in this particular moment, trying to reflect and meet the taste and mood of those who live in the present. But sometimes it takes such forms that not everyone can agree with them; it is not considered an art but a bullying or blasphemy. This concerns especially the artistic events and performances. After all, it is also a feature that virtually everyone can try to create an object of art of any available material now. However, what happens in the end - a masterpiece, deformity, or nothing - is unknown.
However, if people evaluate the contemporary art from the perspective of postmodern belief, it is possible to follow the same spiritual decline in the works of many artists. Postmodernism is characterized by a lack of faith in something, the negation of everything that mattered before. The same situation can be observed in contemporary art.
Therefore, humanity does not believe in a divine principle, which had been prompting hundreds of geniuses to create masterpieces of art in the last millennium. The digital era and cybernetics substituted the divine principle; they try to organize the art by turning it into a science of art. Most people approve of scientific and technical progress, but is it useful to create art? On the one hand, modern art cannot fully exist without cybernetics and digital technologies. On the other hand, cybernetics makes art something entirely different. Contemporary art is not the cultural values, which is inherent in classical art. How comes it? Firstly, there is too much of this kind of art everywhere, and secondly, it does not have a ‘soul’. Several centuries ago, artists had to create the perfect shape to strive for excellence in order to get honor from the people and critics. Not every person could call himself an artist or a creator. They should acquire certain skills to become a master of their craft. The artists had to wait almost all their life in order to win an international recognition. Many geniuses were killed, burned, thrown in jail, defending his idea.
In conclusion, one does not need a talent to become an artist today. They need powerful friends, lucrative dating, and good professional PR campaign. If negative aspects of a person were concealed in the ‘past’ art, today the entire negative, which is inherent in a human being, is imposed on public display. Contemporary art reflects the situation that has arisen in modern society and the situation, in most cases, is upsetting, shocking, or causing laughter. Definitely, there are many drawbacks in contemporary art, but there are good sides too, which could possibly cover all the negative ones. Today, there is a huge number of artists who are able to create great art works with the help of the digital technology, cybernetics, and programming. Perhaps, the high point of art for the people is the recreation of themselves (Hayles, 1999).
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