Aspects of Late Postmodernism

There have been many attempts to describe or categorize a seemingly evident paradigm shift in Arts, Culture and Society, which has moved beyond the category of "postmodern". Some authors have described early postmodern works of Art (for example), as being indecipherable for different reasons (Susan Sontag). The groundbreaking work by these groups represents the beginning of new ways of communicating content and ideas. The first attempts at expression in a new form are crude, and limited in vocabulary. It's only with historical experience, that artists learn to use the newer language to communicate in subtle ways, with a heightened sense of nuance and a more developed vocabulary. Artists, whose work has built on the work of early postmodernism, and have developed the language to the point where their work is (arguably) more "decipherable", might include many living artists working today. Some of my personal favorites include Bruce Nauman, William Kentridge, Kara Walker, Richard Serra, Louise Bourgeois and many others.

An attempt to define a cultural state that is completely beyond postmodernism is premature. While the qualities that exist now are quite different than those that were dominant 10 or 20 years ago, the condition seems to have taken on a more acute stage of postmodernism.

Earlier postmodernism exhibited some of the following traits:

1. Global Village (Marshall McLuhan)
   
2. Viewer of artworks is a passive reader of signs and signifiers
   
3. Cultural and semiotic environment resembles the psychological state of schizophrenic personality disorder (Lacan - The New School)
   
4. Viewer's identity is related metaphorically to scenarios expressed in artworks
5. The artist is a replicator of content
6. Populations are managed by international paramilitary organizations

Recent developments in postmodernism present a slight paradigm shift, but not a drastic change from this scenario:

1. Global Village (Marshall McLuhan)
   
2. Viewer of artworks is an active replicator of content - viewer is now a "user"
3. Cultural and semiotic environment resembles the psychological state of narcissistic personality disorder
4. User's identity is assimilated into a semiotic environment and regurgitated back as part of the simulacra of popular culture
5. The artist creates scenarios or environments that engage the "viewer's/user's" decision making process
6. Populations are managed by the use of information and entertainment media

I won't get into extensive explanations on postmodernism, because there is more than enough literature on the subject. Given the nature of what content currently exists, it seems that an assessment of the present situation, in some kind of general form may be due. I'll try to describe the differences as I see them.

the Role of the Viewer
Some writers note that in earlier postmodernism, that the viewer is an active reader of content. I differ with them in terms of referring to the viewer as "active". While compared to the modern era, the viewer had to be more engaged in order to gain an understanding of the work, the level of activity this required was significantly less than it is now. Users, in the larger scope of cultural communications, are more active than they have ever been before. The type of activity in which they are engaged is different, however. The earlier postmodern scenario engaged the viewer in an active pursuit of synthesizing and following the string of concepts presented before them. This was a highly cognitive action. The level of activity that has changed, surrounds the fact that "users" participate in a form of the creative process. Contemporary artworks engage (what Richard Serra has called) the "behavioral space" of the viewer; making the viewer an active participant in the "performance" of an artwork. Viewers are continually made unwitting participants in works of art. To use the example of Serra's sculpture, the work becomes a performance piece, a sculptural form designed to provoke or invite "user" participation; making the viewer a participant in the performance of the work. This becomes the environment that the artist has orchestrated. The content in publishing, popular film and television depends more and more heavily on marketing research data, which is perpetually harvested from an array of internet-based social utilities (data given voluntarily and unwittingly by the user).

from Schizophrenia to Narcissism
One of the scenarios is the link between the mediated "Global Village" and schizophrenia. If the scenario of the mediated environment becomes interactive, using electronic media, the situation is transformed. The condition known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder mirrors the cultural environment resulting from this transformation. The earlier form of postmodernism, featured a perpetual series of content snippets that were never meaningfully tied together; the simulacra described by Baudrillard. From its inception, this media diet focused almost exclusively on propagandistic concepts related to "celebrity" and "opulence". As Jerry Mander wrote about television in Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, "it makes [you] watch it", referring to the hypnotic state induced by staring directly at pulsations of phosphorescent light emitted by the CRT screen. The messages of "celebrity" and "opulence" were woven into our cultural fabric in a simultaneous rhythm for over 60 years. With the propagation of personal computers and the internet, the culture industry (Theodor Adorno) has expanded to wide area networks whose viewers are behaviorally active "users". This has made it possible for virtually anyone to contribute to the popular culture environment. While in the hypnotic state described by Mander, the viewer accepts the validity of the content conveyed. When users upload any content, it has the appeal of instant credibility, via mediation hypnosis. This environment, combined with repeated messages of "celebrity" and "opulence" lead to the recent development in the cultural and semiotic media environment; a shift from schizophrenia to a more pronounced narcissism.

The Mayo Clinic describes patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder as exhibiting these qualities:

• Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
• Exaggerating your achievements or talents
• Expecting constant praise and admiration
• Believing that you're special and acting accordingly
• Failing to recognize other people's emotions and feelings
• Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
• Taking advantage of others
• Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
• Being jealous of others
• Believing that others are jealous of you

There are other qualities exhibited by NPD patients. Social networking websites succeed based on how well they manage narcissistic tendencies in their target user groups. Developers and software engineers know that people will work for more "social status", and the result will be that they will be able to gather more reliable statistical marketing data, if engineered correctly. Some of the particulars about the semiotic environment of narcissism are explored in the section "the user's identity".

the User's Identity
Previously, the viewer related to works of art, which provided a metaphorical mirror for the self and the world to which we might or might not relate. With a mediated environment of unrelated images, it was close to impossible to navigate systems of signs and signifiers, in order to derive meaning from them. As our societies became used to this environment, the semiotic environment became more understandable. We could begin making sense of artworks again. We still have the mediated environment (which is much more mediated). However, we are now feeding our personal iconography directly into the semiotic system, as well as content about our lives, real and imagined. The work of amateurs is juxtaposed with that of professionals. Amateurs are given templates with which they can display their media. The juxtaposition with the professional or celebrity reinforces the power or status fantasy, or the exaggeration of achievement. As stated before, there is the instant sense of validity given to the amateur content, when placed in the same context as that of professionals. Voting on the amateur content, the push to display banality, forming "groups" and requests to "join" them, all reflect narcissistic qualities.

Much of this can often be seen as the equivalent of scribbling some idiotic drivel on a piece of paper, going to the museum and taping it to the wall, while making claims to have exhibited at the MoMA. Plato's "Cave Allegory" provides an excellent portrayal of this predicament. The enlightened one who has left the cave, comes back to see that the prisoners have taken to giving each other awards for guessing which shadow will pass against the cave wall next.

An advantage to the immediacy with which users can upload content, is that it has become easier for individuals to gain recognition for legitimate scholarly and critical work.

the Role of the Artist
The artist has taken a step into the role of authority on content and social commentary. Earlier postmodernism was described as exhibiting a sort of unabashed, and vicarious exploration of unrelated symbols. "Anything goes, and it doesn't matter anyway" is an interpretation of postmodern art making that I often hear. There is more and more evidence to suggest, that the role of the artist is shifting from that of the "replicator of symbols" to a role of social engineer and/or commentator. Artists now develop works that require viewer interaction in order to create the meaning of the work. In fact, I would argue that artworks are designed with the concept of how the viewer/user will interact with the artwork, now more than ever. Artworks take on the incorporation of a wide range of approaches to inviting user interaction. The question then becomes, "How does behavioral interaction by the viewer/user, with creative works, shape how the viewer/user thinks and emotes?" Culture industry and popular media are the most obvious examples. Toy designers study this issue extensively. Video game developers know how this changes the thought process of the user, to such a point that the U.S. military is intimately engaged in the development of combat strategy games (Aaron Ruby, Heather Chaplin, SmartBomb).

Population Management
One of the more disturbing trends in contemporary (recent postmodernist) culture, is the comprehensive effort to suppress the intelligence of populations. The torture, brainwashing and interrogation scenarios from the 1940's through the 80's have been exposed in the news media. But, all of these techniques have already been extrapolated to the wider population as control devices. Governments have a much easier time managing populations by maintaining a cult mentality among constituents and by waging information warfare on their own citizens. The election protests in Iran of 2009 would be a classic example: the Iranian government was blocking and posting disinformation about protest rallies on social networks. Web searches for "Tienanmen Square" are restricted if you live in China. Political party loyalties in the United States are now inseparable from cult mentalities as there seems to be a rabid push for a pseudo-polarization of what is supposed to look like a two party system. This cult mentality is on display as an accepted matter of critical discourse in the "news" media.

In the latter stage of postmodernism, governments needed the military to control their own citizens. We currently attempt to use our military to control the citizens of other countries. In the United States, the last real protest (to my recollection) of a worldwide governmental/economic entity occurred in the late 90's, in Seattle during the World Trade Organization's Ministerial Conference. The protesters were apparently calling for an end to police brutality, fair wages for workers and other similar issues. These messages seem to have emerged from individuals who possessed some understanding of global economics. You were able to find out about these issues just by reading the paper, or watching the news. More recently, in Pittsburgh, we had the G-20 Summit. Most of the media outcry brought forth headlines such as "What is the G-20" and "Peaceful Protests at the G-20 Summit". Coverage by the "local news media" showed protesters wearing masks and strolling down a street, some locals telling the "idiots" to go home. The "news media" didn't convey that the protesters had any grasp on the socioeconomic issues at hand. As a final slap in the face, the President of the United States, thanked the city (a town with 2 major University Campuses) for a very "tranquil" hosting of the summit.

There is more evidence to suggest that debate and discourse surrounding serious macroeconomic and societal issues exists solely as a fictitious narrative in the media. However, this is an aspect of recent postmodernism. This writing isn't an attempt to bring forth a complete overview.

For further information on this subject, writings by the following authors are good resources:

• Fredric Jameson
• Jean Baudrillard
• Theodor Adorno
• Walter Benjamin
• Susan Sontag
• Rosalind Krauss
• Jaques Derrida
• Marshall McLuhan
• Jerry Mander
• Roland Barthes
• Ben Watson
• Naomi Klein
• Harry Stack Sullivan
• Elsa Ronningstam
• Douglas Hofstadter

Populace Fragments

At the time of this writing, “Populace Fragments”, a sculpture comprised of aluminum, resin, wood and some paper assemblage is on view at the Carnegie Museum of Art. The work is included as part of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh 99th Annual Exhibition. The show was curated by Doryun Chong.

I have been working on this idea of developing “construction systems” for the assembly of works using the same parts. The work, currently on display, is a recent incarnation of this concept. Throughout the year, I make castings of joints, which have been molded from a pattern. I also cut pieces of conduit and manufacture other parts. The parts are proportioned in such a way as to allow for a certain degree of flexibility in design during the installation process. Working this way affords me the possibility of indicating volume without developing a mass of material. The referent for this process is contemporary manufacturing and architectural engineering. The question of how the most stability and volume can be attained with the least amount of material, is often posited. Orchestrations in line are usually the answer. The vector typically bears much of the load in any engineering scenario. Line is (arguably) also the most efficient means of expression available to the artist, during the process of drawing.

The process of construction is critical to my own creative practice. When learning scales or chords in music, one builds on previous knowledge. The same is true in programming or any other field. Every facet of society seems dependent on some kind of construction, be it a faulty one or a functioning one.

“Populace Fragments” presents the viewer/user with a three-dimensional grid of constructed lines, with four zoetropes hanging amongst the negative space of the composition. The form resembles that of a large building. These constructions remind me of some of Sol LeWitt’s works, which (as he described them) were based on architectural forms in Manhattan during (I think it was) the 50’s. He stated that many of these buildings were based on the ziggurat form, implying a sense of guardianship; a separation between interior and exterior. Post-Modern architecture can be thought of as sort of a theater of our cultural psyche. In the case of metropolitan buildings, we can see out of them, but we cannot see into them. There is also a sense of isolation leading to insanity, (Schizophrenia) brought on by the idea that one never has to leave the building during a lifetime, in order to survive. This yields the possibility that (as in solitary confinement) the only connection to the outside world, comes from a second-hand media resource. The skyscraper therefore, becomes a crucible of isolation. Three films that beautifully explore this concept are:

• Way Down Town (directed by Gary Burns)


• Me and You and Everyone We Know (directed by Miranda July)


• Schizopolis (directed by Steven Soderbergh)

A reference to this state of affairs is provided via the zoetrope elements. What makes this work a “disjuntive mediation” piece, is that some people are able to see an animated sequence using the zoetropes, and some people can’t. The obfuscating of images, in an exhibition setting is off-putting to most viewers and is generally seen as a fault of the work or exhibition. If the viewer is trying to see images in this work, they have to become a user or participant in a performance. Many viewers seem inclined to interact with works of art, if they haven’t been acclimated to (or tainted by) museum exhibition rules and regulations. The sculpture transforms into a performance piece, when the viewer starts to engage the piece by trying to see images, bending over and blowing on the zoetropes and even sticking their heads inside the negative space of the work.

What is expressed by the construct is that you have a viewer who is engaged in a work that references architecture, who may or may not be trying to view animated images therein, with varying degrees of success. It’s almost like watching the goings on in someone’s living room at night. What you have is a completely voyeuristic metaphor. The inclusion of the zoetrope can be read as a comment on the degree to which our culture is voyeuristic/exhibitionistic: the viewer is viewing and performing at the same time, whether they know it or not. Social networking technologies give us a panopticonic view of how obsessed we are with the arcane details of our personal lives and our compulsion to share our mass stupidity with the entire world. Marketing professionals were smart enough to figure out how to capitalize on our own narcissism.

There are 4 zoetropes in this work. Each animated sequence is a reference to the alchemical elements: fire, air, earth and water. These depictions are comments on how our society relates to these elements:

• Fire - A gun barrell fires into the air.


• Air - Smoke billows out of a smokestack.


• Earth - Food flies into a subject's mouth and then is immediately excreted.


• Water - An eye stares into space, while dark orbs crawl on a subject's forehead.

The Associated Artists of Pittsburgh 99th Annual is on view at the Carnegie Museum of Art until November 8, 2009

Hitting the G20-Spot

In September 2009, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania hosts the G-20 summit. Fe Gallery in the district of Lawrenceville stages an exhibition at this time called “G-Spot”. The artists involved were part of the Visionary Arts Festival, which, was organized by Alberto Almarza.

Estlack Sensory Products’ contribution to the show is a portrait of Milton Friedman. It is a mural, painted directly on the wall, with a sculptural element. This work is part of a series of disjunctive mediation works (social commentaries) that are aimed at topical subjects. The work contains an acronym “MF”, which can stand for a variety of words. It could be the subject’s initials. It could stand for “monetary fund” as in IMF. Alternatively, it could be used as an insult, as in “motherfucker”. All of these associations are intended to be read in this work.

The composition is a montage of a variety of elements. There is an official portrait (photograph) of Friedman. There is iconography from United States currency, in the form of Victorian style framing treatments and typography. There is a protruding phallus emerging from the wall, and painted splatters in pink throughout the composition. When the viewer observes the entire work, the combined shapes resemble a sperm cell. There is an array of sexual and political messages throughout the work.

Etymology

Milton Friedman was an economist and leader of what was called the “New Chicago School” of economics. Recently, much talk has been made about “predatory lending” practices with regard to the housing market and the worldwide “economic crisis”. If you could extrapolate this phenomenon, and apply it to relationships between world economies during the 60’s through the 80’s, you would have a similar scenario. Milton Friedman’s ideas and strategies were at the core.

Economists emerging from the new Chicago school, found positions “helping” economically depressed societies to find their way out of the economic hardships they were facing. These were countries like Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, Poland and so on. You might recall that a year or two ago, Bolivia’s President refused to accept economic help from the United States. Perhaps the forthcoming remarks will shed some light on that situation. At any rate, the Chicago School’s method of “help” involved developing an economic “plan” (which was usually described by its proponents as a bomb) to “help grow” the economy of these countries. Here’s how it typically worked:

1. 3rd World government takes a loan (with interest) from the IMF or World Bank


2. 3rd World government agrees to lift sanctions on American corporate activity in 3rd World country


3. American corporations set up factories in 3rd World country


4. American factory attracts hungry and starving workers


5. American corporation pays the workers just enough to keep them coming back to work
   
6. 3rd World country workers organize and protest against their government’s economic plans


7. 3rd World government turns into a fascist dictatorship


8. 3rd World government begins terror campaign against workers to keep them under control


9. 3rd World government is left poorer than they were before the IMF loan

For more details, here are a few good resources:

• The Shock Doctrine – Naomi Klein


• The Real News


• The Anti Capitalistic Mentality – Ludwig Von Mises


• Capitalism and Freedom – Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman has been quoted as stating that “economies flourish, when individuals have the freedom to pursue their aims” (very loosely quoted). This makes the “free market” sound like a very good thing. But, we need to pay very close attention to the word “individuals”. This is during a time when corporations are legally classified as individuals. Let’s get this straight. A corporation is made up of many individuals. If a real individual does something criminal, they might be brought through the judicial system. If that individual claims that one of the other “individuals” within their self told them to commit the crime, they can plea insanity (as in disassociative identity disorder or multiple personality). Therefore, some individuals (corporations included) have limited liability via the insanity plea.

Correlations between sexual reproduction, disease and the macroeconomic scenarios described previously are made throughout this work. Like a sperm into an egg, the economic “plans” developed by the Chicago School were inserted into these societies and exploded, releasing a whole set of programmatic outcomes, like the genetic code during the reproductive process. The head of the sperm is the portrait frame from the 1 Dollar Bill with Friedman’s head directly in the center.

Emerging from Milton Friedman’s nose is a wooden, painted phallus. The phallus is painted with bubbles and wrinkles, to suggest disease, warts or age. The placement also suggests both the subculture of experimental sexuality and circus clowns. These associations are read as being comic, exciting or disturbing. Depending on whom you ask, people have these mixed reactions to clowns and experimental sex. Therefore, these subjects are generally not addressed publicly in American culture. Clowns tend to be associated exclusively with public entertainment for children. Experimental sex tends to be associated exclusively with private entertainment for adults. The combination of the two sets up an uncomfortable comparison in our cultural psychology.

There are pink paint splatter textures cascading down from the portrait. These suggest bodily fluids emerging from the subject’s nose, or the phallus. These splatter shapes also form the flagellum of the sperm shape. The color is intended to suggest excitement, celebration, orgasm or sarcasm. It’s linked symbolically to the head of the phallus, implying disease being spread around and making a mess; very much like volatile economies such as those of the United States.

The acronym “MF” is derived from a 1 Dollar bill. The typography is unmistakable as that which is used on American currency. The “motherfucker” association can be interpreted in a variety of ways. We often use this language to insult someone. Symbolically, one can make the jump to “mother earth”, seeing as how Friedman’s economics have played a pivotal role in the degradation of human lives in many cultures. Our offense at this term must relate to the archetypal mothers, such as Mother Earth or the Virgin Mary. It points to the absurdity in western culture where sexual expression is treated with shame or embarrassment. (For further examples of this, Joseph Campbell makes many comparisons between the treatment of natural processes in many different cultures)

My father offered an eastern perspective on this term once, when someone called him a “motherfucker”. He laughed and said “they must know me”. He is a “motherfucker” after all: he is my biological father.

Billy is Tested in D.C.

Recently, I participated in an Exhibition called "In the Flesh II" at the Torpedo Factory’s “Target Gallery”. As I understood it, the curatorial position was to highlight the various ways contemporary artists were exploring the implications of figurative art.

This exhibition was reviewed by Shauna Lee Lange, who seems to be the leading art commentator in the area. The review (click here for full version) illustrates the problem many journalists face; the overall pressure to write voluminous commentary without the time to thoroughly review that which you are to review. Many resort to sound bytes and Wikipedia for the needed nuggets of information. Frank Zappa was often quoted as saying (of Music journalism) that it was "written by people who couldn't write, for people who couldn't read". Fortunately, unlike folks like Anna Politkovskaya and Shi Tao, Art critics and Music critics don't run the risk of assassination or imprisonment for exercising their right to misinterpret or gloss-over the facts.

I stopped subscribing to ArtNEWS, because all it was telling me about were some factoids that collectors and their ilk wanted me to hear. Periodically, you hear this kind of commentary leak out into different sectors of the regionalist art sphere. Let's face it. Art is not an easy way to make a buck. So, sometimes you need a representative to say, this stuff is stylish, this stuff ain't (er I mean, isn't). Most of the artists I know are interested in making enough coinage to keep their concepts afloat. So, the ArtNEWS target audience tends to be collectors, and people making "Art" for collectors. Headlines read something like "the Neo-Expressionism average is up 3.7 points this week” or something like that. I'm not in that target audience.

When you peruse the commentary written by representatives of the illumined ones, you try to get an idea for their frame of reference. “From what philosophical framework are they drawing their conclusions?“ is usually a question at the forefront of my mind, for example. I had a certain degree of difficulty in ascertaining what aesthetic position led the author to her conclusions regarding “Billy the Test Subject” and the curator’s decision in it’s entry into the exhibition. The statement below quoted from Shauna Lee Lange's essay: “target gallery’s in the flesh II: hands, eyes and upholstery?” The title of the article and quotation (below) are pasted directly from the source. So, missing capitalizations in the title and the clumsy syntax do exist in the published document.

Pennsylvania’s Tom Estlack offers gypsum cement poplar Billy the Test Subject. It was at this unfortunate point that I started to get aggravated. There is nothing wrong with Estlack’s construction of a gothic-headed zombie-creature and it certainly has its own audience, however I could not for the life of me make the connection to the show’s theme. A disappointment only in that regard, Estlack is not well served in this venue.

Evidently, her readership must be quite concerned about her emotional state, at any given point. To state, without provocation, that "there's nothing wrong" with something is a passive-aggressive way of implying that that you think there's something wrong with something. I also think I detected a hidden slam at the visual art idiom known as Pop-Surrealism. So, any of you losers who read Juxtapoz magazine or browse DeviantArt, and are reading this right now, check me out on Facebook, twitter and on my homepage and see if you'd like my other stuff! It's totally gnarly dude! The author also couldn’t figure out what the connection to the exhibition’s theme was, despite the fact that there was a figure right in the middle of the god-damned thing. Is this the leading voice in aesthetics in the D.C./Alexandria metro area? (Another review of this exhibition can be found here) She may have had a point about being better served by another venue. The Thai restaurant a few blocks from Target Gallery has some killer pad thai.

Now. What’s the piece all about?

As you can see by the photograph, the work is a cylinder with a modeled and cast head emerging from the top. "Billy the Test Subject" (as you might have guessed by the title) deals with testing on animals. The head looks somewhat human, suggesting a connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. The size of the head, in proportion to the cylinder would indicate that the figure's body is concealed within the cylinder. The cylinder has a brushed metal-looking texture. The appearance of this form is intended to resemble machinery. Consequently, when the two elements are juxtaposed, one might have the impression that the figure is trapped inside a mechanistic form. This refers to the entrapment of both human and animal in the mechanism of industry. The referents in this work are the mechanisms of scientific experimentation and testing.

The modeling of the head is intended to blur distinctions between human and animal forms. This is a direct reference to industrialized genetic experimentation being conducted on various animal and plant species. The singular reference in this instance is ANDi, the surviving (out of a number of failed attempts) rhesus monkey who had foreign proteins introduced into his DNA. The intent for this kind of work and other experiments (such as product testing and vivisection) is to study virus pathology. These practices are inhumane and are corrupting forces in our society. The human-other-animal hybrid form is a reminder of our psychological and spiritual connection to the non-human animals. It is also a grim reminder that scientists are actively pursuing the development of patented genetic hybrids whose genetic codes match those of humans, closely enough to achieve "accurate test results".

Should we depend on our cultural leaders to be aware of current events? I used to think so. But, being "aware" of current events is a problem, unto itself. We'll have to bring the ghosts of Jean Baudrillard and Marshall McLuhan in on that conversation. We can’t magically sprinkle pixie dust on a situation, have a glass of wine and watch our troubles disappear. Art is where our opinions are shaped and our imaginations are tested.

Special thanks to Andrea Pollan, Mary Cook and Allison Nance for their work on this show and the opportunity to participate.