new media kitchen
nmk-atölye

31.1.2000

new media kitchen will deal with net-art applications of contemporary art works and of new music involved to multi media forms...all media art areas like photography, video art and computer enhanced net art getting based on artistic creativity...all direct participations at the nmk workshops and to the multi media experimentations will give one new perpectives and better understanding on art today...also net and media art news from many web sites will be regularly get communicated to you via e-mail <spq@turk.net>packages and as the yet under construction web site http://www.newmediakitchen.com 

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nmk-atölye'de net art uygulamalarinda
zorunlu bir ussal seçenek  dogrultusunda
cagdas sanat ortami ve günümüz  müzigi
birlikteliginde  çok ortamli -multi media-
etkinliklere yer verilmektedir.yeni teknolojinin daha özgün yaraticiliga gereksinimi siz sanatçilardan gelecek olumlu katkiya dogrudan bagimlidir...standart
yöntemlerden öteye sanatçilarin türlü deneyimleriyle ve bunlara gerekli bilinçli yönlendirmeyle bir taraftan teknolojiye ve aygitlara özgün yaklasma ve de yabancilasmaya set çekme
gündeme girebilecektir,,,
ayrica web sayfalarindan derlenecek gerek medya-sanat gerekse bolca sanat haberleri e-mail gönderileri seklinde ilgililere  güncel bilisim yoluyla ulasacaktir...

bu web sitelerinde net art konulari ilginizi çekecektir
multi media communication by the route of interdisciplinary connections may become interactive as we target it

http://www.e-flux.com
http://www.fakeshop.com
http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/i/ga2750
http://www.emaf.de
http://www.artbyte.com
http://www.metamute.com/subs
http://www.medienkunstpreis.de
http://www.siggraph.org/s2000
http://www.rhizome.org
http://www.asci.org
http://switch.sjsu.edu
http://www.ctheory.concordia.com
http://www.artonpaper.com
http://www.unix.oit.umass.edu/~ymadra
http://www.movingimagegallery.com/flashcall.htm
http://www.thing.net/dooley
http://www.clubmedia.de
http://www.bilgi.edu.tr
http://wollongong.starway.net.au/~mezandwalt/
http://www.terminal-nyc.com
http:///www.cavs.mit.edu
http://www.walkerart.com

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Larry Solomon

"Postmodernism" is a concept in flux. The nature and description of postmodernism has changed over the past few decades as the movement has developed. Scholars dedicated to the subject generally do not agree on a definition. Very different concepts have been proposed in deconstructionist theory (Derrida, Lacan), politics (Foucault), social theory (Baudrillard), architecture (Jencks), literature (Barthes), philosophy (Rorty), etc. Some of these theories are European in origin and reflect on what is primarily an American phenomenon, where the practice is focused. The result has been a mishmash of deconstructivist verbiage that is barely comprehensible, even to those who are considered be postmodern practitioners.

I do not intend to launch into a critique of the literature or even a summary of it, since it is only likely to confuse rather than illuminate. Instead, I hope to give a simplified and straightforward view of some basic concepts that have made us aware that we are no longer living in the Modern age, with a modernist aesthetic. Modernism has become a relic of the past. Thus, "we are living in a new world, a world that does not know how to define itself by what it is, but only by what it has ceased to be"^.Something new and different is going on, and because the practice is yet evolving, it is difficult to define. This change of paradigm is what is now called "postmodernism", which has become the accepted rubric.

The paradigm shift of postmodernism was seeded by two potent factors: 1. a disenchantment with Enlightenment dogma, and 2. an emerging global culture.

The Enlightenment, an era of faith in reason and science as the source of truth, began with the Renaissance and reached its last phase in modernism of the early twentieth century. The focus of power during this period turned away from the Church to an aristocracy and monarchs who served, on the one hand, as the patrons of the arts, and on the other as masters and conquerors. They supported a line of social and scientific theories from Kant and Hegel to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The last pronounced that God was dead, and that a race of supermen were destined to rule the world. These and other ideas, such as Darwinian evolution, the "survival of the fittest", and racism, were applied to social theory and fed an increasing aristocratic arrogance that led to European imperialism, colonialism, and two World Wars.

The modern age of the early twentieth century was the final stage of the European Enlightenment. It represented the culmination of centuries of "progress", knowledge, and culture, The Enlightened world was a world ruled by monarchs and dictators enforcing a class system and a belief in the progress of civilization from "primitive" beginnings. It was a time of reductive science and master codes, an age of exploration, conquest, imperialism, and colonization. Conquest came to be justified as a part of the natural principle of "the survival of the fittest". The children of the Enlightenment embraced a belief in a Newtonian world that would be determined and mastered completely when or if only our powers of deduction and induction were applied to the fullest, and if only we could remain objective and detached. Abstract theories were superior to subjective observations. Every effect had a cause, and every thing had a reason. The universe was a huge deterministic machine created by a single god, the Christian god.

The twentieth century, which is often claimed to be the most civilized ever, was, instead, the cruelest and bloodiest in human history. Over fifty million lives were destroyed by World War II alone. An atomic bomb was built that enabled destruction on an unprecendented scale, on the order of tens to hundreds of thousands of people in a single blow, rather than the relative few who were killed in previous wars. Such was the culmination of an Enlightened world. Both World Wars were instigated by haughty dictators and conquerers who believed their "race" was superior to all others, that they deserved a greater share of the world, or even the world itself. The second war was begun by a dictator whose rule was so monstrous that no other can even remotely claim to have led to so many deaths. Yet he was followed and supported by a nation of people who were considered to be at the peak of Western civilization.

The world that led to these catastrophes came to an end after the two bloodiest wars in human history. Empires fell. Dictators and monarchs were deposed. Colonialism ended. The faith in authority had been shaken, as it was in elitist posturing, in hierarchical class systems, and in the idea of progress itself. Even science was changed. This was the beginning of perhaps the biggest paradigm shift in human history, the beginning of the postmodern world, which was, in part, due to a reaction against the previous paradigm, represented by modernism.

In postmodern science the human observer has become a necessary player. Science is now looked upon as another creation of the human mind, subjective rather than an objective abstraction of some external reality. Thus, it is participatory rather than detached. Art, too, has turned from abstraction to representation, from control to indeterminacy and chaos, to a preference for communication and participation. Logic does not rule supreme in the postmodern world. Instead, a new spiritual dimension has been revived, e.g., in the New Age movement, a revival of interest in astrology, ESP, etc. Postmodern art has accepted the past as just as valid as the present, that we haven't progressed to a better world. Thus, instead of rejecting the past, it is incorporated into art.

There is no longer faith in a single over-all embracing metanarrative or consistency of style and idea, but rather postmodernism embraces the eclectic. There is greater trust in humor and irony and less in staid and serious theorizing. Postmodernism reflects an emerging global perspective, of differing cultures living together on a single planet (pluralism, multi-culturalism), and an acceptance of these differences, each as valid as the other. Postmodernism validates the nonintentional. It validates polytheism and a concern for the environment, ecology. It has turned from the theoretical to the pragmatic, from uniformity to diversity. and from elitism to populism.

Perhaps the first awareness of postmodernism was in the field of architecture. It is in architecture that the multifarious manifestations of postmodernism are most clearly visible and, therefore, most easily described. In architecture, postmodernism is a comparative concept, as it is in general, and therefore it must be contrasted with modernism. Postmodernism is not the opposite of modernism, as it is often portrayed, but is rather broader, more inclusive, and encompasses modernism within it. Charles Jencks, perhaps the foremost spokeperson on postmodernism architecture describes it as "double coding"; i.e., it is modern architecture with something else juxtaposed on it. This "something else" is not an amalgamation but must be contrasting, eclecticthis is often a historicist juxtaposition (something from the past), but may also be from a different culture; e.g., Western + Japanese, or a different aesthetic. As such, postmodernism seems to represent a period of transition, a period in which a uniform aesthetic has not yet matured.

Dates can only be artificial divisions, but they are useful as guidelines. Modern music is generally considered to be a period from about 1910 to 1960, with 1960-70 being a transitional stage. Modern composers include Schoenberg, Bartok, Varese, and Stravinsky. Postmodern composers include John Zorn, and Frank Zappa.  But, Charles Ives was, in some ways, a proto-postmodernist who lived early in the century, which demonstrates that dates cannot be relied upon completely. On the other hand, modernism survives today as late-modernism, with such composers as Pierre Boulez, Milton Babbitt, and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Modern artists include Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, Juan Miro, Pablo Picasso, William de Kooning, and Mark Rothko. Postmodern artists include Peter Blake, Ron Kitaj, and Robert Longo. Postmodern architects include Charles Moore (Piazza d'Italia), Michael Graves (Portland Public Service Building), and Yasufumi Kijima (Matsuo Shrine). Modern science is represented by Einstein's relativity and unified field theories. Postmodern science includes quantum theory, indeterminacy, and chaos.

The following chart, garnered from various sources with some additions, is meant to contrast modernism with postmodernism, but any such chart is bound to be an oversimplified generalization. Nevertheless, distinctions are necessary and useful. This is offered as such. The contrasts between the two are rarely clear-cut, and postmodern thought normally embraces modernism within it.

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