from what i gather, a cautious acceptance of modernism's humanist teleology combined with pomo's pluralism and exposed power hierarchies. basically an attempt to rescue pomo from nihilism.
any links to sites/theory/articles out there?
and yes, i do find this shit uselessly interesting.
Postmodernism was never nihilistic. It never proposed a stance of non-truth. Rather, it proposed a re-evaluation of our current condition as part of a larger grid of observation and the maleability of bodies. The result, then, would provide meat for future proposals. We're just not at the point of future proposals--rather, the desire to propose has fizzled.
Rather than trying to find what came naturally after postmodernism (whether or not pomo can indeed come and gone), we should think about the growing culture of neo-conservativism as either an unrelated new focus, or a competing (and winning) focus that drove the perceived nihilistic pomo away.
There seems to be many meanings for "postmodern". What do you mean by that, jsap. Also, what is neo-conservatism compared to conservatism or pre-neo-conservatism and could this "culture" be under a larger umbrella? What are the dynamics of competing/winning and where did the nihilism go?
arch. magazine published an issue a few years ago called "postpostmodernism" w/ venturi on the front. he claims that he never was and still isn't a postmodernist. if you can find that issue, it would be a good fieldguide to this discussion.
i agree w/ jsap (again, well said) and would add that many authors such as jameson or even jencks predicted that pomo would be an inescapable force...
i would also add that our current technology fetish has real potential for making the paradigm leap. i think that what we (especially architects) can do w/ new technology (CAD/CAM for example) has remarkable implications that haven't been properly theorized. there seems to be a lot of 'doing' and not much writing. in other words, there hasn't been "the manuscript" like in previous movements. nobody has attempted to write the 'complexity and contradiction' for the digital age. if there is one, i'd like to know what it is.
thankfully, architecture schools are a fertile ground for real experimentation and possibly the work that will crack the pomo bubble.
Dec 17, 04 10:22 am ·
·
Postmodernism (in architecture) literally began over 70 years ago with the reaction of the residents to Le Corbusier's Pessac housing.
A serious study of what buildings were under construction in 1950s Rome while Venturi was at the American Academy (eg, Luigi Moretti's apartments on the Via Parioli) will add much to an understanding of the early genesis of 'postmodernism' as a distinct design methodology.
Someone once called this an example of postpostmodern art.
"Postmodernism was never nihilistic. It never proposed a stance of non-truth. Rather, it proposed a re-evaluation of our current condition as part of a larger grid of observation and the maleability of bodies."
i agree that this is what was proposed...but taken to conclusion, doesn't asserting there is no objective truth (by way of deconstruction or 'maleability of bodies') leave us, eventually, with meaninglessness? who was it that wrote about the onion theory...once you've peeled off every layer, what do you have? nothing.
as for the rise in neocon, it seems a natural backlash to the challenging, destabilizing, pluralist (but ultimately beneficial, i think) elements of a postmodern world. i mean, if you look at the neoconervative group in the US today (and i'm really going to generalize here, which is badbadbad) could it generally be described as western in orientation, middle in class, white in race, conservative in value, and masculine in gender? isn't this, by and large, the same group most isolated by pomo?
also weave i agree that the the tools have outstripped the theory. perhaps THAT is the salient feature of life for a while (until the oil crash): philosophy and theory playing catch up to technological experimentation. its all about the geeks, eh.
Wouldn't it be beneficial to the march/rotation to come to a complete nothingness. Isn't there something incomplete in the process if we have to recycle into conservatism again. So something about the pluralist elements has not been brought to light. You beat me to the oil crash. Once the world energy system has been destabilized, people, we have a brand new ball game.
Beatmeofficer, you should look into Dan Graham, among other video artists of that time) he relates post modern architectural ideas with smaller scale installation and video art--i believe one of his starting points was the venturi/scott brown architecture of so called "post modern " time period. I think he was trying to "re evaluate" as said by jsap.
It was interesting because he really brought in television -aka the defining technology- (in his installations, he used televisions in much similar way that plasma tvs are used for signage/advertisements... interestingly, instead of flat tvs, he placed actual faux wood box TV's in his installations.) keep in mind this is 1970s and early 80s that he is doing this. Anyway, he would bring in a tv of a video of suburban homes, and place it in the new "suburban" spaces created in metropolitan cities... trying to illuminate this shifting dialogue that was occuring in that time (in today's time, you could say everything has turned commercial/global) but in that time it was more of trying to play with notion of identity/perception of social codes
I think the essay was called "video art in relation to architecture" by Daniel Graham
in other words, there hasn't been "the manuscript" like in previous movements. nobody has attempted to write the 'complexity and contradiction' for the digital age. if there is one, i'd like to know what it is.
neo conservatism is like conservatism all over again only re-born under a different guise reacting to post modernism, as a viable cultural idea its a poor proposal, as a nihilistic entry in architecture theory it deals with reaction to crass commercialism and satire that in the end brings nothingness as its premise but nothing is something still i mean right?
And what is wrong with FASHION.
If we were educated in fashion I
dont think the comparison would be made.
I used to hear that all the time in
school. Architecture as fashion...
and always said in a bad way.
fashion is just as thoughtful as architecture.
just as neccessary.
fashion is today
what about tomorrow
what bout the day after tomorrow
you can belive today only matters
you can believe waht u want
architecture as fashion is a crime
a crime against all of us
you lose
you lost
you suck
there are dif types of fashion just like there are dif types of architecture.
fashion to me is design. no more and no less than architecture is or should be.
and so fashion as architecture would do us all a big favor?
I honestly dont think there is a single thing wrong with fashion.
this is an idea for another thread.
-n
Dec 18, 04 4:16 am ·
·
The worst thing about fashion is that each new design is manifest to make the last design obsolete. Planned obsolescence is not good design, rather capitalist manipulate of consumption. Given the limited resources of this planet, planned obsolescence is not what architecture should aspire to.
postpostmoderism (arrgh)
from what i gather, a cautious acceptance of modernism's humanist teleology combined with pomo's pluralism and exposed power hierarchies. basically an attempt to rescue pomo from nihilism.
any links to sites/theory/articles out there?
and yes, i do find this shit uselessly interesting.
would postpostmodernism be what we are in now? im not familiar with its time frame i guess
Postmodernism was never nihilistic. It never proposed a stance of non-truth. Rather, it proposed a re-evaluation of our current condition as part of a larger grid of observation and the maleability of bodies. The result, then, would provide meat for future proposals. We're just not at the point of future proposals--rather, the desire to propose has fizzled.
Rather than trying to find what came naturally after postmodernism (whether or not pomo can indeed come and gone), we should think about the growing culture of neo-conservativism as either an unrelated new focus, or a competing (and winning) focus that drove the perceived nihilistic pomo away.
well said, jsap
There seems to be many meanings for "postmodern". What do you mean by that, jsap. Also, what is neo-conservatism compared to conservatism or pre-neo-conservatism and could this "culture" be under a larger umbrella? What are the dynamics of competing/winning and where did the nihilism go?
talking theory heads...LOL
arch. magazine published an issue a few years ago called "postpostmodernism" w/ venturi on the front. he claims that he never was and still isn't a postmodernist. if you can find that issue, it would be a good fieldguide to this discussion.
i agree w/ jsap (again, well said) and would add that many authors such as jameson or even jencks predicted that pomo would be an inescapable force...
just off the top of my head:
i would also add that our current technology fetish has real potential for making the paradigm leap. i think that what we (especially architects) can do w/ new technology (CAD/CAM for example) has remarkable implications that haven't been properly theorized. there seems to be a lot of 'doing' and not much writing. in other words, there hasn't been "the manuscript" like in previous movements. nobody has attempted to write the 'complexity and contradiction' for the digital age. if there is one, i'd like to know what it is.
thankfully, architecture schools are a fertile ground for real experimentation and possibly the work that will crack the pomo bubble.
Postmodernism (in architecture) literally began over 70 years ago with the reaction of the residents to Le Corbusier's Pessac housing.
A serious study of what buildings were under construction in 1950s Rome while Venturi was at the American Academy (eg, Luigi Moretti's apartments on the Via Parioli) will add much to an understanding of the early genesis of 'postmodernism' as a distinct design methodology.
Someone once called this an example of postpostmodern art.
"Postmodernism was never nihilistic. It never proposed a stance of non-truth. Rather, it proposed a re-evaluation of our current condition as part of a larger grid of observation and the maleability of bodies."
i agree that this is what was proposed...but taken to conclusion, doesn't asserting there is no objective truth (by way of deconstruction or 'maleability of bodies') leave us, eventually, with meaninglessness? who was it that wrote about the onion theory...once you've peeled off every layer, what do you have? nothing.
as for the rise in neocon, it seems a natural backlash to the challenging, destabilizing, pluralist (but ultimately beneficial, i think) elements of a postmodern world. i mean, if you look at the neoconervative group in the US today (and i'm really going to generalize here, which is badbadbad) could it generally be described as western in orientation, middle in class, white in race, conservative in value, and masculine in gender? isn't this, by and large, the same group most isolated by pomo?
also weave i agree that the the tools have outstripped the theory. perhaps THAT is the salient feature of life for a while (until the oil crash): philosophy and theory playing catch up to technological experimentation. its all about the geeks, eh.
Wouldn't it be beneficial to the march/rotation to come to a complete nothingness. Isn't there something incomplete in the process if we have to recycle into conservatism again. So something about the pluralist elements has not been brought to light. You beat me to the oil crash. Once the world energy system has been destabilized, people, we have a brand new ball game.
Beatmeofficer, you should look into Dan Graham, among other video artists of that time) he relates post modern architectural ideas with smaller scale installation and video art--i believe one of his starting points was the venturi/scott brown architecture of so called "post modern " time period. I think he was trying to "re evaluate" as said by jsap.
It was interesting because he really brought in television -aka the defining technology- (in his installations, he used televisions in much similar way that plasma tvs are used for signage/advertisements... interestingly, instead of flat tvs, he placed actual faux wood box TV's in his installations.) keep in mind this is 1970s and early 80s that he is doing this. Anyway, he would bring in a tv of a video of suburban homes, and place it in the new "suburban" spaces created in metropolitan cities... trying to illuminate this shifting dialogue that was occuring in that time (in today's time, you could say everything has turned commercial/global) but in that time it was more of trying to play with notion of identity/perception of social codes
I think the essay was called "video art in relation to architecture" by Daniel Graham
From reading your definitions or descriptions of postmodernism, the fragmentations must mean it is not over, yet.
in other words, there hasn't been "the manuscript" like in previous movements. nobody has attempted to write the 'complexity and contradiction' for the digital age. if there is one, i'd like to know what it is.
yeah me too
Greg Lynn's working hard on that manuscript, you betcha.
Jeff Kipnis; 'Towards a new architecture'?
Greg Lynn; 'Architecture after geometry'?
maybe they didn't nail it...
Once THE manuscript is made, we all can make PROPER post modern.
It will be like the International Code book- everyone can be an expert.
neo conservatism is like conservatism all over again only re-born under a different guise reacting to post modernism, as a viable cultural idea its a poor proposal, as a nihilistic entry in architecture theory it deals with reaction to crass commercialism and satire that in the end brings nothingness as its premise but nothing is something still i mean right?
i prefer buddhism to all those other -isms
does anyone really care?
it is all FASHION anyway
And what is wrong with FASHION.
If we were educated in fashion I
dont think the comparison would be made.
I used to hear that all the time in
school. Architecture as fashion...
and always said in a bad way.
fashion is just as thoughtful as architecture.
just as neccessary.
fashion is today
what about tomorrow
what bout the day after tomorrow
you can belive today only matters
you can believe waht u want
architecture as fashion is a crime
a crime against all of us
you lose
you lost
you suck
there are dif types of fashion just like there are dif types of architecture.
fashion to me is design. no more and no less than architecture is or should be.
and so fashion as architecture would do us all a big favor?
I honestly dont think there is a single thing wrong with fashion.
this is an idea for another thread.
-n
The worst thing about fashion is that each new design is manifest to make the last design obsolete. Planned obsolescence is not good design, rather capitalist manipulate of consumption. Given the limited resources of this planet, planned obsolescence is not what architecture should aspire to.
You know all those weird hair does, huge skirts, fluffy men's shirts of the 1700s (or so) French elite? Does that have anything to do with Capitalism?
Much worse, Imperialism.
So how was those French designs planned obsolescence? Where the fashions trickling down to the peasants?
Gustav, your avoiding the issue of today!
Nonetheless, the French aristocracy was itself ultimately rendered obsolete.
It was indeed after the French Revolution that the consumption of culture soon began.
If you can demonstrate that the fashion industry is not fundamentally an industry of planned obsolescence, then please do.
So fashion started with the french revolution, not sooner?
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