Bill Kerr seems to be willfully applying a modernist frame of reference over his developing critique of social media. To my mind looking at the world today through the lens of modernism is a bit like turning up to a party wearing your work clothes… I’m not sure if that analogy works for others out there, but it works for me at the moment. This is not to say I don’t appreciate Bills choice of reference, it is quite thought provoking and its certainly giving me stuff to blog about 🙂
I get this idea about Bill from a recent film Sunshine and I have just seen called Helvetica.
Its a documentary on the story of the type set helvetica. Well, its more than that really, its the story of modernist visual communication and media and its relationship to the world today. And that’s the link to Bill.
The film started with the old modernists, nostalgically reminiscing about the crisp, clear, rational idealism of helvetica. Through interview after interview it sampled the perspectives of designers on the significance of the type set. The post modernist designers came on later and almost embarrassed themselves with their naive politiks, but they cleared the thick, pipe smoke air left by the modernist old boys, and made way for the deconstructing grunge. The sort of punk deconstructionists destructionists who dismissed it all and wiped the slate clean of these historical burdons and over all disappointments.
Gradually the film moved through these observable historic periods and attempted to clear some of the fog around today. The current generation of professional designers and their freedom to sample everything from that historic pallet. They are able to balance the rational clarity of modernist style, with the political messaging of the post modernists, and the subjective expressionism of the grunge to create a range of unique messages and visual environments based largely on sampling and remixing. Often deep and considered (as it has to be with these historical references), but largely surface and superficial, intentionally too.
Of course the old boy modernists are still hung up about the post modern “disease” that snuffed their flame, and think and behave like they are the guardians of everything “true”. The post modernists are still hung up about their modernist parents not accepting anything they do, and while they relax into a conservative retirement they on the whole refuse to acknowledge the sophistication of their successors. The punks still don’t give a shit and just get on with it.
But its the emerging generation that is interesting to us now.. this is perhaps the age that will be called the neo constructivists, the time when media and communications was somewhat democratised, when the set up cost to be a film maker was within reach of many, to be a communication designer was within reach of many more still, music, journalism etc..
But that right there is still considering the world with a modernist reference! To use the professions of film making, record producing, journalism as some sort of reference or comparison to the socially networked media is a mistake. To be hung up on the quality of output from socially networked media, based on the outputs of professionals is largely out of place. Of course there are emerging professionals that are using the social platforms – the A listers and the like, but on the whole, considering neo constructivism in terms of historical professionalism is a bit like turning up to a juiced up punk/grunge rock party dress and drinking your 60’s helvetica.. you’re gunna get bashed or worse.
Its not quite right, but I wanna say that there’s no such thing as a film maker, a designer, a journalist or record producer anymore. These historic reference points for media and communication have been diluted and washed away. If these things are everywhere now, then these things are nothing (to appropriate Robert Hughes‘ famous line). Of course we still go to see films, and buy recorded music, and take notice of journalistic expertise, its just that these are no longer the only, or most significant platform for cultural expression. Visual communication and design is now merging with personal expression and identity and professionalism has nothing to do with it.
The Helvetica film ended with an excellent observation of this new social mediascape by a fella named – I’ll have to watch the film again 😦 I’ve asked the Youtube pirate if he/she has the clip I’m thinking of… but the fella was observing the scene through the lens of society and communication. The point of this post is that appreciating the historical significance of the socially networked media scape, or the neo constructivists (if i’m ok to call it that (?) is better done through the lens of contemporary social science, through communications studies, through culture and visual communication. Not through modernist perspectives in computing, rationalism or objectivity.
Dangerous words I know – to a precious modernist despairing at the destruction of his world as the boys and girls strip him of his work suit.
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August 4, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Bill Kerr
There are other ways of describing modernism and post modernism. I prefer Marshall Berman:
“Others believe that the really distinctive forms of contemporary art and thought have made a quantum leap beyond all the diverse sensibilities of modernism, and earned the right to call themselves “post-modern”. I want to respond to these antithetical but complementary claims by reviewing the vision of modernity with which this book began. To be modern, I said, is to experience personal and social life as a maelstrom, to find one’s world and oneself in perpetual disintegration and renewal, trouble and anguish, ambiguity and contradiction: to be part of a universe in which all that is solid melts into air. To be a modernist is to make oneself somehow at home in the maelstrom, to make its rhythms one’s own, to move within its currents in search of the forms of reality, of beauty, of freedom, of justice, that its fervid and perilous flow allows.” (All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, The Experience of Modernity, verso ninth edition Pages 345-346)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Berman
August 4, 2007 at 7:34 pm
leighblackall
And so he/you should be agreeable to post modernism and deconstructivism as it has taken all that is solid, and thrown it into the air. Todays generation are rebuilding on this now fertile new ground. You should understand this cycle Bill, coming from Australia – the ancient land of firestick farming, birth death and renewal. But you appear to be classic modernist in your expressions of late, relating more to the belief of continual growth and sequence.. (?)
August 4, 2007 at 7:37 pm
leighblackall
ps. did you watch the video? Do you recognise this new generation? Do you see the refreshed perspective it has?
August 5, 2007 at 8:03 am
Bill Kerr
The video on your blog was a trailer. I went to the Helvetica site and watched the 4 trailers there. (I didn’t see any links to the full movie).One of trailers showed an old guy describing himself as a modernist and being disapproving of the rebelliousness of the younger generation. So, my interpretation is that that is how you see me when I try to do some critical analysis of “web 2.0”. LOL.
My criticism of your post – I thought it should been obvious from the Berman quote – was your selective interpretation of the meanings of modernism and post-modernism. You are using modernism to mean old and rigid and post-modernism to mean youthful and vibrant. I was hoping that by showing you an established different meaning of the term modernism that you might pause and reflect on the terms and the way you have used them in your post. But no, you just go on using the term post modernism in the same way. There are other interpretations of “post modernism” too but you don’t seem to be interested in using language accurately. I think for you to properly understand the meanings of these terms would require a fair bit of research. Research! OMG! That’s not what we do in “web 2.0” is it? Watch a movie, pick up a couple of phrases, use them inaccurately, write a quick blog, move on to the next thing that grabs our attention. If I’m polite you hardly seem to notice that I’m saying anything. If I’m rude you just cast around for a way to be rude back. Either way the problem I have is your sloppy use of language. How old fashioned of me.
August 5, 2007 at 11:11 am
leighblackall
Sorry you appear to take offense. I don’t know what/where you sit. I was merely logging an idea that you might be adopting a modernist perspective on all this, and then was attempting to argue that as being an inappropriate perspective on today.
In the movie I sampled, the young fella is questioning the mainstream interpretation of modernism (the one that I describe in my text – he was along the lines of your Berman quote). In the full movie itself, he goes into quite a bit more detail on what he means and what modernism means to his group of designers. I sampled that clip to try and show that I am considering things beyond the common understanding of modernism, post modernism, and deconstructivism (you don’t seem to see that I’m not actually interested in the tension between modernism and postmordernism).
Going from your first brief comment here – which was mainly a copy paste quote (and you accuse me of loose communication!) I could see that you didn’t watch the movie that was embedded in my text, or didn’t pay much attention to its positioning in my post. Not watching it is like not reading the post! If you had of watched it, I would have thought that you might have recognised that I’m talking about more than modernism and post modernism,,, I’m focusing on “neo constructivism” as I’m calling it, or the socially networked media, or the web2. A generation of thinking that is free of the historical impass of nearly a century. Right or wrong, true or false does not apply! But perhaps you’re being classic modernist, getting all hung up on the modernist postmodernist tension that you continue to fail and see what’s attempting to come through from that. The fella in that video that I sampled in my text, sees modernism as something to look at and sample, but not to go back to and live in.
As you did when I posted about Zeitgeist and other things, you just say generally that I am loose and need to research more, (using words like idiot and monkey!). But you go no further than that. Your postings that don’t speak to me directly are far more helpful. They link out to things that help me reflect on what you and others are trying to say. But your direct comments are personal, and as always belittling and useless. I guess you think the same of my communications…
I can see that you don’t understand my use of language, including the use of video in line, because you take the wrong end of the stick. I am agreeing with your Breman quote, am just as dismissive of post modernism, and am more interested in what I believe to be an era worthy of its own name and identity.
But I hope you’ll continue to critique that idea and not me personally – the idea that today is an era in its own right. I hope you’ll avoid dropping down to my level Bill, it doesn’t suit you. When you drop down here you’re clearly just as bad as I am. Perhaps you’d be better to ignore my postings and continue in your own direction. I’ll continue to attempt critiques of your position as I think critiques on positions like yours are important.. People other than you or I will be able to decipher either way, you shouldn’t bother wasting time with personal attacks and belittling remarks… that’s clearly the domain of lowly try hard web2 intellectuals like me.
August 6, 2007 at 1:31 am
Bill Kerr
> I could see that you didn’t watch the movie that was embedded in my text, or didn’t pay much attention to its positioning in my post. Not watching it is like not reading the post!
point of fact: I did watch the embedded trailer (90 secs) and the other 3 trailers on the helvetica site before my original post
August 6, 2007 at 5:08 am
Bill Kerr
Reread your post and agree that this discussion is not going anywhere useful
August 10, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Lunchtime Reflections
[…] Lunchtime Reflections {August 10, 2007} helvetica, modernism, post-modernism and social networking New, you, web2: The significance of socially networked media depends on your frame of reference […]
August 10, 2007 at 4:32 pm
leighblackall
Just for the record, in the original post I mentioned another clip from the movie that I wanted to sample but it wasn’t available. The youtuber uploading the clips responded with:
“don’t have a clip of that, but here’s the transcript. cheers!
Rick Poynor: What we have is a climate now in which the very idea of visual communication and graphic design, if we still want to call it that, is accepted by many more people. They get it. They understand it. They’re starting to see graphic communication as an expression of their own identity. And the classic case of this is the social networking programs such as MySpace, where you can customize your profile. You can change the background, you can put pictures in, you can change the typeface to anything you want, and those choices, those decisions you make, become expressions of who you are. You start to care about it, in the way you care about the clothing you’re wearing as an expression of who you are, or your haircut or whatever, or how you decorate your apartment–all of those things. You know, we accept the idea of identity being expressed in that way, through these consumer choices. Well, now it’s happening in the sphere of visual communication, and there’s no reason as the tools become ever more sophisticated, why this just won’t go on developing and developing.”