| Essence and Model |
||
|
One
can refer to it as either post-modernism or as neo-modernism, but what
is characteristic of this order is that the elements of modernism are
hyper-realized. They are reduced to their pure formal state and are denuded
of any last vestiges of life or meaning. They are re-deployed in a system
of self -referentiality which is itself a hyper-realization of modernist
self-referentiality - though it is now detached from the modernist dream
of revolutionary renewal. In post-or neo-modernism, the syntactical elements
do not change. The vocabulary of modernism is retained, but its elements,
already made abstract, are finally and completely severed from any reference
to the real. In this hyper-modernism, the modern is never discarded. It
is simply replaced by its formal double. Typical of this process is the
transformation of the modern city. Paris, Boston, and New York are not
changed. (It is characteristic of modernism to precipitate change - the
widening of streets, the filling of marshes, the building of monuments.)
Such cities simply become their formal double. They are enclosed by the
surrounding post-industrial universe and transformed into theme parks
of the modern where one goes to see vestiges of the public, such as subway
trains and parks, and of the social, at cafes, for example, or at theatres.
In the same way, art is replaced by its double, by objects and images
duplicating the "art-effect". The universe of the double is
achieved by transforming every element into a model of itself. The modernist
concept of essence with its referent in nature is further reduced to the
state of the model, in which form alone, stripped of meaning, remains.
In this way, the universe of the model is the final ruthless realization
of the modernist impetus to idealism. In particular, the abstract becomes
the real, and the entire environment becomes a model of the environment.
All other realities, especially those of specificity and transcendence,
are either excluded or they are encircled by the model and transformed
into models of themselves. Thus, there is not only the reality of the
model, but there is also no reality other than that of the model. Consequently,
developers produce cities that are models of cities, architects produce
buildings, that are models of buildings, and artists produce works of
art that are models of the idea of art. Likewise, in this universe, by
virtue of psychology and physiology, human beings can be only models of
human beings, while public opinion polls, multiple choice tests, and telephone
answering machines determine that communication can be only a model of
communication. |
||
|