Theoretical background to metamodernism as the new form of modern culture OF MODERN CULTURE

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Mariupol State University

Theoretical background to metamodernism as the new form of modern culture

Gaiduk Nelli, PhD (Philology), Associate Professor,

Acting Head of Theory and Practice of Translation Chair,

Tarapatov Mykhailo, Senior Lecturer of Theory

and Practice of Translation Chair

Abstract

The purpose of the article is concerned with the systematization and generalization of the previous knowledge and theoretical achievements in the field of metamodernism as a cultural phenomenon of the 21st century. The interaction of metamodernism with such cultural trends as modernism, postmodernism, and post-postmodernism is determined. The general postulates manifesting the emergence of the new philosophical, aesthetical and cultural trend is defined. After the majority of scholars of postmodernism had emphasized its decline, it became imperative to coin a new terminological name for it to precisely describe the new order in art. Thus, the term “metamodernism” became widely spread as the name of the form of modern culture that had followed the postmodern and therefore needs detailed study and description, which constitutes the vitality of the research. This article aims to research the functions and the assignments as well as to analyze the constituents of metamodernism and the functioning specificity thereof.

The methodology consists of the use of general and specific techniques, in particular analysis which makes it possible to research the modern stage of the metamodernist discourse, synthesis due to which manifestation of the new cultural trend is systematized, the descriptive method and abstraction of the preconditions of cognition, such as perception, imagination, understanding, and specifications which make it possible to describe the peculiarities and the interaction of the cultural trends under research with each other, partial prognostication which makes it possible to define the prospects of further research.

Scientific novelty. For the first time, the article has systematized understanding of the metamodern as a cultural trend of the 21st century that followed postmodernism and is being actively used to describe the nowadays' structure of feelings oscillating between the typical modernist coherence and the exclusively postmodernist aloofness. It has also described the functioning conditions thereof due to the emergence of the virtual space.

Conclusions. Metamodernism is considered to have emerged and developed due to the emergence of virtual reality since it exists primarily in the virtual space of our lives, which has become available only since the emergence of social networking websites. Simultaneously with writing the manifesto and sketching the boundaries of the new cultural paradigm of 2011, the social network Facebook became open for registration. The network almost lightning-fast gained momentum and popularity, becoming the center of cultural, political, and social life for many users from the whole world, which evidences the spread of the metamodern exactly due to the virtual space.

Key words: postmodernism, post-postmodernism, metamodernism, oscillation, binary logic.

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Анотація

Теоретичне підґрунтя метамодернізму як нової форми сучасної культури

Гайдук Неллі Анатоліївна, кандидат філологічних наук, доцент, завідувачка кафедри теорії та практики перекладу Маріупольського державного університету;

Тарапатов Михайло Миколайович, старший викладач кафедри теорії та практики перекладу Маріупольського державного університету

Метою роботи є дослідження функцій, завдань та комплексного аналізу складових метамодернізму, специфіки їх функціонування. Методологія передбачає використання загальних і спеціальних прийомів, зокрема, аналізу, що дозволяє дослідити сучасний стан дискурсу метамодерну, синтезу, завдяки якому систематизовано маніфестацію нового культурного напряму, описового методу, абстракції як невід'ємних умов пізнання, таких, як сприйняття, уявлення, розуміння, специфікації, що дозволяє описати особливості та зв'язок досліджуваних культурних напрямків між собою, часткового прогнозування, що дозволяє окреслити перспективи подальшого дослідження.

Наукова новизна. У статті вперше систематизовано уявлення про метамодерн, як культурний напрямок ХХІ століття, що прийшов на зміну постмодернізму і активно використовується для опису нинішньої структури почуттів, яка коливається між типово модерністською узгодженістю та виключно постмодерністською відчуженістю, описано умови його функціонування завдяки появі віртуального простору.

Висновки. Вважається, що метамодернізм реалізувався та розвинувся завдяки виникненню віртуальної реальності, адже він здебільшого і існує у віртуальному просторі нашого життя, що стало доступним лише з появою соціальних мереж. Одночасно з написанням маніфесту та окресленням меж нової культурної парадигми 2011 року відкрито для реєстрації соціальна мережа Facebook. Мережа майже блискавично набрала обертів і популярності, ставши центром культурного, політичного та соціального життя багатьох користувачів з усього світу, що свідчить про розповсюдження метамодерну саме завдяки віртуальному простору.

Ключові слова: постмодернізм, пост-постмодернізм, метамодернізм, осциляція, бінарна логіка.

Introduction

The purpose of the article. The term “metamodernism” is known to have recently become widely spread as the name of the form of modern culture that followed the postmodern, whereas some researchers call it “postmodernism”. However, many of the researchers agree with the syntactically correct but semantically incongruous term “postmodernism”, which makes it imperative to coin a new terminological name meant to fully describe the new order in art. Thus, since deconstruction, irony, and imitation were typical of postmodernism of its time, the discourse of metamodernism is characterized by a revival of generosity, hope, and romanticism, rejecting all that characterized postmodernism as a trend of art in the late 20th century. Rejection of the postulates of postmodernism, the conceptualization of nowaday's “right here and right now” through “the structure of feelings”, attempts are made to theoretically justify the basis of the metamodern almost simultaneously: there is neither temporary nor spatial distance between the researchers and the object of research, which actualizes our research of the theoretical background to metamodernism as a form of the modern cultural discourse. The aim of this paper research functions, tasks, and complex analysis of components of me metamodernism, and specifics of their functioning.

Analysis of research. It is the triple “threat” of the credit crunch, the collapse of centralized power, and the change of the climate that is considered to have caused mankind to bear doubts and have inspired the switch from postmodernism to metamodernism. When the theoreticians of postmodernism, namely Jean Francois Lyotard, Jurgen Habermas, Fredrick Jameson, Charles Jenks, Ihab Hassan, Linda Hutcheon, and others promulgated that “the story is coming to an end”, they meant the specific concept of history, such as Hegel's “positive” idealism.

Presenting main material

The modern and the postmodern being associated with Hegel's “positive” idealism, metamodernism inherits Kant's “negative” idealism, which can be referred to as an “as if' judgment. This is what Curtis Peters writes about it: “we can view the history of the mankind in such a manner as if the mankind had a hagiography that could tell us about its path to complete rational/social potential... or we can view it as if it were the story of the development of the mankind” [4]. The scientist argues that even Kant used this indistinct terminology of the “as if' type, claiming that the human being is moving towards his/her invisible goal in such a manner as if following his/her guidebook, i.e. the entire mankind is moving towards the natural though invisible goal, and in moving towards it, it is pretending to be developing morally and from the political point of view [4].

The term “metamodernism” was suggested by the two European researchers Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker. In 2010 they published “Notes on metamodernism”, where they tried to explain the cultural switch from cynicism and irony to generosity and romanticism. It was they who made the first attempt to theoretically justify metamodernism.

The authors willingly agree with other critics, experts, and scientists that the postmodern must be rejected. However, they emphasize that by rejecting the cultivation of the postmodern situation with ease, the scientific elite will fail to reach a compromise in terms of how the new circumstances shall be viewed and named or in terms of what contours shall be assigned for them. Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker suggest considering the new cultural discourse as an oscillation (the Latin оscillatum means “to fluctuate”), i.e. “swinging between the enthusiasm of modernism and the postmodernism mockery, which is metamodernism” [1].

The researchers suggest studying manifestations of metamodernism from the neo - romantic point of view, first of all, in the architecture of Herzog & de Meuron Architekten, a Swiss architectural bureau founded in Basel in 1978 by Jack Herzog and Pierre de Meuron (experimental materials and minimalistic projects are the typical features of the bureau), in installations by the Dutch artist Bastiaan Johan Christiaan Ader (pseudonym Bas Jan Ader), in collages and painting by the British artists from London David Torp and Kaye Donachie and in the cinematographic art by the French scriptwriter and clip maker Michel Gondry, claiming that the new generations of artists “more often reject the aesthetic sensations of deconstruction, parataxis, and imitations for the sake of aesthetic understanding of reconstructions, myth, and metaxis” [1]. The authors of metamodernist notes suggest discussing “the foreseeable death” of postmodernism and the apparent emergence of another new modernism, emphasizing that they are the first ones to use the term “metamodernism” to describe “the current structure of feelings” that fluctuates (oscillates as it was mentioned above) between the typically modernist affection to the distinctly postmodernist alienation, though not using this very term for the first time to describe the postmodernist alternative of postmodernism. However, the description of the new structure of feelings does not repeat or inherit any of the concepts coined before [1].

The researchers present a definition of the term “metamodernism” following the “Greek - English lexicon” also referred to as Liddell & Scott or Liddell - Scott-Jones, or as the abbreviation LSJ. This is a standard lexicographical work in Old Greek edited by Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones, and Roderick McKenzie and published in 1843 by Oxford University Press. They herewith emphasize that the prefix “meta” refers to such concepts as “with”, “between” and “after” - all these meanings of the given prefix can be used to describe the term “metamodernism” since epistemologically it is placed exactly “with” postmodernism, ontologically it is placed “between” modernism and postmodernism and historically it is placed “after” postmodernism. The authors of the notes were seeking an opportunity to unite quite many trends in their modern condition and modern aesthetics utilizing a sequence of observations rather than an opportunity to combine them through a uniform line of reasoning through reevaluation thereof in terms of the newly born sensitivity called the metamodern, not trying to “impose a stipulated system of thinking on a particular set of cultural practices” [1]. The authors of the essay argue that all the trends of postmodernism have been completed, whereas most of them are undergoing the stage of acquiring other forms and, what is the most important, they are acquiring a brand new sense, meaning, and strategy of further development. The authors associate this trend with the change of the global economic vector and with the shift of the political concentric circle since the influence of the global network and its blogosphere requires the restructuration of the political discourse.

The development of metamodernism is associated not with the digitalization of the society alone since metamodernism is implemented in the virtual space; it is becoming widely spread and is developing due to the network. But its emergence is preceded by active urbanization. As a result, steady urban development requires a transformation of material landscapes, since business managers, politicians, artists, and architects renovated the narrative that emphasized their keen desire that was suppressed for a long time for the sake of the opportunity that had been forgotten long ago. To cut it short, the world perception of modernism is described as idealistic, i.e. fanatical and/or naive, whereas postmodernism is characterized as skeptical, the constitution of the modern generation's mentality being referred to as pragmatic idealism [1]. Thus, according to Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, the discourse of metamodernism consciously entrusts itself to the impossible opportunity - modern naivety has inspired it, whereas the skepticism of the postmodern has enlightened it. [1].

Based on the concept of a manifesto in art, which is a written presentation of literary or artistic principles of a particular trend or group in literature or art (according to the dictionary of literary terms in two volumes edited by N. Brodsky), let us emphasize the fact that metamodernism has already succeeded in acquiring its manifesto even though this trend of art can be understood as a brand new one. The manifesto was formed and presented to the public by Luke Turner, a modern British photographer, artist, and author of artistic performances. His photos, art videos, and installations are an attempt to evaluate some particular processes and vibrations of the modern world of art. Thus, in 2011 the artist published “The Metamodernist Manifesto”, where he introduced the very concept which reflects the changes and the condition of culture at the stage following the postmodern. In an interview for the AQNB Publishers in 2014, he characterized his manifesto the following way: “...was as if ironic, with meaningless language in the style of the early manifestos of modernism, at the same time serious, yet every word makes sense there and means exactly what I wanted to say; some people, especially in the USA, consider this text to be extremely generous; others perceived it as nothing but irony” [2].

Due to the manifesto, Turner is considered to be the next author after Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker to have paid his tangible contribution to the theorization of the metamodern. In the following years, Turner published more works concerned with the new cultural trend, in particular the article “Metamodernism: a brief introduction” (2015), where he continued pondering on metamodernism and the future modern art as a whole as well as analyzing nowadays' culture, i.e. the culture of the epoch of the postmodern. Turner is also the editor of the Internet resource “Notes on Metamodernism”.

It is Shia Saide LaBeouf, a Hollywood actor, who is considered to be Turner's co-author. Furthermore, it was Shia LaBeouf who was previously mentioned on the website as the author of the manifesto. Besides he gave a link to the manifesto on his Twitter account, which caused a backlash among the followers of the new cultural trend. Some of Saide's followers called him a genius, whereas other readers did not believe that a Hollywood actor was capable of writing such a complicated philosophical text. It was Turner himself who clarified the matter: in the aforementioned interview for the AQNB Publishers [6], he emphasized that “the text of the manifesto resulted from creative collaboration with LaBeouf' [5]. This explanation satisfied the critics since Turner began collaborating with Shia Saide LaBeouf and Nastja Sade Ronkko as far back as 2014. Together with them, the artist is a member of the art group LaBeouf, Ronkko & Turner. Some of the new projects by Turner, LaBeouf, and Ronkko are considered to be a re -evaluation of his old ideas (such as a series of photographs Hairbath). The act of 2014 held at the Berlin film festival called “I am not famous anymore” is considered to be one of the widely known joint works by Turner and LaBeouf. At the time of the act, LaBeouf turned up on the red carpet with a paper bag on his head with “I am not famous anymore” written on it. In the ensuing years, the art trio of Turner, LaBeouf, and Ronkko kept on arranging various acts in the framework of various film festivals and movie awards, using modern social and cultural contexts to define new conceptual interrelations and develop forms of communication in digital and physical networks.

Metamodernism was developing largely due to the emergence of virtual reality since it exists in the virtual reality of our life which became available only since the emergence of social networks. As we stated above, the metamodernist manifesto was written in 2011. Is it a coincidence that exactly at the same time the global social network Facebook became open for registration? The network was quickly and lightning-fast gaining momentum and popularity. It soon became the center of cultural, political, and social life for all its users from the whole world, and, as early as 10 years of its existence (according to the data of March 2021) it accounted for 2,8 active users per month which equal one-third of the overall population of the planet. metamodernism cultural facebook virtual

V. Miroshnichenko likens the emergence of the virtual social space to a communicative revolution that influences the existence and the sustainable development of both the society and its cultural domains. Following Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, the researcher calls this process oscillation or fluctuations, a kind of a pendulum. In his view, metamodernism oscillates as well, `it oscillates between hope and melancholy, naivety and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and impersonality, integrity and disintegration, exactness and uncertainty ... It is important not to consider this oscillation as equilibration, on the contrary. Each time the enthusiasm of metamodernism leans in the direction of fanaticism, gravitation turns it back to a mockery; should the mockery lean-to apathy, gravitation turns it back to enthusiasm” [3]. Thus, social networks are oscillations or fluctuations, because they have neither a balance nor a harmony or a concentric circle one could shove off. Sometimes they are even deprived of logical connections. This principle of existence without any essential rules and principles is characteristic not of Facebook alone. This principle is also typical of such networks as Instagram as the center of photo content, TikTok as the center of video content, and many others. Moreover, the phenomenon of social networks can be regarded as an insufficiently researched one. How can one research something that emerges, develops, and disappears faster than it is researched? A user of a particular social network (they all are more or less alike) gets faced with a news feed he/she thumbs up. And this news feed is deprived of not logic alone. It sometimes happens to be deprived even of temporality. A user can correct his/her news feed but these corrections do not bring him/her closer to a balance or a logical structure. “The content of the news feed is accompanied by a mix of photos, texts and emotional support in the form of smileys, geo-locations, etc.” [3, 114-115].

Social networks have opened to people a new method of presenting information about themselves, their lives, activities, and creativity. It is with the help of social networks that we can do all the aforementioned instantly and in public. We can demonstrate only one of the sides of our lives. Sometimes networking life utterly differs from reality but it is quite a different problem area for research and analysis. Our goal is to understand the way metamodernism is realized in the virtual space and the way it responds to social changes occurring due to the emergence of virtual reality. Our goal is to understand the way it snatches them up and interacts with them. We care for the way it causes the emergence of new rhetoric and practices, including those in various arts. V. Miroshnichenko emphasizes that “metamodernism is more associated with visual art since one can say for sure that since the 2000s the era of the word in its widespread implications is coming to an end, and this era is being succeeded by the era of visual art (however, visual art has always been present) but today we are dealing with something both qualitatively and quantitatively different: it is not the word but the smiley that expresses the emotion; it is also noteworthy that L. Turner's manifesto is composed of one page of text that also tends towards something visual” [3, 115]. Most modern arts are functioning in the virtual (digital or digitalized) form; here we are witnessing confirmation of the postulate we put forward above that metamodernism as a new contextual artistic marker is being realized and exists mainly due to the emergence of the virtual space in our lives. Hence, being the beginners in the philosophy of metamodernism, the art trio of Turner, LaBeouf, and Ronkko began actively using social networking websites in particular and the Internet, in general, to disseminate their ideas and create art acts themselves. A vivid example is an action under the hashtag #Startcreating, in the framework of which in 2014 a related hashtag was written in the sky above Los Angeles with the help of aircraft engines (the so-called Skywriting). Later the hashtag was spread by the artists themselves and by usual users on Instagram and tumblr.com.

Let us turn back to the metamodernist manifesto itself. It was translated into a number of languages, including Ukrainian. Its translation into Ukrainian was performed in 2016 by the Ukrainian duet “Krolikowski Art” composed by Alexander Krolikowski and Alexandra Krolikowski. The duet works with various repositories, including analog photography and video, installations, new repositories, and performances. The project launched its artistic activities in 2021 with an exhibition in London Museum. Here we deem it expedient to present some extracts from the text of the manifesto. Firstly, the metamodernist manifesto recognizes oscillation to be the natural order of the world. We must liberate ourselves from modernist ideological naivety and cynical insincerity. Movement shall henceforth be enabled by way of an oscillation between positions, with opposed ideas operating like the pulsating polarities of a colossal electric machine, propelling the world into action. Secondly, the present is a symptom of the twin birth of immediacy and obsolescence. Today, we are nostalgists as much as we are futurists. The new technology enables the simultaneous experience and enactment of events from a multiplicity of positions [2]. Thus, according to Alexander and Alexandra Krolikowski, metamodernism “shall be defined as the mercurial condition between and beyond irony and sincerity, naivety and knowingness, relativism and truth, optimism and doubt, in pursuit of a plurality of disparate and elusive horizons. We must go forth and oscillate!” [2].

Scientific novelty. For the first time, the article has systematized understanding of the metamodern as a cultural trend of the 21st century that followed postmodernism and is being actively used to describe the nowadays' structure of feelings oscillating between the typical modernist coherence and the exclusively postmodernist aloofness. It has also described the functioning conditions thereof due to the emergence of the virtual space.

Conclusions

Following the researcher and in summarizing all the aforementioned, we can define the main features of metamodernism: binary logic that reveals itself in oscillation between modernist enthusiasm and postmodernist irony; naivety that can be found in advocating the right to spontaneity and inconsistency; purposeful incompleteness of thoughts and deeds; rejection of the search of aesthetic absoluteness typical of the logic of the modern with preference being made towards the research of the shift within artistic boundaries and expansion of the boundaries of cognition as a whole.

Hence, rejection of the postulates of the postmodern is not “the end of the story”. It is rather a switch to a purposely new artistic domain and an attempt to conceptualize the present times based on “the structure of feelings”. Here we would like to emphasize that the very phenomenon of the metamodern and the attempts to provide theoretical justification for it are going on almost simultaneously, whereas there is neither temporal nor spatial distance between the researchers and the objects of the research.

Література

1. Vermeulen T. and Robin van den Akker. Notes on metamodernism. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture. 2010. Vol. 2, URL: http://www.emerymartin.net/FE503/Week10/Notes%2 0on%20Metamodernism.pdf (дата звернення: 01.12.2021).

2. Маніфест метамодернізму. The syncretic times. URL: https://thesyncretictimes.wordpress.com/2016/02/22/m etamodernist-manifesto-ukrainian/ (дата звернення: 01.12.2021).

3. Мірошниченко В.С. Метамодернізм, осциляція, інтерпеляція. Культура України. Випуск 55. 2017. С. 109 - 117.

4. Peters C. Kant's Philosophy of Hope, New York: Peter Lang. 1993. 117 p.

5. Swift Т. An interview with Luke Turner & Nastja Sade Ronkko. AQNB. 19 May 2014. URL: https://www.aqnb.com/2014/05/19/an-interview- with-luke-turner-nastja-sade- ronkko/?utm_referrer=https://syg.ma (дата звернення: 01.12.2021).

References

1. Vermeulen T. and Robin van den Akker. (2010). Notes on metamodernism. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 2. Retrieved from: http://metamodernizm.ru/notes-on-metamodernism/ (access date: 01.12.2021) [in English].

2. Manifesto for metamodernism. THE SYNCRETIC TIMES. Retrieved from:

https://thesyncretictimes.wordpress.com/2016/02/22/m etamodernist-manifesto-ukrainian/ (access date: 01.12.2021) [in Ukrainian].

3. Mnoshnichenko, V. S. (2017). Metamodernism, oscillation, intervention. Kuljtura Ukrajiny, Issue 55, 109 - 117 [in Ukrainian].

4. Peters, C. (1993). Kant's Philosophy of Hope, New York: Peter Lang. [in English].

5. Swift, Т. (2014). An interview with Luke Turner & Nastja Sade Ronkko. AQNB. Retrieved from: https://www.aqnb.com/2014/05/19/an-interview- with-luke-turner-nastja-sade- ronkko/?utm_referrer=https://syg.ma (access date: 01.12.2021) [in English].

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