Can postmodernism be creative?
July 24th 2007 05:31
OK, so there's a view out there which says that postmodernism is destructive in the sense that it is purely critical, it doubts the possibility of truly creating anything new, thus postmodernism if it takes over will kill art and other creative endeavors.
I think this is a misunderstanding. The claim that the author is merely the point of intersection of the cultural sum of their experiences and simply put old ideas together in different ways, is a descriptive claim. You can't come along and say postmodernism is bad because it will kill art in the sense that no new art will be created, because everone will be busy rehashing old ideas. That totally misses the point. If the postmodern claim is true, it means there never was a creative and new art in that sense. That doesn't diminish art, it still is as great as we always thought it was, but not because it was entirely novel.
I think the video I posted a few days ago is a good example. It's a video camera pointed at the screen which is displaying what the video camera sees, thus creating a feedback loop. There are no new ideas on the screen, only the old ones put together in different ways, seen from different perspectives, related to eachother in different ways. From the postmodern perspective this is all art is, a feedback loop of art imitating life imitating art and so on, where the artist merely arranges these perspectives on old ideas in interesting ways, borrowing from what they have experienced before, where else could their ideas come from? out of thin air?
So I guess my question is can you make something new by putting old pieces together in new ways? Or is there some creative element which is lacking from postmodern art?
I think this is a misunderstanding. The claim that the author is merely the point of intersection of the cultural sum of their experiences and simply put old ideas together in different ways, is a descriptive claim. You can't come along and say postmodernism is bad because it will kill art in the sense that no new art will be created, because everone will be busy rehashing old ideas. That totally misses the point. If the postmodern claim is true, it means there never was a creative and new art in that sense. That doesn't diminish art, it still is as great as we always thought it was, but not because it was entirely novel.
I think the video I posted a few days ago is a good example. It's a video camera pointed at the screen which is displaying what the video camera sees, thus creating a feedback loop. There are no new ideas on the screen, only the old ones put together in different ways, seen from different perspectives, related to eachother in different ways. From the postmodern perspective this is all art is, a feedback loop of art imitating life imitating art and so on, where the artist merely arranges these perspectives on old ideas in interesting ways, borrowing from what they have experienced before, where else could their ideas come from? out of thin air?
So I guess my question is can you make something new by putting old pieces together in new ways? Or is there some creative element which is lacking from postmodern art?
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