DOI Heft:
Nr. 3-4
DOI Artikel:Nilsson, John Peter: What is the new in the new?
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49349#0419
405
What is the New in the New?
Today we are living in a world that is dramatically changing. Yes, of course, this has always been
often said when confronting the realities of contemporary life, no matter whether ten or a hundred
years ago. To talk of rapid change has become a cliche, but is it not new that we are living in a
world that has become a cliche in itself?
In 1987, Umberto Eco wrote in Sette Anni di Desiderio: 'Disneyland can permit itself to
market its reconstructions as masterpieces of fakery, since the goods that are being marketed are
not really reproductions but genuine goods. What is faked is our urge to buy, which we can see as
real, and in that sense Disneyland really is the quintessence of consumer ideology'.
This, however, is not really anything new, I must admit. Let us try another quote, this time
from Andy Warhol in an entry from his diaries dated 27th June, 1983: 'But then, since the '60s,
after years and years and more "people" in the news, you still don't know anything more about
people. Maybe you know more, but you don't know better. Like you live with someone and don't
have any idea, either. So what does all this information do for you?'
I have to admit that sometimes I don't know myself....
One further quote, this time from Rafael Argullol and Eugenio Trias in El cansancio de Occi-
dente, published in 1992: 'Passivity is the hallmark of humans today. And it's elear: if people are
turned into spectators and robbed any possibility of influence, this gives rise to a passive being.
But all this, of course, takes place under the guise of its opposite. All manner of pseudo-events go
on amid a stream of constant activity; activity that reinforces the passive, an uninterrupted motion
that fades into immobility. We speak of all the stress and hectic rush in our society, but the final
impression is of a pursuit of emptiness'.
All right, enough of the quotes. What might be the new in the new today is that many of us, at
least in the middle-class West, never as before are able to get inside the world. If we have access to
information technology, or if we have a reasonable amount of money, being not necessarily rich or
influential, the world has shrunk and we can travel, both virtually and for real, and thus become a
part of the world beyond its geography. This is a utopia of universality that seems to have come
true.
On the other hand, however, there seems to dwell a feeling of being excluded from this new
world. It is a paradox, but the more information we have about the world the less knowledgeable
we become. We are not only consuming goods, but also media, and what this media represents.
There is no doubt that Marshall McLuhan was right: in many cases, it is the medium that is the
message in itself.
But how can we come to terms with this situation/predicament? How can an artist practise
something without it becoming a meaningless activity which refers to nothing outside itself? Is
there any way out of this post-modern cul-de-sac?
The subject today has to map itself. We have to learn to understand that we are always global -
somewhere/in some respect. The geography is broken and we have to start to navigate from our
own experiences. The vehicle for such ajourney is not: 'Who I am ', but rather 'When am I'. In a
globalised world we need to navigate in a global language, otherwise we lose our way. But our
experiences are not only global. It is as much a question of persona! experiences, rooted in our
own private context, as in collective ones from a world that many of us share and live in together.
Therefore, we have to rethink what an experience can be in relation to language; especially to the
fact that language is divided neither from our body nor the place in which we act. Language is in
constant flux and interacts with every context and situation we enter.
This ongoing friction between experience and language creates untranslatable distances. And,
since the Self alone can have partial understanding of itself, while needing the Other to fill in the
gaps, a dialogue between experience and language can never come about only through mutual
understanding (alone). If I wish to map myself, placing myself in this broken geography, I have to
What is the New in the New?
Today we are living in a world that is dramatically changing. Yes, of course, this has always been
often said when confronting the realities of contemporary life, no matter whether ten or a hundred
years ago. To talk of rapid change has become a cliche, but is it not new that we are living in a
world that has become a cliche in itself?
In 1987, Umberto Eco wrote in Sette Anni di Desiderio: 'Disneyland can permit itself to
market its reconstructions as masterpieces of fakery, since the goods that are being marketed are
not really reproductions but genuine goods. What is faked is our urge to buy, which we can see as
real, and in that sense Disneyland really is the quintessence of consumer ideology'.
This, however, is not really anything new, I must admit. Let us try another quote, this time
from Andy Warhol in an entry from his diaries dated 27th June, 1983: 'But then, since the '60s,
after years and years and more "people" in the news, you still don't know anything more about
people. Maybe you know more, but you don't know better. Like you live with someone and don't
have any idea, either. So what does all this information do for you?'
I have to admit that sometimes I don't know myself....
One further quote, this time from Rafael Argullol and Eugenio Trias in El cansancio de Occi-
dente, published in 1992: 'Passivity is the hallmark of humans today. And it's elear: if people are
turned into spectators and robbed any possibility of influence, this gives rise to a passive being.
But all this, of course, takes place under the guise of its opposite. All manner of pseudo-events go
on amid a stream of constant activity; activity that reinforces the passive, an uninterrupted motion
that fades into immobility. We speak of all the stress and hectic rush in our society, but the final
impression is of a pursuit of emptiness'.
All right, enough of the quotes. What might be the new in the new today is that many of us, at
least in the middle-class West, never as before are able to get inside the world. If we have access to
information technology, or if we have a reasonable amount of money, being not necessarily rich or
influential, the world has shrunk and we can travel, both virtually and for real, and thus become a
part of the world beyond its geography. This is a utopia of universality that seems to have come
true.
On the other hand, however, there seems to dwell a feeling of being excluded from this new
world. It is a paradox, but the more information we have about the world the less knowledgeable
we become. We are not only consuming goods, but also media, and what this media represents.
There is no doubt that Marshall McLuhan was right: in many cases, it is the medium that is the
message in itself.
But how can we come to terms with this situation/predicament? How can an artist practise
something without it becoming a meaningless activity which refers to nothing outside itself? Is
there any way out of this post-modern cul-de-sac?
The subject today has to map itself. We have to learn to understand that we are always global -
somewhere/in some respect. The geography is broken and we have to start to navigate from our
own experiences. The vehicle for such ajourney is not: 'Who I am ', but rather 'When am I'. In a
globalised world we need to navigate in a global language, otherwise we lose our way. But our
experiences are not only global. It is as much a question of persona! experiences, rooted in our
own private context, as in collective ones from a world that many of us share and live in together.
Therefore, we have to rethink what an experience can be in relation to language; especially to the
fact that language is divided neither from our body nor the place in which we act. Language is in
constant flux and interacts with every context and situation we enter.
This ongoing friction between experience and language creates untranslatable distances. And,
since the Self alone can have partial understanding of itself, while needing the Other to fill in the
gaps, a dialogue between experience and language can never come about only through mutual
understanding (alone). If I wish to map myself, placing myself in this broken geography, I have to