Notes on metamodernism

Abstract

The postmodern years of plenty, pastiche, and parataxis are over. In fact, if we are to believe the many academics, critics, and pundits whose books and essays describe the decline and demise of the postmodern, they have been over for quite a while now. But if these commentators agree the postmodern condition has been abandoned, they appear less in accord as to what to make of the state it has been abandoned for. In this essay, we will outline the contours of this discourse by looking at recent developments in architecture, art, and film. We will call this discourse, oscillating between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, metamodernism. We argue that the metamodern is most clearly, yet not exclusively, expressed by the neoromantic turn of late associated with the architecture of Herzog & de Meuron, the installations of Bas Jan Ader, the collages of David Thorpe, the paintings of Kaye Donachie, and the films of Michel Gondry. Timotheus Vermeulen is a teaching fellow in Cultural Studies and Theory at the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He is also currently in the process of completing his AHRC-funded PhD in Film and Television at the University of Reading, UK. He has published on inter-and transmediality, spatiality, contemporary aesthetics, cinema and television, and the work of Jacques Rancière. Robin van den Akker is a Doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and a researcher at TNO Informationand Communication Technologies. He is writing a dissertation on the remediation of urban space by mobile media practices. He has published on everyday life and urban space, digital culture and contemporary design, and the work of Henri Lefebvre. Timotheus and Robin are also currently working on an international research project documenting trends and tendencies in current affairs and contemporary aesthetics that can no longer be explained in terms of the postmodern but should be conceived of as metamodern. As part of this project they also co-edit a blog called ''Notes on metamodernism'' (http://mtmdrn.blogs pot.com).

Listening to the Log: Gothic Awkwardness and Twin Peaks

“…Her words, alluding to an apocalyptic battle between good and evil, set up the possibility of an oscillation between interpretive undecidability and decidability. As such, they can be read as a whisper, hint, or nod toward what Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, following Raymond Williams, find to be a metamodern “structure of feeling.”…”

Metamodernism: A New Philosophical Approach to Counseling

“…Vermeulen and van den Akker () depicted metamodernism as “the current generation's attitude … conceived of as a kind of informed naivety, a pragmatic idealism” (para. 14) that is differentiated from both the hard modernist realism and the postmodern emphasis on self‐definition.…”

“…The term metamodernism originated in the field of aesthetics, and in addition to describing certain developments in the arts over the past decade and a half, the term may be extended to describe certain parallel cultural developments characteristic of the past 15 years (Vermeulen & van den Akker, ). However, metamodernism also addresses ways that individuals attempt to manage their position at the boundaries of diverse social systems, and for counselors, this is particularly salient when those systems do not honor cultural difference, or when systems are at odds with the wellness‐based approach that is the signature of counselors.…”

“…However, metamodernism also addresses ways that individuals attempt to manage their position at the boundaries of diverse social systems, and for counselors, this is particularly salient when those systems do not honor cultural difference, or when systems are at odds with the wellness‐based approach that is the signature of counselors. Key features of metamodernism that are relevant for counselors include a constant movement and oscillation in attitudes, as well as an awareness of an individual's simultaneous position in multiple worlds (Kadagishvili, ; Vermeulen & van den Akker, ). These features in particular speak directly to the pragmatic work of today's professional counselors and to the dilemmas that they often encounter because of the social power held by institutions such as the medical and legal systems.…”

“Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!” The Neo-Victorian Novel-as-Mashup and the Limits of Postmodern Irony

“…Linda Hutcheon has herself voiced suspicions about postmodernism's lifespan in the epilogue to the most recent edition of The Politics of Postmodernism, stating: "Let's just say it: it's over" (Hutcheon 1995b: 166-167). See also Eshelman 2008;Kirby 2009;Bourriaud 2009;Moraru 2013;Nealon 2012;Vermeulen and van den Akker 2010. nonsensical forces at work in the articulation of concepts" (Colebrook 2004, 169, original italics). Colebrook sees these nonsensical forces as the ways in which unintended meaning can be written or read into all communication.…”