
Postmodernism is Anti-Mind (Literally) - StevePatterson
http://steve-patterson.com/postmodernism-is-anti-mind-literally/
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Homunculiheaded
Many of the examples in this post are great examples of 'Modernist Art' and
are decidedly not postmodern. This is roughly the equivalent of writing a post
on "Functional programming is Anti-Mind" and then demonstrating that with
examples from the Gang of Four Design Patterns book.

The real issue with this is that most postmodern art is incredibly accessible.
You don't need an art degree to think that Roy Lichtenstein's paintings "look
cool", or that Campbell's Soup cans are "neat". One of the quintessential,
textbook postmodern film directors is Quentin Tarantino; there are few
directors more adored by the general public. Postmodernism is a descriptive
term for artists who mostly reject the Western tradition of 'High Art'. Almost
all the difficulty and "unintelligibility" lies in postmodern theory, but not
in the art theorists consider postmodern. And I would argue that this is
because theorists themselves are artifacts of Western high culture and are
therefore unable to articulate a response to something that is outside this
framework.

Almost all examples of "unintelligible" art fall into some subcategory of High
Modernism. High Modernist schools of thought are almost always exploring
questions within the context of Western high culture(ie the "What is art?"
questions), and for many of these works you need to have a background in the
art in question to really engage with and understand the piece.

If you want to critique postmodernism a good place to start is Fredric
Jameson's "Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism".

~~~
kibibu
This is great! Would you say Dadaism and similar rejections are also
postmodern? What about Stuckism, which rejects the idea that art is about
concept and intention and should just be about pretty pictures?

Honestly, I've never found a good explanation of what "postmodern" actually
means, and your examples are helping.

~~~
dreamfactory2
While I agree with the reply on the whole, many of its examples are pop art,
which is a kind of shared space between modernism and postmodernism as far as
art is concerned but not quite postmodernism, which explicitly rejects
modernism. _But_ postmodernism originated in architecture and is more broadly
a kind of 'end of history' movement, expressed not through the singular view
and notion of purity of classicism, nor the idealist/utopian/revolutionary
views of modernism - but through an embrace and often shocking (e.g. to
notions of taste) juxtaposition of incongruent sources (e.g. classical motifs
mixed with tiki references).

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StevePatterson
I love how so many of these comments revolve around the term "postmodern."
This article's argument is not its title. It's the idea represented by a
particular school of thinking.

Call it what you want: there is a school of thought which embraces the idea
that the universe is senseless, and they claim the mind creates artificial
order. You can see it in artistic work.

Obviously, this article is about that school of thought.

(which, I think you could make a very reasonable case is decidedly "post-
modern." Not every representative of the school has to live in the same time
frame, just like Beethoven could be called a Romantic artist, but he was a
century earlier than Tchaikovsky. Nietzsche preceded the postmodernists, but
his ideas fit squarely with theirs.).

~~~
wrongc0ntinent
Chronology's a bitch. Talk about authoritarian structure.

~~~
StevePatterson
I also love how some people think this article is a defense of anti-
structuralism, while others think it's a dismissal.

As to chronology, I'm afraid history isn't on your side. One era does not end
sharply as another begins. There's significant chronological overlap between
schools of thought and movements in general.

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orasis
"To put it simply: not all structure is arbitrary. Sometimes, the mind creates
structure, but other times, the mind recognizes structure."

Unfortunately, the author is materialist, which causes them to miss the point
that all structure is created. If the author were to remove time and space
from their world view and only focus on present moment experience, it becomes
impossible to find true objective structure.

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terrage
Ceci n'est pas une article

~~~
Sandman
Cute, but this actually was an article. And Magritte's pipe wasn't really a
pipe. I get the reference, but it kind of misses the point of what Magritte
was trying to say with that painting.

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futuravenir
Thanks for sharing this Steve. It hits home just at the right time. Which is
to say that my mind is attempting to recognize patterns within the chaos
(whether they are there or aren't there).

It also touches on a few themes from one of my favorite books, "I am a Strange
Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter...And you mention Derrida who had a profound
impact on my thought process and development. La Différance did a lot for my
understanding of the world.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diff%C3%A9rance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diff%C3%A9rance)

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orasis
"Before I had studied Chan (Zen) for thirty years, I saw mountains as
mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge,
I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers
are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For
it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again
as rivers."

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jkot
Could someone TLDR what is it all about?

I stopped reading at empty canvases, this is hardly original, first empty
canvas exhibition was 90 years ago in Paris.

~~~
dreamfactory2
It's based on a faulty premise that modernism and postmodernism are the same
thing and seemingly ignorant that postmodernism is a rejection of modernism.
Ergo author wasted time writing the article and you saved time reading it.

~~~
conatus
Would upvote!

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jordanpg
I don't really know if this is a fair characterization of postmodernism or
not, but I have to wonder about the circumstances under which a total lack of
structure would actually be useful in a human life? It seems like to me an
interesting but not very profound observation to make that our minds traffic
in structure and patterns. What alternative, I wonder, is proposed to solving
problems using logical constructs?

For those that need an introduction to the finer points of POMO, don't miss
this:
[http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/](http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/)
(don't miss the footer!)

~~~
DenisM
>I have to wonder about the circumstances under which a total lack of
structure would actually be useful in a human life?

I surmise it can serve as a contrasting backdrop to structure, to better the
understanding of the latter.

On the other hand, it could be simply a childish rebellion against the
paternalistic oppression of structure and reason.

Or... it can also be a method for newcomers to dislodge the old guard - by
undermining their work, you might be able to undermine their social stance and
gain some of it for yourself.

~~~
mc32
Postmodernism is more insidious than rejection of authority/structure.
Authority tends to be straightforward. Postmodernism says there is no
authority, but you know very well there is authority but you have to find it
out yourself and be sure you are correct in your conclusion of authority or
structure.

It's like when you ask someone for an appropriate gift for an occasion and
they say, 'oh, you'll figure something out' instead of telling you what would
work. I mean, it's not as though 'anything' would be accepted, but now they
are putting the onus on you to get it right.

So rather than being liberating, it can be debilitating.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
That 'It's all equally meaningless, so here's some cultural irony' shtick gets
wearing after a while.

It had its day in the late 80s and early 90s. Only academia is keeping it
alive now. You pretty much have to be able to quote Derrida, Lacan, and
Foucault to get a humanities professorship - which is, not nearly ironically
enough, not a good thing, IMO. (See also: Postmodern Critical Theory.)

But I think rest of world, including rest of art world, has moved on already.

~~~
conatus
Have you read any Derrida, Lacan or Foucault?

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Too much. Far, far, too much. :)

I prefer Bourdieu, who seems to be tragically underrated in academia.

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niels_olson
> All of our thoughts require language

No. A very concrete example of this for me was when my dad and I designed a
ladder-chair(1). We both had pencils and drew the views and measurements on a
single piece of engineering paper over the course of 45 minutes, I think with
maybe a dozen sentences spoken. But clearly each hand was responding to the
other's lines.

(1)
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/niels_olson/sets/7215759452966...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/niels_olson/sets/72157594529666741/)

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conatus
Hilarious when people still write articles declaiming postmodernism when it
has been dead in continental philosophy for at least 15 years.

~~~
guard-of-terra
On the other hand, can't you still say most of new art around us is post-
modern?

Because else what would it be? Have we got anything after postmodernism?

This is what makes article hilarious. It is a post-modern piece bashing what
it claims to be postmodernism.

UPD: In that respect, saying "I don't like postmodernism" looks as "I don't
like air" That's what you've got. For today.

~~~
dragonwriter
> On the other hand, can't you still say most of new art around us is post-
> modern?

No. Well, you can, but its equivocation: its certainly something that arises
in the period after the height of the movement called "modernism", hence, it
is "post-modern" in that sense, but its not part of the particular movement
which has been labelled "post-modernism".

> Because else what would it be? Have we got anything after postmodernism?

Yes, in both art and philosophy, there are a number of contemporary movements
that are active, many of which postdate postmodernism in their origins.

~~~
guard-of-terra
You don't have to label yourself postmodernist. Your own opinion about the
direction of your art is irrelevant.

The thing is: we haven't got anything that is not post-modern. Postmodernism
is about going in circles in my opinion, and that's what we do. Can't break
out.

------
Sandman
I don't know. By this logic ("Who's to say what is art and what is not art?")
even my pictures of stick figures can be considered art. Except that no,
sorry, they're not art, and I'm not an artist.

Roy Lichtenstein asked himself "What is art?". And when he took pictures out
of instruction manuals and newspaper advertisements (and, later, comic books)
and reproduced them on canvas he said "Ok, I took something mundane, something
mass-produced, something you see every day all around you, and I reproduced it
here on canvas, using tools and techniques that artists use, I painted each of
the Ben-day dots by hand, and is this now somehow not mundane? Is it now
art?". And when I see one of his pictures a voice in my head says "Yes, this
is art."

When I see a canvas painted black (or a shark in a tank, for that matter),
that voice says "no".

~~~
igravious
Interesting.

How about blue? No? What about International Klein Blue[0][1]? Maybe yes? Just
goes to show. I would say that the first deliberate black canvas, yes. After
that, no. Derivative :)

Shark-in-a-tank[2]. The contemporary work of art people don't think is a work
of art. I wonder why that is? The title alone is intriguing, "The Physical
Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living". The formaldehyde gives
it a distinctive hue. The vitrine is divided into three rather like a
triptych. It's outrageous something gave its life in the creation of this work
though people have been worked to death for far more mundane tasks. I don't
like shark-in-a-tank, but it's art I'm afraid.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Klein_Blue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Klein_Blue)

[1] [http://www.themilanese.com/?p=6939](http://www.themilanese.com/?p=6939)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_Death_in_the_Mind_of_Someone_Living)

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pXMzR2A
> I mean, upon analysis, postmodernism tries to escape or reject the
> traditional function of the human mind.

I mean, upon analysis, postmodernism tries to escape or reject the traditional
_perspective on_ the human mind.

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anonymfus


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alricb
This article seems to posit that being "anti-mind" is a bad thing. I don't
know that it is the case.

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coldcode
What comes after postmodernism? Postmodernism++?

~~~
Alex3917
There are multiple schools for thought currently vying for that position, but
transmodernism seems to have the most traction.

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Zigurd
Based on his picture, Steve Patterson is one of the younger grumpy old white
men I have seen. He has also rediscovered that “Screw you, rules. I’ll paint
whatever I damn well choose" is an attitude contained inside of art.

