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What's Avant-Garde Now? Social Innovation
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
What qualifies as true avant-garde? Degrowth qualifies--and very little else.
In the 20th century, avant-garde was a term primarily reserved for the arts: fine arts, music, performance and literature. Avant garde--literally fore-guard or vanguard-- challenges the conventions of Status Quo measures of beauty and departs from traditional forms and conceptions of value.
In many cases, the departure is designed to shock traditionalists by flaunting accepted norms; by traditional standards, avant-garde art is ugly or disturbing, avant-garde music is atonal and unmelodic, avant-garde theatre flouts conventional narrative structure and avant-garde social movements upend traditional morals and values.
Virtually all design and art fields have been continually disrupted by avant-garde movements, to the point that the conventional consumerist economy now depends on avant-garde (or perhaps quasi-avant-garde) to create "the new" that can be sold at a profit to differentiate the in-crowd from those (sigh--how sad) left behind.
Many forms of avant-garde disrupt "high-brow" conventions of art, music, fashion, interior design, etc. by infusing the medium with low-brow influences. Roy Lichtenstein's appropriation of comic-book art is one example. In effect, "low-brow" becomes hip until it is adopted by the mainstream, at which point high-brow is re-introduced to offer a consumerist means to separate wealthy sophisticates from the lumpen-proletariat and petite-bourgeois masses.
I suspect that this century-long cycle of outraging the conventional has reached marginal returns, and this spells the end of avant-garde in the 20th century modernist sense. Now that every convention has been flouted, there is nothing left to disrupt or shock; "the new" is now simply re-hashed "old."
Since consumerism is based on the insecurity of bourgeois aspirations (i.e. the desire to be identified as belonging to the in-crowd), there must always be something "new" to separate elites from aspirants and aspirants from the masses.
This role is filled by simulacra of avant-garde (i.e. presenting the appearance of "the new" to sell more goods). Fake avant-garde is the ultimate co-option of true innovation, as this quasi-avant-garde serves an entirely conventional purpose: reaping profits from selling consumerist sizzle.
Experience has been commoditized by the tourism industry, and as a result travel only signifies membership in the in-crowd if it is self-directed and leisurely, i.e. a form of consumption that cannot be attained by conventional workers with two weeks vacation.
The only form of travel that separates the in-crowd from the low-brow aspirational masses desperate to put foreign travel on their resume and brag about it on Facebook is travel to exotic locales well off the already-commoditized tourist paths (Oh dahling, Kathmandu is so over-run and boring. Siberia is the place to be.)
These 20th century formulas--breaking the traditional modes to be avant-garde, and using the avant-garde to market new products and experiences--have run out of oxygen. As a result, the arts, music and literature are no longer the source of avant-garde--what is truly disruptive are social innovations that disrupt the consumerist model of constantly marketing faux avant-garde as "the new."
I think this excerpt from the article Information-Commodification offers a succinct summary of how social innovation is the true avant-garde:
"Avant-gardes, on the other hand, are always interesting, but they are not really about art, whatever some silly art school textbooks might say. Avant-gardes are about media, about social relations, about property-forms, but they are only ever incidentally or tactically concerned with art. The most interesting ones around at the moment might be about pharmacology or horticulture or even ‘business models’."
What qualifies as true avant-garde? Degrowth qualifies--the rejection of consumption as a measure of growth, prosperity and advancement. The model of access not ownership is avant-garde, as is the no-middleman movement I have described in the blog.
Degrowth, Anti-Consumerism and Peak Consumption (May 9, 2013)
When Conventional Success Is No Longer Possible, Degrowth and the Black Market Beckon (February 7, 2014)
Degrowth Solutions: Half-Farmer, Half-X (July 19, 2014)
And the Next Big Thing Is ... Degrowth? (April 7, 2014)
Any movement that serves to market "the new" in conventional consumerism (and collecting fine art is the ultimate high-brow consumerism) is not avant-garde. The real avant-garde disrupts the consumption and ownership as identity model of aspirational capitalism.
Anything that doesn't disrupt the consumption and ownership as identity model of aspirational capitalism is just another marketing campaign exploiting faux avant-garde.
For more on the photos accompanying this essay, please read Global Bellwether: Japan's Social Depression (September 25, 2014).
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I'm not counter-culture;
the culture became 'counter me'.
Music is still the great realm for avant-garde exploration.
Ulver - Blood Inside
At the very least, listen to the track "Christmas," an aural rendition of Fernando Pessoa's poem that was influenced by one of J.S. Bach's movements, "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor." It's earcandy.
One time in college, I was at an avant-garde concert party at one of my friends' places. His roommate was putting on the show. One of the acts was a girl on the floor, covered by a white sheet, playing discordant keyboards, and a guy banging on a suitcase in slow motion.
edit: remember Griff in Back to the Future? Oh yeah, that's gonna be real avant-garde pretty soon.
Just listen to Talking Heads. Avant garde, and you can dance to it. Or pop in some Aphex Twin.
It's becoming obvious that people in the west are still buying their own hubris, and that until the violence starts, this will continue to get worse.
If they are over 18, I am in!
You should look up what hubris means and refresh your memeory that it measn what they are selling you is BS and hope that they will deliver.
YORK
KING HENRY V Take it, brave York. Now, soldiers, march away:
And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day!
Walked out of a Starbucks the other day and some asians were at a table with one seat taken up by a Teddy Bear. So freakin' tempted to tear it's head off. Childish beyond fucking belief.
The solution is simple: don't walk out of Starbucks. ( also entails that you don't walk into Starbucks. :-) )
I really need to consider typing lessons.
Damn that Television,
Such a Bad Picture.
"Judy's in the bedroom, inventing situations.
Bob is on the street today, he's scouting up locations..."
skateboarder...this is music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-CNMqLc1g4
darn kids. they just don't know how to be cool anymore.
Is it avant garde to pay to have some of those costumes removed?
I was going to ask about this, maybe ZH is the place.
So are these cartoon chicks hookers, or just freaks?
pods
Yes.
No.
Maybe.
You must have missed the article of the situation in Japan, specifically, lack of sex. The article says that nobody is doing that (much, much lower rate than elsewhere in the world). The motels that sell rooms by the hour are instead getting guys who check in without a girl, just to take advantage of the free internet. It's pretty nuts. You can probably find some stuff written on it if you search it.
Wow. Right on this site. Use the search window. Type in "no sex in Japan".
Ummm, I have read that article. Have you ever heard of that avant garde work known as the joke?
pods
FYI
People forget students who couldn't get work wore this shit origanlly as a politcal FU to the japanese 'salary man culture'.
It was an intentional FU to what they had been promised, vs what the reaility was; then it went lame-stream just like punk & techno.
Sounds awesome. How you going to pay for that? After you run out of Mom & Dad's money, I mean.
Sell Plasma.
Yeah, that would probably be about it. De-growth, rejecting consumerism.... I've heard this siren's song before somewhere (60s hippie "communes" come to mind). Where'd that end up? The greatest generation of vacuous consumerism the world has ever seen.
Just another scheme to suck the wealth away from stupid kids who are totally bought in on the idea of a world without money or posessions.
Somebody's getting rich off these idiots, that much I'll guarantee you.
From Cake's Rock & Roll Lifestyle:
Excess ain't rebellion / You're drinking what they're selling
Song (awesome BTW) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUYh9z2efHY.Your destruction doesn't hurt them / Your chaos won't covert them
They're so happy to rebuild it / You'll never really kill it off, yeah
Excess ain't rebellion / You're drinkin' what they're selling
Stole my thunder, but yes the hippies sprang to mind when I read this.
NoDebt,
Funny how Theodor Geisel Covered this all over a half-century ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBCUkdd57qc
I would say modern consumerism has gotten to about the 7:45 mark...
Steampunk. Its not just for Geeks anymore.
I have noticed that my reaction to these "cosplayers" has gone from interest and appreciation of their effort to being at least a little creeped out. How many of these people are spending so much time and money to dress up in front of strangers for no money? What are they getting out of it? Just a little attention I guess and that is very sad.
It's a testament to your skill when someone stops to watch what you are doing. My skateboarding is such, and any other artform worthy of nuance in a human's expression.
Dressing up in funky costumes... well...
Cosplay is just modern manufactuing materials and equipment made cheap.
It does however still take abit a dedicated time and skill to build / sew this stuff.
And lets be honest, some of the stuff is better than the what you see on the cat walks.
Cheap birth control and moving Women into the workforce devalued Men considerably while fueling the consumptive materialism post WWII.
It is no wonder that children raised in day care centers and no Parent at home reject aspirational capitalism and seek identity elsewhere. Many are trapped in the old lies and fantasies (any college campus) but those who cannot afford the fantasy seek alternatives.
"Cheap birth control and moving Women into the workforce devalued Men considerably while fueling the consumptive materialism post WWII."
PLUS, it allowed for a lower pay scale for both genders, paving the way for increased inequality between the 1% and the peasants. It was a corporate wet dream come true.
Don't forget, now two people in the household could have credit cards! Woman can buy their own house! Double the amount of debt!
PLUS women have the old option of marrying, and so diluting their student debt which they accumulated while studying. perhaps the next feminist issue will be about restricting male access to easy credit?
"The most meaningless word today is 'meaningful.'" -- Alistair Cooke
Same sex marriage, anyone?
more like hetero - gay is so mainstream now
Yeh .. gay is the new black.
i need an app for avant-garde
Never mind. It will be corrected soon.
http://philosophyofmetrics.com/2014/10/20/multilateral-economics-101/
social innovations?
Meh - the fuckery really emanates from financial innovations which are, for the largest part, really little more than finding new ways to derive a commission now based on newly created checkbook fiat, premised on a promise to repay in the future.
The future owes the present a great, great deal of money. So much so that the future is going to have to borrow from its future, or hyperinflate, or repudiate.
meanwhile, you are still free to smoke pot and troll 4Chan. Many of you day traders would be better off - let's be honest.
Head chopping is cutting edge.
I very much want to know how degrowth is going to be possible when the entire growth model we so fervently believe in (because we exist in it) requires the commodification of our very lives due to the specialization necessary to have a career where we can produce at the appropriate level. Degrowth is going to require a generalist skill set. We don't have it.
" I suspect that this century-long cycle of outraging the conventional has reached marginal returns, and this spells the end of avant-garde in the 20th century modernist sense. Now that every convention has been flouted, there is nothing left to disrupt or shock; "the new" is now simply re-hashed "old."
This is a really insightful take on 2014 society. All us older folks saw this coming as home grown rebellion against social norms aimed at more social freedoms began to be coopted by corporate media aimed at youth markets. Lets say MTV for example. The marketing of counter culture by the stablishment to youth to add market share and profits to a corporation.
Where are we now, I think the above quote says it. We are dead ended. Youth have nowhere to go with it, and their failure to launch into adulthood makes many of them even more pressed for a way to express their culture and personality. Nothing orgininal is left, it is all derivative or manufactured culture from media and sales people. MTV is the model for manufactured culture. The youth are dead ended in jobs, in culture and in their future. All they can hope for is to be "pale shadows" of their parents. And this is what I see all around me. Youth are rudderless and trying to get a 12 dollar an hour job with a college degree they owe thousands for. Pale shadows who can not even approach their parents original culture they had as kids and they are pale underpaid members of the establishment economy. PALE and SHADOWS. Sure, a tiny few always can break out, but that number is SO small as to be exclusive and many of them come as trust fund babies, set for life, and given free choice due to their born wealth.
The next ecnomic collapse to finish the job of 2008 will push youth to open revolt or simply push them to be drug addicts. I vote for drug addicts, they haven't the heart or head to revolt.
Excellent post.
Kudos to laying it as it is, Jack. No good comes in being nice about describing something putrid.
Based on the kids I see at the skatepark, drug addicts. Poppin "zannie" an sitch.
It's sad, for sure.
But the kids (I'm one of them) have been programmed to have no true morality, or spirituality. As a musician, I've found the best moments in my life come from seeing people I perform for experience a transcendence while watching and listening. It is forever amazing, and in itself also touches something in me beyond any words I could express to anyone. By the way, it's hard work, it doesn't pay, but thats ok. It is worth directly touching people's lives in a positive way, and that is what seems to give life meaning.
'Our Great War is a Spiritual War' I'd like to think it's gone beyond that now. It' a full blown Psychological War.
How many times can the author repeat the term "avant garde" with out confusing the feckin' reader ?
Just the Japanese form of Goth. Sexier though.
Just another sign of decay caused by the Rothschild ponzi and government schemers.
Japan is a great Keynesian/ponzi petri dish to peer into. A once hard working, industrious and conservative society has been brought to its knees in about 25 years--1989 to 2014.
Can there be no better indicator that Rothschild banking backed by the violence of government is nothing more than theft of the people's wealth, future and soul?
Guillotine the banksters; their backers too.
An American, not US subject.
"Start by guillotining the Fed."
I wish more people would get into the whole "second hand goods" thing...So many still think of it as 'icky' somehow, but how wrong they are!
Years ago, before the whole consumer culture took off, second hand WAS icky. People were not in the habit of getting rid of stuff that was still good, so by the time it hit the thrift shops, yeah, it was pretty bad.
Totally different today. You are more likely to find brand new electronics still in the box, designer clothing with labels intact, and, for anyone who shops on QVC, whatever they were selling 3 months ago, for 1/10th the price. There's no concept of value these days, and people are constantly disposing of stuff just to replace it with newer stuff, whether it needs to be replaced or not.
TPTB NEED you to do this. It is that frantic spending, spending, spending that is their lifeblood.
Something will send us back to the stone age and survivors will be happy for bread.
This article is very avant garde, if by avant garde you mean "shit."
Gotta love how Charly always uses as shock factor pics of gosuroris or all other Japan things which he can't wrap his head around. Desist, mate. You'll never comprehend the country who just invented the perfume who precisely reproduces the aroma of a high-school girl's shit http://yaraon.blog109.fc2.com/blog-entry-27710.html - You're just getting old and the brain can't adapt as it used to.
I don't think you understand,
EVERYONE's special !!
Crock O'doom. We are quite Happy in Japan. We've even made a Science of it. Doom porn, Chuck... just delete the "doom" and you'll be Happy too.
You would expect nothing less from "The Way of the Gods."
Extinction as an art?
Art Of Dying Lyrics
There'll come a time when all of us must leave here.
Then nothing sister Mary can do
Will keep me here with you.
As nothing in this life that I've been trying
Could equal or surpass the art of dying.
Do you believe me?
There'll come a time when all your hopes are fading.
When things that seemed so very plain
Become an awful pain.
Searching for the truth among the lying
And answered when you've learned the art of dying.
But you're still with me--
But if you want it
Then you must find it.
But when you have it
There'll be no need for it.
There'll come a time when most of us return here.
Brought back by our desire to be
A perfect entity.
Living through a million years of crying
Until you've realized the Art of Dying.
Do you believe me?