Postmodernism
Progressive Simulation
Past the modernist period of ultimate certainties and moral hierarchies, now is a period of pluralism and doubt, in the century of mass exterminations and environmental damage, it is difficult or impossible to regain the sense of a "Grand Narrative" Gone with it are the unified belief in words such as God, Truth and Hope. Instead of a Platonic reality to aspire to, we are subsumed into our own fantasies and nightmares, which we grab and second from the circulatory system of random images and themes from the global mass market of desire and seduction.
This social and economic system has gone beyond control, and is instead developing into a random array of images and ideas, which have lost any underlying meaning or sense. All the stories of past ages which provided moral and social order through reflection and example have lost an anchor point, rather than one determining strand we live in a spaghetti swamp of alternative narratives which are continually being cross linked and truncated - A system losing control of itself and knowledge of it's boundaries.
- Can the postmodern position continue to help us explore the significance of narratives to express, reflect and promote future cultural conditions?
- or is it disappearing in its own cacophony of esoteric language games?
