9th May Saturday 12-2pm
Spiralbound
The aesthetics of nostalgia
The aesthetics of nostalgia is prevalent in contemporary culture. Artist and writers continue to excavate and re-visit the past exploring western society’s relationship with objects and consumer culture. This reanimating of existing footage, texts and music can be viewed in a wide range of formats including hit US TV show Mad Men, cult literary fiction such as Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves or Steven Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts, the work of leading contemporary artists such as Elizabeth Price and the graphic novels of Chris Ware. Equally, fashion trends such as the parading of 1980s Walkman style Dr. Dre headphones, the aesthetic influence of defunct computer brands such as Spectrum, Atari and Amstrad on current computer gaming and the re-birth of vinyl can be spotted and understood next to a 21st Century cultural interest in the physicality of pre-digital objects: examples including record players, typewriters, tape cassette recorders, VHS players and Fax machines.
Yet why exactly is there a growing 21st Century cultural interest in the physical materiality of pre-digital objects? One answer is that consumer culture is witnessing the gradual extinction of pre-digital objects. Previous high functioning and era defining objects of technology such as Kodak film, VHS and CDs are being phased out. We are crossing between two worlds: pre-digital and digital. By watching our past gradually become non-operational are we in fact, experiencing a collective melancholia? Is our increasing over-dependence on new digital technologies creating its own sense of isolation thus exaggerating an aesthetic of nostalgia for the past? And is the dichotomy of chasing the new and on the other hand fetishizing the past defining an inner conflict within 21st Century culture?
Contact: John Hughes_hughes.johnpatrick@gmail.com
Spiralbound _http://susakpress.org/spiralbound