Metamodernity
Next to Hudson Yards, it's crowded on the weekdays
From April to May
Parse apart a troubled heart from an e-train
And sing about it in LAWith clouds in the rearview
You start humming along to the first verse
Of your favorite song that you quote each day
With the words all wrongSo call me when the world looks bleak
I love you, but it’s hard to believe
With every day, we'll start to see
The rest is metamodernityWith agrestic charm, it's humid in the Midwest
From June to July
All beneath a pinkish sky from the wildfires
Which mantle the horizon lineFrom the outset
It’s been hard to tell why we feel this down
When it all bodes wellSo call me when the world looks bleak
I love you, but it's hard to believe
With every day, we'll start to see
The rest is metamodernity
Metamodernism is what lies after Post-Modernism.
Although, that’s weird to hear, and also weird to write. It’s hard to think about Post Modernism being over, especially considering it’s taught as the canon of current design.
Isn’t that exactly the problem though? Post-Modernism was an answer to Modernism, ironic, satirical, cynical, and real. We saw the rise of modernity get picked apart, we challenged white narratives and canons established by centuries of colonization, we saw styles such as abstraction and grunge take complete hold over an entire generation of artists and designers. People were no longer conforming to the little white checkboxes society had placed them within.
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Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead…
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Post-Modernism has essentially become just as subservient to the majority narrative that any previous narrative before it has. The style is no longer breakout, the ideas no longer resistance by nature. Abstraction and deconstruction are taught in the classroom just as minimalism and grid-systems are. Major companies like Nike appropriate the postmodern style, consumer television shows such as The Simpsons and South Park in America for example use postmodern humour. The music of many modern artists in the 90s by example critiqued our way of living with various messages and phrases. Basically, the ideas and concepts of postmodern thought are ingrained in everyday life whether we acknowledge them or not.
The shift to Metamodernism happened when we moved from the ironic and cynical, to still acknowledging those ironies while simultaneously looking for a moment of genuineness or honesty. All movements be it Postmodernism or Metamodernism, it is a structure of feeling. Both tie into a general cultural relationship with all things in society, and they could even be considered their own philosophies.
Postmodern, defined by Frederik Jameson in “POSTMODERNISM: The Cultural Logic of Late Stage Capitalism” is the sensibility of the end times, the end of history, the end of ideology, the end of society, the end of everything. On the contrary, Metamodernism is the sensibility of post-irony, new forms of sincerity, and informed Naiveté.
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To give an analogy, if modernism was the absolute belief in the building of Babel, and postmodernism was the realisation that it cannot be built, metamodernism can be thought of as the engagement in building it with the knowledge that it is a flawed or unachievable task.
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Metamodernist realize the futility of a battle against a metaphorical god, the Sisyphusian task of attempting to fight against a system so powerful and large (which also ties into the Metamodernists direct relation to leftist thought and theory), and still chooses the attempt to create a better solution knowing that there may never be a fruit that bears out of the labor done.
The term “Meta” coincides the it’s Greek origin, meaning “Between”, “After”, or “Beyond.” Thus, Metamodernism oscillates between between modernist and postmodernist, and beyond to something entirely different. It doesn’t take allegiance with either side, and properly points out the pros in each as well as the cons. It is a return to the elegant big narratives established by modernism, but with the added irony and sentiment of the postmodern. Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker stated in their 2010 article:
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Ontologically, metamodernism oscillates between the modern and postmodern. It oscillates between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between the hope and melancholy, between naivete and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity.
Each time the metamodern enthusiasm swings towards fanaticism, gravity pulls it back towards irony; the moment its iron sways towards apathy, gravity pulls it back to enthusiasm.
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But why is Postmodernism over? Well it’s simple, can we describe the rising and bubbling over of internet culture, memes, Tik-Tok, and many more examples as postmodernist? If the answer to that is no, then what can we describe them as?
The application of metamodern thought does not only apply to internet culture, however, as we see a shift in work that exists in culture yet struggles to identify with a single movement. Notable examples could include Wes Andersons and Spike Lees films, Bo Burnhams music and documentary “Inside”, and music such as my often linked band Vansire. I would strongly argue that our Alumnx Heather Snyder Quinn applies heavily towards this as well. These artists were using postmodern mediums and means, but not exactly reaching postmodern ends. Not everything was a cynical effort to expose and disillude, but often aimed towards creating a sincerity or connection with the topic.
We define this in layers, starting at layer 1 and moving through layers as we continue to get closer to the self. If Layer 1 is a published piece of art, then Layer 2 reflects that, looking upon it in a modernist framework of surface level meanings and intention. Layer 3 then confronts the other Layers with cynicism and nihilistically attacks the reason or existence of the art, such as how postmoderism would approach it. When we arrive at Layer 4, we deconstruct the postmodern thought, where we become more vulnerable and earnest about the work and why we attacked it. Layer 4 and beyond would become the Metamodern, what we see as deconstruction of deconstruction as a means to a reconstructive end.
I think it’s important to note that the point in the modern age we live in is unpredictable and always changing. To that point maybe metamodernity is about the adaptation and working around the new challenges brought on upon by post-capitalist society. The metamodern framework is simply a way of interpreting this new sensibility we see in art and design, and is not considered a movement in the sense of what we would call postmodernism. As the modern age continues, we will keep trying to interpret and understand it and find value in our new discoveries.
