No emphasis whatsoever on nostalgia necessary; just that we all kinda noticed this effect when it went away, and started playing with it after finding the uncanny valley so sterile.

Me-too hipsterism may well be shallow and silly, but at least it deconstructs norms to some extent, whereas the idea behind this vid only detracts rather than offering anything much of value beyond assisting the categorisation of a subculture, something of dubious merit.

Big chunky visible pixels have been completely obsolete for what, 15, 20, 30 years depending on how you count?

I don’t think that you can simultaneously mine the art styles of the distant past, carefully mimicking flaws and limitations that no longer exist,  AND claim to be against nostalgia.

I guess I sort of come at it backwards: If using an ancient art style because of its aesthetic beauty isn’t “nostalgic”, than what art is? At that point, does nostalgia even mean anything in the context of art?

I don’t have a problem with nostalgia, particularly, but all these essays bring it up.

And then the whole thing becomes complicated with “irony” is thrown in!

 ”What do you think of this new aesthetic that’s been emerging in the arts recently, the one they’re calling…..the New Aesthetic?”

Anyway, I’ve been thinking for a long time about what comes after postmodernism, and logically it can only be the Pre-Incipient Movement.  Notice how everybody today keeps nattering on about how things like Can are “really ahead of their time?”  It’s all part of the Pre-Incipient Era’s obsession with cultural prescience, and with the idea of temporality as being in a constantly fluid, embryonic state of incipient potentiality.  Man, I could really sell this shit.

http://fashionarchitecturetaste.com/ 

Much of the rest of the essay is nicely thought provoking. With Sterling, sometimes he seems to rockets out ideas so fast that even if there are a few duds they are overwhelmed by the barrage of good ones.

His book Distraction is like that for me… despite being less tightly plotted and coherent than his more successful works, there were so many great ideas in it I wanted to see brought to life. I’ve reread sections of it several times even though the overall plot meandered in and out of interesting territory.

The RFID tagged building materials for semi-skilled assembly of complex architecture, and the  fluidly ad hoc teams of Makers who were central to the narrative were inspiring enough to draw me back to it from time to time.

I cannot help but think that, whereas in the late 20th century there was an increasing interest in progress, new identities, new ideas, broadening of horizons, and breaking out of old boundaries, in the beginning of the 21st century there has been a mounting confusion, cynicism, and ultimately anxiety about progress itself that has driven popular trends in art, music, and culture to lose interest in progress and take on nostalgia as the clown in despair; to take on the naivete of childhood in the late 20th century and reproduce it sarcastically (“ironically”) as a way of expressing confusion and uncertainty about the ambiguity of the future.

I also cannot help but think this is a consequence of media, thinking of McLuhan again. Media has changed enormously in the past 20 years and while it initially went through its phase of early adoption and novelty in the late 90′s and early 00′s, its become part of everybody’s life now and there is a kind of backlash to it since people have not fully adapted to it and understood it as a new language. When new media flooded into the culture of the early 20th century, in America for instance, a similar hysteria arose as a response. On the timescale of cultural and social changes, the internet, cell phones, and other 21st century media have emerged very suddenly, and opened the door for enormous amounts of progress, but I do not think people have largely, even young people, learned yet to understand themselves as subjects in this new world.

Creating, or arguing for, any form of categorisation on art, or a group of artists, is to create limitations on interpretation and even more annoyingly limitations on creativity. You’re basically arguing for and creating a manifesto in a ‘do it like this, or you’re doing it wrong’ sense. Frankly, modern art, in all of its mediums, has grown out of such immaturity. Please catch up. Admittedly a lot of Digital Art has been, and continues to be.. um.. kind of structuralist in nature in that there are many examples where the medium itself is the expression as much as any of the affects of the art itself. Anyway, why we’re all swapping texts, try mine, I am at least a digital artist. Note how I don’t try to create rigid aesthetic categories of art, but try instead to argue for different and more open approaches to interpretation and understanding of the process of creating art in the digital form. Its not a great text, the conclusions need tightening up.. but hey, I want to play too. Stop yer bloody pigeonholing, what you see is what you see, its not a good thing to make others see it as you see it. Beauty within the limitations of the medium you say ? Yep, we’ve all been talking about that for many, many years and not just in the digital medium either. I cover the limitations in my essay, from the point of view of a practitioner. Check out the sections on Strata and Assemblages.

http://independent.academia.edu/AlistairStray/Papers/724293/What_is_said_and_what_is_done_Creating_Art_in_Digital_Space_its_Strata_and_Assemblages

Nina Hartley

It’s been named, so now it’s doomed.

I think it’s a mixed bag. Without commenting directly on the “New Aesthetic” (which I’d never heard of until right now), whenever something becomes a “thing” you get a lot more people working within the idiom. Inevitably the increased focus and awareness leads to come cool expressions, but it also brings in a lot derivative posing.

Does the signal to noise go down once something’s a “thing?” Probably. But if you’re willing to wade through the muck, some cool stuff will be found.

These are just general comments on movements (or Movements), but I imagine the New Aesthetic will be no different.