I've been thinking about modernity of late; and in particular our place within it. I've been thinking about it in purely physical terms:
1) A lone suicide bomber driving his/her car towards possible destruction;
2) the vista of London - viewed from Waterloo Bridge - populated with endless towering cranes, jutting out like urban foliage from the grey mass if the city;
3) the peculiar distance I feel from electronic entertainment consoles such as the Xbox 360;
4) the collective theater of Formula 1 racing;
5) themed bars in shopping centres;
6) air-conditioning units;
7) snazzy flat-screen monitors;
8) lavish TV adverts about cars (that are really about the male gaze and the objectification of women);
9) gauche satellite link-ups and stuffy conference calls in company boardrooms;
10) the random gathering of humans in sterile office blocks;
11) bathroom cabinets stuffed with pills and medications and effervescent mixtures used to motivate production;
12) the bored individual staring into a flat-screen monitor whilst emailing his bored friend in another department or office block or city or country about how boring his/her day is;
13) the digital clock in the bottom right-hand corner of every PC and Mac dictating the comings and goings of the average uniform office;
14) single use, single sided, 52x speed, 700mb, 80 mins CDRs with Lifetime Guarantees;
15) powdered, flavoured soup drunk from coffee mugs during working hours i. e., at the desk or in the company kitchen;
16) gastropubs;
17) the new Wembley Stadium;
18) waiting rooms: especially those in Airports (strangely called terminal departure lounges) – the tapping of feet, the biting of nails, the collective thoughts of death, destruction, physics and failure. Or Health Centres – the random coughs and groans, the irritable child, the stench of decaying flesh, warts, sores, seepage, cell deterioration and multiplication;
19) in-store radio stations played on loops;
20) the inner glee I feel when phoning in sick at work;
21) road rage, aggressive driving, motorcyclists revving engines at pedestrians dawdling at pelican crossings;
22) acronyms;
23) the lone human being walking into the supermarket to purchase specially packaged meals for one and beer or single bottles of wine or spirits and paying for the transaction with a credit card;
24) fashion magazines;
25) the vainglorious facades created on egocentric sites such as facebook and myspace – the age of the electronic, digitized Walter Mitty. The death of personal triumph;
26) a disgruntled bookseller re-stocking the 3 for 3 table at the bookshop he/she’d rather not be working for as the suited individual picks up the latest mass-market title disrupting the display.
Modernity is all around us, it is everywhere, it repeats itself and it is never ending. For further information I would strongly advice some time with J. G. Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition.
1) A lone suicide bomber driving his/her car towards possible destruction;
2) the vista of London - viewed from Waterloo Bridge - populated with endless towering cranes, jutting out like urban foliage from the grey mass if the city;
3) the peculiar distance I feel from electronic entertainment consoles such as the Xbox 360;
4) the collective theater of Formula 1 racing;
5) themed bars in shopping centres;
6) air-conditioning units;
7) snazzy flat-screen monitors;
8) lavish TV adverts about cars (that are really about the male gaze and the objectification of women);
9) gauche satellite link-ups and stuffy conference calls in company boardrooms;
10) the random gathering of humans in sterile office blocks;
11) bathroom cabinets stuffed with pills and medications and effervescent mixtures used to motivate production;
12) the bored individual staring into a flat-screen monitor whilst emailing his bored friend in another department or office block or city or country about how boring his/her day is;
13) the digital clock in the bottom right-hand corner of every PC and Mac dictating the comings and goings of the average uniform office;
14) single use, single sided, 52x speed, 700mb, 80 mins CDRs with Lifetime Guarantees;
15) powdered, flavoured soup drunk from coffee mugs during working hours i. e., at the desk or in the company kitchen;
16) gastropubs;
17) the new Wembley Stadium;
18) waiting rooms: especially those in Airports (strangely called terminal departure lounges) – the tapping of feet, the biting of nails, the collective thoughts of death, destruction, physics and failure. Or Health Centres – the random coughs and groans, the irritable child, the stench of decaying flesh, warts, sores, seepage, cell deterioration and multiplication;
19) in-store radio stations played on loops;
20) the inner glee I feel when phoning in sick at work;
21) road rage, aggressive driving, motorcyclists revving engines at pedestrians dawdling at pelican crossings;
22) acronyms;
23) the lone human being walking into the supermarket to purchase specially packaged meals for one and beer or single bottles of wine or spirits and paying for the transaction with a credit card;
24) fashion magazines;
25) the vainglorious facades created on egocentric sites such as facebook and myspace – the age of the electronic, digitized Walter Mitty. The death of personal triumph;
26) a disgruntled bookseller re-stocking the 3 for 3 table at the bookshop he/she’d rather not be working for as the suited individual picks up the latest mass-market title disrupting the display.
Modernity is all around us, it is everywhere, it repeats itself and it is never ending. For further information I would strongly advice some time with J. G. Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition.
