#modernism — Public Fediverse posts

« This is just to say… »
Have a wonderfully modernist day
#Poetry #Modernism

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
19 November, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Free, ticketed

Marking the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s landmark poem, “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle” – a 2685-line work in Scots that is colloquial, lyrical, & highly literary, blending tradition with modernism & exploring both national & international themes

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-drunk-man-looks-at-the-thistle-tickets-1999760348033

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid #modernism

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
19 November, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Free, ticketed

Marking the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s landmark poem, “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle” – a 2685-line work in Scots that is colloquial, lyrical, & highly literary, blending tradition with modernism & exploring both national & international themes

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-drunk-man-looks-at-the-thistle-tickets-1999760348033

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid #modernism

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
19 November, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Free, ticketed

Marking the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s landmark poem, “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle” – a 2685-line work in Scots that is colloquial, lyrical, & highly literary, blending tradition with modernism & exploring both national & international themes

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-drunk-man-looks-at-the-thistle-tickets-1999760348033

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid #modernism

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
19 November, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Free, ticketed

Marking the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s landmark poem, “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle” – a 2685-line work in Scots that is colloquial, lyrical, & highly literary, blending tradition with modernism & exploring both national & international themes

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-drunk-man-looks-at-the-thistle-tickets-1999760348033

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid #modernism

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
19 November, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Free, ticketed

Marking the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s landmark poem, “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle” – a 2685-line work in Scots that is colloquial, lyrical, & highly literary, blending tradition with modernism & exploring both national & international themes

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-drunk-man-looks-at-the-thistle-tickets-1999760348033

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid #modernism

Usk Street, Bethnal Green

1952-61

Denys Lasdun

#modernism #architecture #london #denyslasdun

https://www.europesays.com/dk/163612/ The ‘Emilia’ furniture store closed down 10 years ago. Will it return to Warsaw? #city #history #inne #InterestingFacts #landmarks #modernism #other #Poland #Warsaw

The ‘Emilia’ furniture store closed down 10 years ago. Will it return to Warsaw?

For over 40 years, the people of Warsaw came here to admire stylish furniture; later, they visited art…
#Poland #Polska #PL #Europe #Europa #EU #Warsaw #city #history #inne #interestingfacts #landmarks #modernism #other
https://www.europesays.com/poland/24793/

"Tamed," Marian Wawrzeniecki, 1910.

An archaeologist, historian, ethnographer, and only incidentally a painter, Warsaw-born Wawrzeniecki (1863-1943) was a noted eccentric and a bit of a fraud.

From an artistic viewpoint, he had a very individual style; he'd had some training in art but abandoned the formal style he'd been taught and instead embraced his own approach. While classified as a Symbolist painter, he was really more of a Modernist, painting solely to achieve his own vision.

His work reflects Slavic folklore and mythology, often depicting witches and pagan gods, and he's considered a significant figure in the rise of Slavic neopaganism. Many of his works can be taken in multiple ways; this could be an illustration of a legend, or a symbol of humanity conquering nature or evil.

He did some fairly important work as an archaeologist, but also published transcriptions of assorted ancient and medieval documents that historians have since figured out he forged. Exactly why he did that is unknown.

From the National Museum in Warsaw.

#Art #MarianWawrzeniecki #Symbolism #Modernism #SlavicPaganism #Eccentric #Art

Postmodernism, explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRK08BQIWj8&list=WL&index=326

#architecture #design #history #postmodernism #modernism #art

A Cure for What Ails Us?

I have been reflecting lately on the peculiar sickness of modern life, and I have a theory which, stated somewhat like a math problem, is this: modern society (entailing economic, social, and labor practices) plus postmodern media (including communication technology, news consumption, and competing truth claims) leads to a kind of sickness. And the treatment for that sickness may be following Jesus through the historic practices of the Church.

My basic argument is this: for thousands of years, human beings lived in certain ways. Whether by divine design, adaptation, or some combination of the two, human bodies, minds, and spirits were set up for success while living a certain kind of life. People lived off to the land. They lived near extended family. Most people spent their lives in relatively small communities, surrounded by people they knew and who knew them. Work was physical and tangible. Information traveled slowly. The problems people encountered were usually nearby, visible, and connected to people who could actually help or be helped. This was by no means a perfect system, for pre-modern life contained many ills (physical and social). But this is the kind of the life that human bodies were prepared to live.

In the past 200-ish years, however, the technology of the Industrial Revolution and the development of (post) modern culture have placed enormous stress on that kind of life. Obviously, modernity brought with it a great many positive changes. It is easier to obtain food, clothing, medicine, and shelter now than at almost any other point in human history. Infant mortality has declined. Travel is easier. Communication is faster. Many forms of work are safer and less physically destructive. These are real goods, real ways in which human beings have flourished in ways never before seen, and such goods should not be dismissed.

But along with those good changes came new stressors. People became more mobile. Families became more scattered. Communities became less stable. Work became increasingly detached from the production of visible and tangible things. People became more reliant on systems and technologies that few of us understand and none of us can control. Almost no one practices subsistence living anymore, which means that nearly everything we need comes to us through a complicated network of strangers, corporations, machines, and institutions.

And for the past couple hundred years (less time in many places), as people adapted to modernism, human beings did their best to adjust. Many things worked reasonably well. We developed institutions, customs, and social practices that helped people endure the disruptions of modern life. But despite our best efforts, cracks began to form in the human experience. And as more and more research and lived experience attest, what seems to have shattered our humanity was the addition of postmodern media.

It was already difficult for human beings to carry the stresses of modernity. Then we placed in nearly every pocket a device that provides constant access to nearly every crisis, argument, tragedy, advertisement, opinion, and temptation in the world.

We are constantly connected, yet often deeply lonely. We possess unprecedented access to information but are less certain about what is true. We know what is happening across the globe almost instantly, while frequently knowing very little about the lives of the people who live next door. Our minds were not made to carry every tragedy. Our hearts were not made to process the suffering of the entire world before breakfast. Our identities were not made to be continually displayed, evaluated, marketed, and compared. Yet this is increasingly what we ask of ourselves every day.

So what is the cure?

Some might argue for a rejection of modernism. We might call this an Amish response: separate from the technologies and systems that deform human life. Others might argue for some form of the Benedict Option, in which Christians build durable communities and institutions while waiting for the present cultural disorder to pass. And I must admit that there are plenty of times when both of these seem like very appropriate responses to the ills of the current age.

My proposal, however, is a little different, and it goes something like this: the historic practices of the Church of Jesus Christ—specifically communion, baptism, and the penitential cycle—provide the way forward. (Not accidentally, these are essentially the three things Martin Luther—who is often credited, or blamed, for contributing to the rise of modernism—suggested were necessary for the life of the Church.)

Communion requires deep introspection and life in community. You cannot receive communion entirely alone. You need life with other people. You need to gather around a table. You need to confess your sins, reconcile with your neighbors, receive the gifts of God, and remember that you belong to a body larger than yourself.

Communion teaches us that we are not merely individuals consuming religious content. We are members of one another. We share one bread. We receive one Lord. We are brought into communion not only with God, but with the people standing beside us.

Baptism is historically a sign of entering into God’s family. It marks a person as belonging to Christ and to his people. But baptism has also historically been connected to deep formation in Scripture and theology. The early Church did not treat baptism as a passing religious moment. It was surrounded by teaching, preparation, examination, and a reordering of life. We desperately need that kind of depth today.

We must move beyond surface-level interactions shaped by postmodern media. We must dig deep and drink from wells that take longer than fifteen seconds to hear, understand, and digest. We need Scripture slowly read, theology carefully learned, prayers repeatedly prayed, and truths practiced long enough to reshape our instincts.

Then there is the penitential cycle: confession, repentance, forgiveness, and restoration.

The practice of confession is not simply something a priest holds over your head. Properly understood, it is a practice of introspection, conversation, truth-telling, and repentance. We deeply need these things today.

We need places where we can speak honestly about the ways we have failed. We need people who will tell us the truth without discarding us. We need the opportunity to repent, receive forgiveness, make amends, and begin again. Therapy, at its best, often offers a sanitized version of some of these practices: careful listening, honest self-examination, naming destructive patterns, and seeking a healthier way forward. These can be genuine gifts. But the Church’s penitential tradition goes further. It does not merely help us understand ourselves. It places us before God, names sin as sin, announces forgiveness, and calls us into new life.

*****

That is my diagnosis of this strange math problem. Modern society plus postmodern media has produced a sickness that cannot be solved merely by better technology, more information, increased efficiency, or improved self-care. The solution is actually practices which are much older. We lean back into the historic practices of the Church of Jesus Christ. We gather around the table. We remember our baptism. We confess our sins. We receive forgiveness. We read slowly, pray deeply, and share life with actual people in actual places. Will it be enough?

I hold this theory lightly. The problems of modern life are complicated, and the practices of the Church are not easy techniques or quick fixes. They are gifts, and they require patience, faithfulness, and time. Still, I wonder whether the ancient practices of the Church might be precisely the medicine our modern souls have forgotten how to receive. Shall we return?

Rebuilding Shared Meaning in a Fragmented World

https://hamishcampbell.com/rebuilding-shared-meaning-in-a-fragmented-world/

https://miesbcn.com/the-pavilion/

Yours to contemplate if the festive decor and general hobbylobbyosity of the USA at this time of year is getting to you.

#Modernism #BarcelonaPavilion #MiesVanDerRohe #LillyReich #Architecture #Design #InteriorDesign

Happy birthday Mies!!

(Watch at your own risk! It’s super catchy!!)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Ujve7PuWk

#modernism #modernarchitecture #miesvanderrohe

Digital elites and reactionary modernism

From Wikipedia:

Reactionary modernism is a term first coined by Jeffrey Herf[1] in the 1980s to describe the mixture of “great enthusiasm for modern technology with a rejection of the Enlightenment and the values and institutions of liberal democracy” that was characteristic of the German Conservative Revolutionary movement and Nazism.[2] In turn, this ideology of reactionary modernism was closely linked to the original, positive view of the Sonderweg, which saw Germany as the great Central European power, neither of the West nor of the East.

From John Ganz on this Peter Thiel op-ed:

When Thiel writes about a “war on the internet” and “the internet” that had “begun our liberation,” the natural assumption is to assume that he’s speaking figuratively, that this is a metonym or synecdoche meaning “people on the internet.” But let’s say he’s being literal: for Thiel, the internet is a subject, it is doing something and the machines, The Big Machine has agency—it is “agentic,” as the tech people like to say. This is the viewpoint of the “Dark Enlightenment” and “neo-reaction,” which forms part of Thiel’s intellectual milieu. The belief is that a technological singularity is coming and the elect must work to accelerate it. The state must organize itself like an enterprise for this work to be completed. Progress, which is hampered by democracy, must have an authoritarian state to continue unabated. This is, of course, reactionary modernism: a belief in technological advances without the sentimental baggage of the Enlightenment.

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/reading-thiels-op-ed

#accelerationism #digitalElites #modernism #modernity #peterThiel #technology #theInternet

Salvation Army Citadel, Romford
1967
Ernest J. Lipscomb

https://unbound.com/books/modernism-beyond-metro-land/

#modernism #concrete #brutalism #1960s #romford

A long toot for this #FollowFriday, my first one on this instance.

I find that #Mastodon’s coverage is surprisingly good on a number of topics. With more people joining by the day, it is getting better very rapidly.

I would like to mention a few here:
- #photography, especially #naturephotography
- #astronomy and #astrophysics
- #climatechange and #sustainability
- #Ukraine and the #war with #Russia

I’m happy to recommend specific accounts here. I would suggest, if you are interested in any of those #subjects, that you first run #followgraph on my handle, to identify the relevant ones.

If you don’t know followgraph, have a look at this fantastic tool to enhance #discoverability: https://followgraph.vercel.app/

There are others areas, for which I need to spend more time to identify interesting accounts.

-#architecture, particularly #modernism and #contemporary #architects.
@concretelibraries is great. Do you have others you like?

- #arts, notably #finearts, #museums and current #exhibits. There is @[email protected]. A number of famous painters have their own bot, broadcasting images of their work, often without context. Who else would you recommend?

- #cinema: I have a couple of good handles on the history of the 7th art: @Cinematologists, @cinemaetpol (in French), @MoviesSilently. I could use more, notably on #currentmovies, #directors and #actors.

-#jazz #music
I’ve recently discovered a few good handles for #classicalmusic. I would love suggestions for jazz and #blues.

#FF