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Modernity:Terrifying or Sublime?

“Modernity”

• The term is from 1600s

• Era began in 1400s with printing press– We are still in it and may never escape it…

“Modernity”

• The term is from 1600s

• Era began in 1400s with printing press– We are still in it and may never escape it…

• It is the belief that:

• We are in a new era, separate from all of previous history.

• We are different, more free than those who came before us.

Modernity• We have to power to control and improve:

– The natural world– The social world– Our minds– Our bodies

Modernity• We have to power to control and improve:

– The natural world– The social world– Our minds– Our bodies

• And in some cases the “power” to control and improve each other…

Modernity• Politics (society as a system)

– Capitalism/Socialism– Democracy/Fascism– Individualism/Collectivism

• Truth– Rationality/Progress– Science replacing Religion

• Technology– Urbanization, slums– Mass literacy, mass media– Industrialization

Modernity vs. Modernism

• Modernity: the historical, cultural, economic and political conditions of 1600s-1950.

• Modernism: the literary and aesthetic representations, visions and responses and to those historical conditions (1850-1950).

Modernism

• Big Ideas…– Artist breaking with the past (Manet)

Moderism

• Big Ideas…– Artist breaking with the past (Manet)– Artist as Visionary Hero (Pollock)

Modernism

• Big Ideas…– Artist breaking with the past (Manet)– Artist as Visionary Hero (Pollock)– Universal Language (Kandinsky)

Modernism

• Big Ideas…– Artist breaking with the past (Manet)– Artist as Visionary Hero (Pollock)– Universal Language (Kandinsky)– Merging of Art and Life (Futurism, Dada)

Modernism

• Big Ideas…– Artist breaking with the past (Manet)– Artist as Visionary Hero (Pollock)– Universal Language (Kandinsky)– Merging of Art and Life (Futurism, Dada)– Art Informing Politics (Tatlin)…

Vladimir Tatlin

Monument for the Third International (1919)

Vladimir Tatlin


Vladimir Tatlin


• Was to be Headquarters of the Comintern (Communist International)– Overthrow international

bourgeoisie (capitalist countries).

• After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917

Vladimir TatlinMonument for the Third International (1919)

• Industrial materials: iron, glass and steel.• In materials, shape, and function, it was

envisioned as a towering symbol of modernity.

• It would have dwarfed the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The tower's main form was a twin helix which spiraled up to 400 m in height.

• Visitors would be transported around with the aid of various mechanical devices.

Vladimir TatlinMonument for the Third International (1919)• The Base: a cube venue for lectures,

conferences and legislative meetings, and this would complete a rotation in the span of one year.

• The Middle: a pyramid housing executive activities and completing a rotation once a month.

• The Top: a cylinder to house an information centre, issuing news bulletins and manifestos via telegraph, radio and loudspeaker, and would complete a rotation once a day.

Metropolis (1926) by Fritz Lang


• The Great City

• In awe of modernity… terrified by modernity

• Have we mastered technology or has it mastered us?

• Dystopia or Utopia… nothing in between

• Absolute class divisions and tensions– Workers (hands) vs. Intellectuals (brain)

• The film was inspirational for Hitler


• It is an Expressionist film—dramatically exaggerated and distorted to evoke an emotional and psychological effect.