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💭 THINKING ABOUT: HOW CONSISTENT SYMBOLIC MEANING IS ON THE DECLINE 💭 because of polarization, declining literacy and deliberate co-opting & suppression. We’re in an era where we look at the same word, image, video and cannot agree on what it means. Interpretation of every image and word has become a land grab, ownable by whomever tells the best story.
Shared symbolic meaning is out the window, and culture has reacted accordingly: Producers are reaching for increasingly obvious symbols (whole milk, blue jeans, golden wheat, prairie dresses) to ensure their point is not lost. Customers are threatening to log off and only relying on their five senses to conclude veracity.
There’s a third door: I think another future looks like starting to abandon symbols altogether in the hopes of re-establishing meaning from first principles. In short: How can I convey something *real* while bypassing the words and images that become so loaded? That can result in anodyne work, sure, but I personally believe it can result in really powerful work as well.
I think we are about to enter a new era of abstraction and with it, more subtext and inscrutability. Let’s talk about how abstraction functions as a retreat from our modern ills - overstimulation, oversight & a declining sense of shared reality - and how I think the us digital audience is about to embark on a major crash course in doublespeak.
#culturalanalysis #abstraction #abstractexpressionism #criticalthinking #doublespeak
Transcript
When we no longer agree on the meaning of symbols, all that remains is personal interpretation. Shared meaning and imagery is collapsing, and I believe abstract, nonrepresentational art forms are poised to take off as a result. Think generative, screensaver like visuals, ambient music, nonsense lyrics and dialogue Eat zucchini. Best zucchini? Why? And generally best more non figurative work. We're living in a moment where everything feels manipulated and culture is responding in predictable ways by simplifying and relying on even heavier handed symbols and by going offline in search of sensory truth. But there's a third option, which I think we'll see more and more of, which is a retreat into abstraction. After all, if images and words no longer convey consistent meaning, why use them properly or refer to them at all? Abstraction can offer specific remedies for this current moment. One is just cognitive overload from having to clock and decode everything correctly. Its relative understimulation can be soothing. Two is that it individualizes meaning making, becoming this ultimate unimpeachable form of my view is as good as any other. Three is it can be read a variety of ways as expression becomes higher stakes. On one hand, it can be this form of aesthetic sedation, purely decorative, existing only to make power more palatable. On the other, I don't think that human desire to express ourselves ever truly goes away. It's worth remembering abstract art has a pretty radical heritage, and at its best, it can be this really powerful way to return to first principles and subvert expectations. And because it is nonrepresentational, there's this built in plausible deniability. Expression survives in censored cultures because of discretion. And as symbolic meaning declines, abstraction may start to feel like a more and more useful tool for staying honest.
