When Will We Stop To Invent The 21st Century?
Thoughts on Mark Fisher's profound "Slow Cancellation of the Future"
“The 21st Century is merely the 20th Century distributed through high speed internet.”
Mark Fisher (rephrased)
When we look around what do we see
that is new
that is ours
that is original?
And the bigger question
who
will pay for it?
Mark Fisher was one of the most astute artistic critics of the modern day. He wrote and lectured about popular culture, music specifically, and how everything we see today is essentially a rehash of all that has come before.
He argues that popular music as we remember it, as we look back and rediscover it, is clearly segmented in period. In the west, the 60s had disco, the 70s had hard rock, the 90s had grunge. In India the 90s were all about indi-pop.
The world of painting also has discernable periods. Same for the world of cinema. There are clear movements from one mode of cultural production that reflects the technological, social and political reality of their time.
These different periods sound, look and feel different. In a sense, the past from it’s own perspective knew that it was entering a new age, a new time.
For us, the distinction is less evident. Almost, one could say, impossible.
Merely Digitization : The Failure of the 21st Century
When we think about the ultra-modern day, we have a world that is optimized through the internet. Modern browsers and smartphones have created new avenues for us to engage with society. However, the major social accomplishments in the tech world have been to bring services that were previously off-line online and to allow us to get into far reaching screaming matches.
This is a betrayal of the future.
Each new invention from the printing press to the steam engine brought with it advancement, a sense of new-ness to the way humanity functioned. The internet has made us far more connected than any time in history and as such, it has made the world the smallest it has ever been. But…
The internet has not made significant strides in ending the problems that have plagued us. It has merely digitized them.
The printing press allows people to share thoughts farther than before and more efficiently than the spoken word. The steam engine takes us farther and faster than ever before. The internet should bring us closer and more community-driven but the way it’s mechanisms are currently deployed…
we’re nothing more than Attention Bandits.
Why Is Our Attention Up For Grabs?
“The Slow Cancellation of The Future” is an idea that speaks to the glob of sameness that plagues our present. The movies, the music, the art we have is all, in most ways, retro. There is no clear, recognizable aesthetic of the 21st Century. Everyone’s mostly remixing everything that has come before. Why? Because it makes money faster than inventing something new.
In the ‘free-world’ of the internet, anyone can make anything and post it and “reach” billions of people. However, in order to be “seen” one has to jump through a few more hoops, of course. This is where we turn into Attention Bandits. Deploying gambits and techniques to stop-the-scroll and hold someone’s attention. It rarely ever matters how, all that matters is that you stay on platform and engage.
This technology would be revolutionary had it not been for the fact that the “most efficient solution” is to “do what works”. This is the reason Instagram and Tik Tok “creators” hop on “trends”. In other words individuals or businesses copy what other people are doing in order to reach more people.
The “future” of today is a world of virality and I mean that in the only way it can truly mean anything: an infectious disease.
Could it be that the silent pandemic has, for the last ten years, been social media and it’s lack of care for our cultural fabric? Probably not, but on a good day, one could make a hell of a case for it.
The Future Is Boredom
"Nobody is bored but everything is boring"
Mark Fisher
Mark Fisher talks about boredom being a luxury. In the modern day of infinite, algorithmically powered feeds we have no ability to ever truly be bored. Boredom, in my opinion, is only one piece of the puzzle.
What a lack of boredom elicits is a lack of space to truly consider what deserves our attention. Our inability to choose what to give our attention to is what degrades conversation, dissolves community and destabilizes companionship. We’re in a constant tussle between the shiny new trinkets of capitalism delivered right to our pockets to even look up and see that there is a problem.
Guy Debord had pointed out that the spectacle (capitalism) only needs to distract us enough to avoid us ever realising how terrible and empty our lives have become.
He wrote that in the 60s. We’ve clearly been distracted and bored for a very long time…
What now?
We have to wake up. This isn’t some clarion call to young artists everywhere to take back control, no, that comes later. For now, it’s more than enough that we agree there is a problem. After that we agree what it is.
Then we ask the question: What Now?
Luckily, the answer will be simple. We use the technologies and cultural production apparatuses to make something new. Something that hasn’t existed before.
Why? Why would we do that?
It’s simple…
Because in the future, all the problems we face will have ceased and we will sit around and watch a beautiful sunrise together…
And that future won’t get here unless we invent it.