Are We Experiencing Cultural Exhaustion?

Is society experiencing cultural burnout? Mark Fisher questions whether the lack of innovation in pop music is indicating a larger cultural crisis. He hypothesizes that the proliferation and fetishisation of exciting new technologies has actually stagnated real cultural development. A very thought-provoking read.

He explains:

“The present moment might in fact be best characterised by a discrepancy between the onward march of technology and the stalling, stagnation and retardation of culture. We can’t hear technology any more. There has been a gradual disappearance of the sound of technological rupture – such as the irruption of Brian Eno’s analogue synth in the middle of Roxy Music’s “Virginia Plain”, or the cut-and-paste angular alienness of early rave – that pop music once taught us to expect.

“We still see technology, perhaps, in cinema CGI, but CGI’s role is somewhat paradoxical: its aim is precisely to make itself invisible, and it has been used to finesse an already established model of reality. High-definition television is another example of the same syndrome: we see the same old things, but brighter and glossier.

…

“In general, however, Web 2.0 encourages us to behave like spectators. This is not only because of the endless temptations to look back offered by burgeoning online archives, it is also because, thanks to the ubiquity of recording devices, we find ourselves becoming archivists of our own lives: we never experience live events, because we are too busy recording them….”

New Statesman: “Running On Empty”

[via Bruce Sterling]