STATEMENT

by TUGagent: M[e]z Post Modemism

New Stimuli. A nice enough phrase. Perhaps the words conjure up images of post-modern word-frenzies or whirling electronic installations. Or maybe the words evoke thoughts of brand-spanking hybrid art genres; certain abstract notions of what artistic practice should (or shouldn’t) be. Then again, perhaps the words do nothing when channeled via your ears or eyes...they may simply represent some quasi-scientific construct that twigs memories of hazardous highschool experiments. Whatever the phrase does make tingle within your intellectual or emotive spheres, its importance lies in the emphatic notion of the new - something that promotes original pathways of creative output, that cerebrally by-passes established concepts of perceiving the world.

New is such a contentious little word, however. We know from his/herstory that nothing can be labeled "new" without a fight - from Duchamp to Koons and back again, the concept of the new surfaces in ArtSpeak alongside other words: avant-garde, revolutionary, reactionary, original. Some argue that nothing is truly new...that all thoughts / actions /endeavours - and in particular, artistically driven ones - feed off previous knowledge

states and information pockets. Let’s assume for a moment that this assumption is correct, and that {as the saying goes} "everything old is new again". If this is true, then of course the idea of the "new" as such becomes obsolete and the need for it to be given a linguistic jab - in order to rekindle that conceptual link to innovation - is obvious.

This is where stimuli text-steps its way into the word equation. If there is no such thing as a ‘new’ artwork, thought or imaginative nuance, trying to create something expressive and original in this post-modernist / modemist / ’morphedist’ world

is difficult to say the least. One way to overcome this may be to revel in the unexpected...take whatever stimuli tickles your fancy and play with it. Stretch it, mold it, run with it, break it - pull it out from under those restrictive narratively sanctioned boundaries, those hero-defined-journey paths. If traditionally approved (‘good’) artwork demands a sense of closure, leave it open; if meaning is required then blur the clues towards it, or smudge them a little. As we propel screaming towards the new millennium, let New Stimuli be the phrase that rides along with us.

Relevant Ewe R. Elles