...web 2.0: altermodern?

As an aside, the catalyst for the creation of this blog is 13 Things @ Coe, a means to encourage faculty members to learn about new technologies over the summer. (A bonus is the $20 gift card to Brewed Awakenings  that one receives if he/she completes all 13 learning tasks.) 


As part of this process, I have to write a bit about what interests me about learning about Web 2.0:


In a word, Altermodern. In the manifesto (and title) to Tate's 2009 triennial, Nicholas Bourriaud pronounced that we have (artistically, philosophically, culturally, economically etc.) reached the end of Postmodernism, and have entered into Altermodernism:


"...an attempt to reexamine our present, by replacing one periodizing tool with another. After 30 years into the ‘aftershock’  of modernism and its mourning, then into the necessary post-colonial reexamination of our cultural frames, ‘Altermodern’ is a word that intends to define the specific modernity according to the specific context we live in – globalization, and its economic, political and cultural conditions. The use of the prefix “alter” means that the historical period defined by postmodernism is coming to an end, and alludes to the local struggles against standardization. The core of this new modernity is, according to me, the experience of wandering — in time, space and mediums. But the definition is far from being complete." 
(See Art in America's "A Conversation with Nicholas Bourriaud")


Whether Postmodernism is really 'dead' or whether these concepts of Altermodernism find a parallel fruition to it is something that I do not think we can decide until we have the luxury of a bit more time - space between this moment and the writing about this moment. But what is of interest to me is how these concepts manifest themselves in art. Works such as Jonathan Harris' The Whale Hunt utilize concepts of Web 2.0 to provide an experience that combines art with a unique viewer experience through a user-defined interface. It is in these experiences - combining new technologies with aesthetics - where we add a tertiary layer to the often chronologically or geographically deconstructed explorations of traditional strains of Postmodernism. Clouds of information, narratives, geographies, cultures, visualities that can be combined in a myriad of ways - often through user-specified means. It is novel and contemporary. It is one strand of where contemporary art is taking us, and learning about the basics of its building blocks will provide a means to greater understand the products.