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commodity. Part of su ch current coll ecting may even be a revengeful
rubbi shi zing of ou r time. Time can be artfull y inverted by recasting the
obj ects and feelings trapped in mere sequence. With instant aging and
syntheti c nosta lgia, times's was ting can be reclaimed and revived–
oldies but goodies, fantasy hi story, the decade rather than the century
antique, the compacting of a cultural generation into a mere season . By
such displ acements, time loses some of its ominous seri ality. The new
and the o ld, the precious and the discarded, the accelera ted culture and
its accelera ted waste, merge in timelessn ess, for the moment otherwi se
felt as was ted.
We approach a condition of instantaneous spiritualization and
despiritualization , aestheti cizing and deaestheti cizing images and arti–
facts and styles with abandon , as surrogates for timelessness- a flip
sanctity. In the speedup of our insatiable cultural p rocessings, the
replicable manners and recyclable respon ses and turned-on-and-off
ecs tas ies may be glued and unglued from any parti cul ar arti sti c obj ect
and style. In culture, as with our appliances and clo thes, the las t stage
of commodity feti shism fl oa ts free. Our cultural Sargasso Sea may be
full but p rovides a tran sferabl e vortex.
T he "museum without walls" and the pulp library and the qui ck–
circuit sen sa tion spread culture into a contradictory non cultu re of the
disposable. The multipli cati on techniques have become indifferentl y
detachable from the icons and styles and words. Conceptual art and
eni gma ti c-parod isti c literature show a frenzied juggler's skill a t detach–
ing and reattaching arti stry. The ambiti ou s arti st might calcul a te that
his odds would be better in p roducing rubbish which could be treated
as art th an in p roducing a rt tha t mi ght soon be treated as rubbish .
In the rubbish of popul ar entertainment, a pervasive doubl e-bind
becomes cha racteri sti c- violent apa th y, optimistic despair, overl oaded
emp tiness - simultaneously demanding a ttention and indifference. We
see other versions of it in the most concerned arti stry. Currentl y, much
of the traditional novel becomes mad rhetorica l gro tesqueri e; tradi–
ti onal studio painting becomes freaki sh visual des tructi on-the pa int–
er as hi s own vandal in a vanda li zing o rder (sometimes literall y in the
slashing of can vas, or the a rti st himself-Schwarzkogler ). T he novel
posits ye t violates orderl y veri similitude, the painting pos its yet
viola tes the worshipabl e icon . But such in version to escape a waste–
locus, even when doubl ed back into recent mock-traditi onalism and
neoreali sm, h as its limits. When it becomes orna te enough, one no
longer a ttempts to move th rough a labyrinth. Certainl y ou r arts are
furth er developments of moderni sm, whi ch depended on reordering
