Hypermodernity

The time in which we live, the time of the “here and now” (Lipovetsky, 2005), brought a hypermodern worldview to this research. Lipovetsky’s concept of hypermodernity is representative of the social and cultural changes that have influenced modernity. More specifically, the combination of science and technology is constantly reshaping everyone’s lives through an accelerating concept of a space-time framed by digital media. It is interesting to see how, through hypermodernity, the concept of time also encompasses a relationship to historical referents or artefacts as a way to counterbalance the “culture of immediacy” (Lipovetsky, 2005). As a consequence of an accelerated speed of life affecting the daily environment, a state of destabilization provoked by a hypermodern culture emphasizes individuality and causes a “decline in the individual’s inner strength” (Lipovetsky, 2005, p. 56). As Lipovetsky (2005) explained, “Hence the individual appears more and more opened up and mobile, fluid and socially independent. But this volatility signifies much more a destabilization of the self than a triumphant affirmation of a subject endowed with self-mastery” (p. 55).

This concept of “ultra modernity” (Lipovetsky, 2005) also reflects on an economic context, which emphasizes the value we bring to tradition as a need to safeguard our heritage. Historical referents become a way to help individuals regain self- balance or equilibrium (Lipovetsky, 2005). This need to reference the past, to establish a temporal relationship with historical means within the context of the speed of life in

which we live, is described by Lipovetsky (2005) as “the hypermodernization of our relationship to historical time” (p. 42). This hypermodernization, which emphasizes time as a main societal value, has an impact on artistic manifestations that engage with sensory knowledge. Lipovetsky described that in today’s society, cultural heritage reflects as a temporal referent; he claimed that as a consequence of the unrestrained expansion of the ways people engage with recollection, the “nostalgic society” paradoxically conveys a concept of the here and now. It is as though an excess of the present and a proliferation of memory bring to conclusion the concept of modernization at a time when tradition has become fashion (Lipovetsky, 2008). Lipovetsky (2005) stated:

The formidable expansion in the number of objects and signs that are deemed worthy to belong to the memory of our heritage, the proliferation of museums of every kind, the obsession with commemoration, the mass democratization of cultural tourism, the threat of degradation or paralysis hanging over heritage sites because of the overwhelming floods of tourists—this whole new insistence of everything old is accompanied by an unbridled expansion, a saturation, a boundless broadening of the frontiers of our heritage and our memory: and in these we can recognize a modernization taken to its logical conclusion. . . . The value attributed to the past is a symptom of the advance of cultural capitalism and the commercialization of culture: as such, it is less a postmodern than a hypermodern phenomenon. (pp. 58-59)

The core sculpture installation work supporting the Research Creation project, Vulnerable: The Salmon Project, conveys a hypermodern worldview that refers directly to the film narrative projected on the cast aluminum standing salmon sculpture. A film projection of a historical family document on salmon fishing in the Gaspe Peninsula from the 1940s brings the concept of memory to the work (Figure 1). The artist-researcher’s family heritage becomes a metaphor for the declining condition of the salmon population and the expression of the vulnerability of today’s marine life. The artistic work encompasses a hypermodernist worldview through image mapping a referential past on one side of the standing salmon sculpture, on the other side of which the viewer can read the text “Vulnerable” (referencing the present condition) (Figure 2). Furthermore, from this hypermodern perspective, the work methodology itself also posits opposing temporal forces: a technological approach manifested throughout the conceptualization and production process of the salmon sculpture project in opposition to the signified

Figure 1. Claire Brunet, Vulnerable: The Salmon Project, cast aluminum and

video projection, 2007-2012.

Figure 2. Claire Brunet, Vulnerable: The Salmon Project

(front view), cast aluminum, 2007-2012.

ecological discourse conveyed by the sculpture installation form or signifier. The work stresses the opposing values of a hypermodern society, reflecting a culture of paradox as a “hypermodern society belongs to an age where everything is made into part of our heritage and duly commemorated” (Lipovetsky, 2005, p. 57). Technological advancements influence us and affect the individual’s inner strength:

Thus it is that the ultra-modern period is seeing the growth of technological power over space-time, but a simultaneous decline in the individual’s inner strength. The less collective norms can command our behaviour in detail, the more the individual shows a growing tendency to be weak and unstable. The more socially mobile the individual is, the more we witness signs of exhaustion and subjective “breakdowns”; the more freely and intensely people wish to live, the more we hear them saying how difficult life can be. (Lipovetsky, 2005, p. 56)

This concept of living freely, or “positive freedom” (Berlin, 1969), is very present in artists’ minds. Moreover, it plays an important role in artists’ creative thinking and modes of production. The level of freedom experienced while creating digitized forms inside a 3D digital and technological context is dependent on the artists’ ease in playing with the mutability of various data forms within the 3D software interface. Artists’ creative process is subject to an adaptation to the pace at which technological growth develops and how they adjust to it. Artists need to adapt to new ways of experiencing 3D in a hypermodern epoch, where space-time and materiality are greatly affected by the growth of digital media and mediums.

The concept of hypermodernity is not only shaped by self-reflectivity or values attributed to the past but also by the ways in which traditions are used through a sovereign perspective based on “the principle of individual sovereignty” (Lipovetsky, 2005, p. 67). From a philosophical point of view, the definition of hypermodernity is

linked to individualism, where the self is the main focus. A parallel could be established between this era of the self and the autonomous freedom that artists need to be able to experience creativity in totality through digital means. Again, this concept is paradoxical. The expansion of the relationship between science and art implies that artists have to work in collaboration to share the knowledge necessary for the growth of creative exploration in the artistic domain. A paradox is imbedded in opposing forces, challenging the concept of collaboration, where historically the artists’ creative process has been identified as a self-reflecting experience. To foster the comprehension of artists’ interactions with a 3D digital and technological context, the next section presents a view on the digital object representation or data object.