----- Original Message -----
From: lauf-s
Subject: Re: designers for the eyes only ....
Patrick asks:
isn't there apparently a contradiction between storing (historing) supposedly past events and modern-ism wich refers to relatively recent events
Steve replies:
The 'Modern European History' course I attended in High School (1971-2) started with the French Revolution. Perhaps a better gauge of modernity is the presence of a flushable toilet--Mod-Pot-On-The-Spot. Remember how the Space Shuttle suddenly became very old-fashioned when it's toilet froze up?
The term 'Modern' seems to have been replaced by 'Contemporary'.
contemporary is supposedly right now, modern is a little bit more vague... modernism needs more precise interpretation of what's (and where is) a line between old, recent, actual, daily, yesterday,time lines, as the time is a factor of comparison between what we feel inside and what is around us, created and used to give us a line of comparison between events and an option to organize our toughts about our presence here (in the planetarian system we inhabit by chance, apparently)
(notion of time was certainly different in prehistoric times , in 1789 or 1945, as the speeding of everything seem a constant of human behavior)
(and anyways, what is modern, old or recent in astronomic timetables, paleontology context or neutrinos or protons "existence" in a hyperbaric chamber inside an atomic particules accelerator...?)
"On est bien peu de chose, et mon amie la rose me l'a dit ce matin..." (Francoise Hardy)
What would describe now Charlie (Chaplin) in his contemporary remake of " Les Temps Modernes" ?
(Artists and writers are the best describers of "modernity")
I wonder is historians of the 25th century will still refer to designs of the 20th century as 'Modern'.
PROBABLY HERODOTE or HOMERE ALREADY ASKED HIMSELF THE SAME QUESTION, ABOUT Assyrians or Nabuchodonosor... even inventing the vocable or expression of modernism.(I wonder if Homero Simpson showed a similar tought, as the common plain daily modern life philosopher he probably represent.Take care, Otto and consorts...P.
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