Friday 13 September 2013

dover beach

...according to Matthew Arnold, god died on dover beach.  This significant moment in English literature  was later echoed in the writings of Neitzche when he declared God is dead in his writings inspired by his stay in the foothills of the Alps.

Clean mountain air helped Neitzche to reflect on his own society more deeply, maybe the mere thought of leaving ones homeland was enough to tip the ordered mind of Arnold into a state of despair, the proof of fossils at Pegwell bay in Kent well documented by painters of the time pretty much nailed god into his coffin.

The twentieth century was an alarming century as a result. Without god the rise of the fad or ism pretty much took hold as newly metropolitan writers artists and citizens searched for something to replace the old ideas. So the rise of fashion came about and with it the importance of magazines and later on television.

But with the new techonologies even these dominant forces in Mass media  began to lose their fascination.

The internet has resulted in a culture of now.

This has not been especially helpful to capitalism which globally has been plunged into recession as governments hope to compete in what is generally supposed to be sometimes mistakenly a globalized economy. But it has provided the consumer with the power to choose from a global market place only if they can read the website in the language of each products origin.

Only when the charge goes on the portable machine does the wonder of reality
re emerge from behind the screen. How easily lead we all are.

Repeat after me :  I AM A SHEEP

Artists are no long in a prime position to reveal this sense of wonder to
the faddish public as art is slow in gestation and often irrelevant by the time it is complete. And besides there is no longer funding for research or development.
But the rise of cycling and festivals shows that the search for something
in the environment if not in the air or cosmos goes on to this day.

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