On|Off, the show which never disappoints appeared at the London Fashion Week once again. This time presenting new work from designers Colin Horgan, Daniel Pascal Tanner, JimmyPaul, Rose Danford-Phillips, and Yan Dengyu.
Now in its 17th year, On|Off Presents… showcased a variety of designers that delivered a vibrant and dynamic show.
Over the years, On|Off Presents… has included designers such as JW Anderson, Louise Gray, Yang Du, Mark Fast, Timothy Bouyez Forge and Jack Irving — just to name a few.
JimmyPaul
JimmyPaul joined Hello Kitty in a collaboration which marked their London Fashion Week debut.
Daniel Pascal Tanner
Tanner’s interest in historical fashion as a way of personal escapism was the inspiration behind this collection.
Yan Dengyu
Yan Dengyu’s conceptual collection is inspired by the human figure and his desire of colour. The black bodysuit is the basis of Yan’s Spring Summer 20 collection.
Rose Danford-Phillips
Rose Danford-Phillips’ collection Kiss of the Earth is inspired by the wild, sublime energy of nature in Spring and Summer. Among the artistic inspirations of this collection are Stravinsky’s legendary The Rite of Spring, Hilma af Klint’s The 10 Largest, Rachel Ruysch, and Madeline Miller’s Circle.
Colin Horgan
Colin Horgan, an Irish-born designer, presented a woman of today faced with post-human obstacles for Spring Summer 2020.
Vin + Omi, a duo known for their focus on social and environmental issues, presented their latest SS20 catwalk at The Savoy Hotel, yesterday. The show which was widely talked about due to its connection with the Prince of Wales and focus on sustainable fashion did not disappoint. Bringing on a strong stance against fast fashion, Vin + Omi displayed a flurry of artistic and inspiring pieces. The juxtaposing look of the glamorous Savoy Hotel and recycled-like clothing brought in a mood of rebellion at the show that felt it was heard.
Additionally, as in previous shows, Vin + Omi used a variety of models, which made it that more human and more impactful. The overall show did what Vin + Omi set out to do — thus deservedly should be praised.
“You can screw each other but stop fucking the planet. Screw yourselves but stop fucking the planet”
Hailing from Los Angeles, singer-songwriter Sofia Wolfson expressed her interest in music at quite an early age. She started playing shows at 13, and at 16 she had already released her debut album, 2016’s Hunker Down. More mature and confident in her songwriting, Sofia recently released her latest EP, Adulting, for which she reunited with producer Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers, Better Oblivion Community Center), who worked on her previous EP, 2017’s Side Effects. Adulting confronts the process of coming-of-age with stark honesty: “I comprehend it’s my time/ To make a plan and figure out/ How to understand/ Who I will be/ But ain’t it so nice/ To get a hand held/ From time to time,” she sings on ‘Self-Fulfilled Prophecy’, while on the standout ‘Nothing’s Real’ she tries to find “something to explain how immature/ I get when living gets real.” But there’s a sense of warmth to the instrumentals that makes all this youthful uncertainty feel natural, even bearable. Take the breezy opener ‘Hotel Room’, for example, which features one of Wolfson’s most dynamic performances as she sings about a long-distance relationship: “I’m in a hotel room half way across these United States/ I want to hold you but I’m a ghost of LA.” Meanwhile, tracks like ‘Probably Paradise’ and ‘Self-Fulfilled Prophecy’ have a kind of classic rock edge that nicely juxtaposes the distinctly modern, lo-fi singer-songwriter vibe of the EP. If you’re a fan of artists like Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, definitely check out what Sofia Wolfson has to offer.
We caught up with Sofia for this edition of our Artist Spotlight segment, where we showcase up-and-coming artists and give them a chance to talk a bit about their music.
You started playing shows and writing music quite early on. What was it that drew you to music in the first place?
My dad is a musician so there have always been guitars around the house. I was obsessed with The Band when I was younger and would watch The Last Waltz on a loop, learning all the songs and studying the interviews. I started writing songs in elementary school about simple stuff like friends and sleepover drama (I still have demos of these). Once I got a bit more serious about songwriting, I started booking shows when I was 13, playing all around town, which is crazy now that I reflect on it. But ultimately I’m thankful for all the lessons growing up in LA taught me.
How do you feel your approach to songwriting has evolved since you released your debut album at the age of sixteen?
I think that I’m more willing to dive into what makes me uncomfortable. My anxiety has always taught me to limit my words. But now, I’m not as afraid to address someone specifically in songs, or sing about subjects that are hard to talk about. I always try to write songs thinking that nobody will ever hear them. That way, I can be the most honest.
Your new EP, Adulting, deals with feelings many people transitioning into adulthood experience. How was it like writing about that period of uncertainty?
I’ve always gone through periods where I get frustrated trying to write/come up with ideas, but these songs came a bit more naturally. Growing up is a really immersive, overwhelming feeling and it felt during that time like there was so much to write about. But even though it came more easily, it was still a difficult process. Often I’d play demos back and be reminded of days I felt a certain way. It’s a natural feeling to want to escape the gloom but the songs during this period forced me to face what felt difficult.
I especially love ‘Nothing’s Real’, for which you’ve just released a new video. How was it like shooting those visuals?
So fun. My friend William Lancaster is an incredible filmmaker and had the vision for the video. He had to teach himself all these practical and special effects to pull it off. We really weren’t sure how it was going to go but once we were on set it all started coming together.
How was it like working with Marshall Vore as your producer?
Marsh is the best. He’s both a songwriter and a drummer so he’s got so many incredible ideas for how to frame a song while still illuminating the words. And he has a ton of crazy gear. Everyone should follow him on Instagram for prime content.
On songs like ‘Nothing’s Real’ and ‘Self-Fulfilled Prophecy’, you open up about figuring out who you want to be, how you “got no plan, nowhere to turn”. Do you feel that more young adults these days struggle with that?
Totally. This is the problem with social media. The constant comparison with others and the perpetual presentation of yourself through photos and captions and videos. But the truth is everyone is going through it and trying to figure it out. That’s an aspect that influenced some of the Adulting songs. As well as being in college and feeling like everyone around you is doing so much more than you. I can’t speak on behalf of 20-year-olds everywhere (ha) but it’s definitely something I know a lot of people in my circles experience.
Following that, I hope it’s okay to ask: Where do you see yourself going from here?
I’m not exactly sure what’s next but that’s what I love about playing music. Logistically, I’ve got a single coming out in the near future, something I recorded in a session before Adulting. I’m playing a lot of shows in town coming up and will be in London in January. And I’ve got a ton of new tunes I’m hoping to record soon. So stay tuned!
Ana Teixeira de Sousa, the designer behind Sophia Kah, released another timeless collection for London Fashion Week. The collection takes inspiration from Teixeira de Sousa’s native Portugal, more specifically the village of Comporta.
Keeping the bond to the youthfulness of the brand’s tasteful aesthetic, the label explored lightweight linens with hand embroidery mirror the craftsmanship — something Comporta is beloved for. In terms of colours, the collection mostly flourished on light colours reminding us of the warm sun and brisk sea blues.
This collection marks another step forward for Sophia Kah, a label that has been growing consistently since its inception.
In this weekly segment, we review the most notable albums out each Friday and pick our album of the week. Here are this week’s releases:
Charli XCX,Charli
On her much-anticipated third album and follow-up to her brilliantly futuristic 2017 mixtape Pop 2, Charli XCX brings together the seemingly conflicting elements that have defined her career so far and polishes her sound to create a more defining Charli XCX experience (hence the title). It’s not so much a departure from the bold and forward-thinking Pop 2, as an attempt to infiltrate the mainstream by infusing it with a more conventional millenial pop sound. Oddly enough, it’s a successful approach; especially on tracks like the utterly infectious lead single, ‘Gone’, featuring Christine and the Queens, which A.G. Cook, head of the experimental pop label PC Music (and longtime Charli collaborator) co-produced alongside Lotus IV, known for his work with the likes of Avicii, Alessia Cara, David Guetta, and more. The most impressive tracks are ultimately the ones that are the most out-there in terms of production, including the feature-heavy ‘Click’ and the abrasively sultry ‘Shake It’, but the straight-up bubblegum moments can be just as fun, as with the nostalgic ‘1999’ (‘Blame it On Your Love’ feat. Lizzo and produced by Stargate, on the other hand, is disappointingly vapid). Charli gets quite personal as well as she explores the intricacies of commitment, leading to some of her most endearingly candid songwriting in a while, as with the heartfelt ‘Official’ or the deeply confessional ‘Thoughts’: “Did I lose it all? Did I fuck it up?/ Are my friends really friends now or are they far gone?” she sings. Charli not only further proves that no one quite does pop like Charli XCX, but that eccentric and accessible, noisy and sweet, need not be mutually exclusive.
Rating: 8/10
Highlights: ‘Gone’, ‘1999’ feat. Troye Sivan, ‘Click’ feat. Kim Petras and Tommy Cash, ‘Official’, ‘Silver Cross’, ‘Shake It’ feat. Big Freedia, CupcakKe, Brooke Candy, and Pabllo Vittar, ‘Thoughts’, ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’
Chelsea Wolfe, Birth of Violence
Many may have forgotten that, before becoming every metalhead’s favorite singer-songwriter, Chelsea Wolfe was predominantly an alternative folk singer – a kind of darker version of Lana Del Rey. Wolfe’s sixth studio album, Birth of Violence, is her return to those dark folk roots following her foray into experimental/doom metal with 2015’s excellent Abyss and 2017’s somewhat more forgettable but equally impressive Hiss Spun. Recorded in solitude at her home in Northern California, the album is heavily atmospheric rather than melody-driven, and thanks to its consistent formula, one of her most cohesive efforts yet. Stripped down acoustic guitars accompany Wolfe’s mystical lyrics and haunting delivery and allow them to shine – although what they do is not so much shine, as, well, darken – but the atmosphere in each strong progressively builds into a more fleshed-out, unnerving whole. The subject matter also elevates this album, as it creatively explores issues of contemporary womanhood through archetypal, medieval-type language: take ‘Be All Things’, for example, where Wolfe struggles to navigate between and beyond the binary confines of femininity: “I want to be all things/ Warriors, newborns, and queens/ The lion and the sheep.”
Rating: 7/10
Highlights: ‘The Mother Road’, ‘American Darkness’, ‘ Deranged for Rock & Roll’, ‘Be All Things’
Album of the Week: (Sandy) Alex G, House of Sugar
While it was extremely hard to pick the album of the week this week with so many great new releases, I have decided to give that spot to indie singer-songwriter Alex Giannascoli’s second album under the (Sandy) Alex G moniker for being the most thematically focused and transcendent of the bunch. House of Sugar is a hypnotically alluring exploration of addiction and overindulgence that’s unafraid to dig into the scariest and most selfish corners of the human psyche. Like his previous release, 2017’s Rocket, it features a cleaner sound than most of his prior lo-fi output (especially on tracks such as the standout ‘Souther Sky’), as well as frequent sonic experimentation that renders any obvious Elliott Smith comparisons practically inadequate, although here the experimentation is more carefully employed. The vocal repetition on tracks like ‘Walk Away’, ‘Taking’, and ‘Near’, set against dynamically chaotic layers of instrumentation, perfectly evokes the psychological struggle of addiction, that endless cycle of wanting to walk away and falling back in, and the music itself feels like a descent into madness itself. ‘Gretel’, the most potent track here, is a dark retelling of the classic Grimms’ story that imagines Gretel leaving her brother to die at the candy house, but then being overtaken by the selfish desire to go back herself to eat more candy. The sonically ambitious and imposing ‘Sugar’ is the climax of the album, the moment where that ecstatic high seems to take its own form. If there’s even a tiny glimmer of hope, it’s to be found on the closing track: “When our children go digging for answers/ I hope they can put me together again,” Giannascoli sings.
Following up his critically acclaimed 2018 album Veteran, JPEGMAFIA’s latest is a chaotically daring experimental hip-hop odyssey. It earns your attention right away with the opening single and catchiest song on here, ‘Jesus Forgive Me, I Am a Thot’, but when that hard-hitting electric guitar hits on ‘Kenan Vs. Kel’, more reminiscent of Swans than anyone else in hip-hop at the moment, you know you’re in for something exceptional. ‘Beta Male Strategies’ impresses just as much, as Peggy does what he does best lyrically: confronting internet trolls. There was never any doubt that JPEGMAFIA is a one-of-a-kind, inventive artist, but his production on All My Heroes Are Cornballs is his most dynamic, abrasive, and complex yet. Stylistic layers mesh throughout each song, and the structure is deliberately disjointed – it’s hard to even tell when there’s a track change, making the listening experience a particularly engaging and refreshing one. While Peggy is also a skilled rapper and lyricist, production is undoubtedly where he shines the most – in fact, what keeps this record from being an undisputed masterpiece is that despite the saturated, hyper-aware nature of his lyrics, the album lacks the kind of depth and evocative story-telling that would take this to another level (with a few notable exceptions, namely ‘Free the Frail’ and ‘Post Verified Lifestyle’). Tracks like ‘JPEGMAFIA TYPE BEAT’, as hilarious as they are – in this case poking fun at how fans compare JPEGMAFIA’s instrumentals to Death Grips – have little to no replay value. Still, this is further proof that JPEGMAFIA is only one step away from making a true classic.
Rating: 8/10
Highlights: ‘Jesus Forgive Me, I Am a Thot’, ‘Kenan Vs. Kel’, ‘Beta Male Strategies’, ‘Free the Frail’ feat. Helena Deland, ‘All My Heroes are Cornballs’, ‘Thot Tactics’, ‘Grimy Waifu’
Alex Cameron, Miami Memory
Alex Cameron’s previous release, 2017’s Forced Witness, was rightly praised for its witty portrayal of toxic masculinity from the perspective of a man. So Cameron saying in a press statement that there’s no “twist” or “joke” in Miami Memory, and that’s it’s instead a sincere love letter to his partner, could have been seen as a potential concern. Miami Memory does indeed have its genuinely heartfelt and romantic moments: “Our love is strong like a city in Miami Memory,” he sings on the title track. But make no mistake: Cameron’s engaging sense of humour is still all over this album, whether he plays a character or himself. Right before singing that line, he proudly talks about “the way you came like a tsunami” after “eating your ass like an oyster”. Yeah. Bringing back the gender commentary that made Forced Witness stand out, ‘Far from Born Again’ is a sex-positive feminist song about a sex worker who “earns more than a man” and “buys her own damn meals” while “you sit at home and masturbate”, while on the tongue-in-cheek ‘Bad for the Boys’ Cameron employs a Thin Lizzy-esque vocal delivery while commenting on the #ΜeToo movement. Treading the line between heartwarmingly cheesy and cheekily satirical, Miami Memory ultimately manages to provide insight the messy nature of a distinctly modern relationship with wit and genuine emotion over a series of supremely catchy and retro-leaning instrumentals.
Rating: 8/10
Highlights: ‘Stepdad’, ‘Miami Memory’, ‘Far from Born Again’, ‘Gaslight’, ‘Bad for the Boys’, ‘PC with Me’
Alice Archer presented a vibrant SS20 collection at London Fashion Week. The collection takes inspiration from the watercolour paintings of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
In this collection, Archer Alice has executed floral subjects through the application of painterly methods and then reaffirmed them in firm drawn outlines. With excellent execution and elegant use of material and colour, Archer has established herself as a designer to watch.
Alice Archer, a British designer, graduated from RCA in 2013, having studied fine art at Goldsmiths and Central Saint Martins. After moving to Antwerp to work as an embroidery designer for Dries van Noten, Archer produced her first Alice Archer capsule collection exclusively for Browns in the UK.
Get ready for the Modern Art version of “The Song That Never Ends”.
Last Year at Marienbad (1961) is a beautiful, baffling product of Franco-Italian cinema, written by Alain Robbe-Grillet and directed by Alain Resnais. Having seen it, you might have an existential crisis that lasts a year…or a day…or an hour. Time has no meaning in Marienbad. Or Frederiksbad. Or wherever we are. Readers, there are a lot more or‘s where those came from. This is a ‘non-narrative film’. And it is truly remarkable.
A bourgeois time loop.
Not being told a story has never been more fun. In this ancient, elegant hotel, wealthy souls wander casually in a time loop. We begin with an ASMR overview of our chic hotel.
Robbe-Grillet ingratiates viewers into this silent, reverent world with a hypnotic monologue that repeats like an infinite funeral dirge: “These corridors…these salons and galleries…this edifice of a bygone era…this sprawling, sumptuous, Baroque, gloomy hotel.”
The words are even more sensuous and mysterious in their original French. As we hear them, Resnais provides the images: magnificent vaulted ceilings, gold-leaved chandeliers, foreboding hallways and, finally, stone-faced people.
We realize belatedly that the monologue we hear is part of a performance… Or is it?… The hotel has staged a play, about a woman hesitant to run off with her lover. A bell chimes. “Voila.” She is his. The play ends, and the camera patrols the hotel with impartiality. We seem to be eavesdropping on every monotonous conversation, the weather, the frustration of a lover, all made in the same doleful tone. Then, in a graceful and imperceptible transition, we find our central characters: A, X, and M.
At least those are the names they were gifted in Robbe-Grillet’s screenplay. In magical realist’s castle names are immaterial. All that matters is what Xinsists: that he and A met last year, in a place much like this one. They were passionate lovers and she must run away with him.
It becomes apparent that the handsome X (Giorgio Albertazzi) is our voiceover artist as well as the black-tied shadow compelling and repelling A around every corner. A (Delphine Seyrig) wards him off with stunning costumes by Chanel, an artfully poised arm, and hushed supplications: “I don’t know you. Please, leave me alone.” The next moment, they’re dancing, not quite cheek to cheek. Then, a scream! All the while, M, who may or may not be A’s husband, hovers nearby, a vulture with a diabolical acuity for parlor games.
Peut-être.
What happens next? There is no next. Scenes float and cut in and out of each other without warning. A walks down a corridor wearing a black dress, then continues her walk in white. X is seen firing a gun. A, inside, seems to hear it and holds her hand to her heart. But the camera pans out and X is there beside her, telling her their ever-fleeting, ever-repeating story.
We, the audience, are uncertain who remembers whom, what is real and what is a flashback. Is this last year or this year? What events are true? In answer, our characters exercise the word ‘peut-être’ – perhaps. “Perhaps it was in another room.” Or, “It is not true – peut-être.”
The same phrases are heard again and again, as A and X rigidly walk the hollow halls, the geometric garden. And let’s not forget the pounding organ that is our almost constant background music. These elements combine to create an almost narcotic film, one that lulls you even as your heart begins to race. Watching Last Year at Marienbad, one cannot help but feel mind-snatched by Resnais. The crisp parallels between black and white, the reappearances of objects, words and signs, and the ever-more-chilling X voiceovers hold you captive and set your eyes swinging.
Then – snap! – you’re startled from the trance. X, the harmless narrator, encounters slips in his narrative. I’m particularly captivated by the scene below. Is A’s memory faulty? Or is X losing control of the scene? Meanwhile, changes suggest X took A by force. “No,” X screams as we careen down a white hallway, “No! It was not by force!”
Was it by force? Did the two meet last year? Or, did X meet A in her hotel room, again and again over countless Marienbad years? Can they run away together? Do we hope they do? These and more questions are rolling in the viewer’s mind – a spinning lottery wheel of questions and theories. Instead of digging desperately for the answer, let’s appreciate a few possibilities.
Le fin, le début, le fin, le début…
Some believe Last Year at Marienbad is a retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice tale, in which the son of Calliope attempts to return his wife from the land of the dead. This would explain the classical statues that “might as well be you and me” (says X), as well as the violent effort from X to make A ‘alive’ through their affair. A broad version of that theory may find Marienbad an analysis of existence and time. Black, white, death, life, sex, rape, all pass through the world in repetition, without reason and without end.
Then again, maybe it’s a socialist’s tale. Or a feminist’s lament. Maybe it’s a satirist’s jab at élite resort-goers, fashionably at their leisure in the middle of the Algerian War. Whatever your take may be, Last Year at Marienbad is a jewel of the Left Bank – and of film itself. I believe Harry Medved, author of The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, deserves a good smack for including Marienbad in his list of dishonours.
Last Year at Marienbad is a film that unlocks story and unravels an audience. Its cinematic prowess incites rapture and tension, even in the monotonous, grey nothing developing on screen. We leap to the edges of our seats to compensate for the emotionless glances, the silence, the corridors, the salons, the galleries… In this case of hypnosis, we feel everything and continue to do so long after le fin. So, we sit back, rewind the trance – and watch all over again.
Get ready for the Modern Art version of “The Song That Never Ends”.
Science fiction films are often expressions of highly complex philosophical ideas. By utilizing genre tropes such as time travel, artificial intelligence, and space exploration, they explore themes of identity, agency, and consciousness and engage in philosophical discussions about the implications of real-world scientific developments. However, the approach these films take towards such questions is shaped by contemporary dominant cultural and philosophical ideologies. For example, sci-fi films such as The Matrix and other pieces of popular culture in the 1990s were directly influenced by the trendy ideology of postmodernism. However, as it soon became evident, the main issue with postmodernist thought is that it often leads to cynicism, nihilism, narcissism, and meaningnlessness. David Foster Wallace, one of postmodernism’s foremost critcs, wrote in Infinite Jest that “what passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human […] is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic.” As a result, there has been an ideological and cultural shift from cynicism and relativism to a self-aware expression of sincerity, emotional engagement, and affect; a move from post-modernism to what cultural theorists Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker described in their 2010 article as “metamodernism” — a “structure of feeling” characterized by “the oscillation between a typically modern commitment and a markedly postmodern detachment.”
What is Metamodernism?
When the end of postmodernism was declared by theorists such as Linda Hutcheon, others attempted to describe the subsequent cultural period as hypermodernity, digimodernity, automodernity, or altermodernity. But what Vermeulen and Akker have mapped out as metamodernism does not describe simply a move away from postmodernism, but an oscillating tension between different cultural logics. “Meta” here refers to Plato’s metaxis, a term which, although its meaning is up to debate, German philosopher Eric Voegelin interprets as “the structure of an In-Between… the tension between life and death, immortality and mortality, perfection and imperfection, time and timelessness, between order and disorder, truth and untruth, sense and senselessness of existence.” But more generally, the Greek prefix “meta” is also appropriate because it simultaneously can mean with/among, between, or after. In the case of metamodern discourse, there is, as Vermeulen and Akkeran explain, an oscillation among, between, and beyond “a modern enthusiasm and postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naivete ́and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity,” although the prevailing sentiment is usually one of sincerity. As metamodern theorist Luke Turner notes, this ultimately manifests itself as “a kind of informed naivety, a pragmatic idealism… attempting to attain some sort of transcendent position, as if such a thing were within our grasp.”
Metamodernism in Science Fiction
Although Vermeulen and Akker have encouraged an analysis of various forms of modern art through the lens of metamodernism throughout their online blog, Notes on Metamodernism, and as editors of the book Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect, and Depth after Postmodernism, nothing has been written specifically on the potential of sci-fi film to explore its ideas and values. Therefore, it is my aim to show how three sci-fi films – Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014), Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016), and Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) – use sci-fi techniques that allow for a unique expression of this metamodern oscillation, plurality of realities and subjectivities, and transcendence of boundaries. Specifically, I will illustrate how these films, particularly Interstellar and Arrival, use sci-fi tropes to explore such metamodern concepts in an effort to restore hope, sincerity, and affect. Secondly, I will examine the role of love in the metamodern self in particular, and how the three films, but especially Her, express and stress its significance.
Interstellar (2014) dir. Christopher Nolan
In Christopher Nolan’s critically divisive Interstellar, there is an oscillation between and transcendence of the boundaries of time, aided by the medium of film, in itself a kind of time machine. As critic Vivian Sobchack argues, Nolan “has expanded—and compounded—the relativity of space-time and its effects by layering them in the multiple dimensions not only of Interstellar’s narrative but also of the film’s overall structure and its immersive mise en scene.” There is, in metamodern terms, tension between time and timelessness. Excluding the opening shots, the first act starts with a relatively linear timeline grounded in familial drama. But as Cooper tells his 10-year-old daughter Murphy before leaving Earth, “Time is going to change for us.”
As the film narratively and formally experiments with Einstein’s relativistic notion of space-time, “time within and without the film starts to distort, the editing and parallel storylines begin to converge and flow into each other, and edits now jump through time and space in the blink of an eye,” as Aaron Stewart-Ahn explains. But in the third act, Nolan visualizes a truly original, mind-bending, and temporally complex continuum, an infinite space, in which the boundaries between past, present, and future have collapsed, and where multiple realities and dimensions coexist. To return to Vermeulen and Akker’s ‘Notes on Metamodernism’:
…the metamodern should be understood as a space-time that is both-neither ordered and disordered. Metamodernism displaces the parameters of the present with those of a future presence that is futureless; and it displaces the boundaries of our place with those of a surreal place that is placeless. For indeed, that is the ‘‘destiny’’ of the metamodern wo/man: to pursue a horizon that is forever receding.
Indeed, the displacement of time in Interstellar, despite its complexity, is ultimately there to teach us a metamodern lesson about hope, informed by a postmodern awareness of the meaninglessness of time: that even if astrophysics renders it impossible to visit the past in order to change the future, art ought to imagine it as if it were possible so that we change the present, which is within our grasp. It deconstructs reality in order to reconstruct meaning. Thus fits Dylan Thomas’s poem, which, in Sobchak’s words, urges “all of us watching in our own dying light to do more than passively resign ourselves to imminent extinction.”
Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, on the other hand, also explores an oscillation in and transcendence of time with a similar purpose, but in a different manner. Rather than humans reaching out to outer space, it is the aliens – the Heptapods, in this case – that mysteriously arrive on Earth. Louise is tasked with translating their language, which, rather than being, in postmodern writer William S. Burrough’s words, “a virus from outer space”, is correctly interpreted as quite literally the opposite: a “weapon”, a kind of metamodern “gift”, if you will, because it leads to the unification of the world and to personal meaning. Once one learns the language, Louise finds out, one begins to perceive time as the fourth-dimensional beings do, in a circular, non-linear fashion, a kind of infinite oscillation. And so, she can see into the future, and must cope with the fact her future daughter is going to die of a rare illness. “Despite knowing the journey, and where it leads,” Louise says in the film’s moving epilogue, “I embrace it. And I welcome every moment of it.” Although science tells us that it is impossible to look into the future and transcend the limits of time, science fiction allows for a realization of the metamodern philosophical idea that, as Luke Turner writes in ‘The Metamodernist Manifesto’, “existence is enriched if we set about our task as if those limits might be exceeded, for such action unfolds the world.”
It is enriched, in both Arrival and Interstellar, because despite an awareness of tragedy, there is also hope that by occupying possible futures and different realities, we can make sincere decisions in the present based on the pragmatic romanticism that metamodernism values. This isn’t just my interpretation: many movie critics similarly picked up on the films’ hopeful and emotional tone, which could be deemed metamodern. Manohla Dargis called Arrival “a science-fiction parable in a distinctly more idealistic hopeful key than most movies in this genre”, while James Dyer called Interstellar “a mind-bending opera of space and time with a soul wrapped up in all the science.” But more interestingly, both films have inevitably been compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey. “But unlike Stanely Kubrick’s psychedelic ride,” Joe Williams writes on Interstellar, “this journey is powered by a human heart”, while Dargis notes that as Arrival “revisits some of the uncertainties in ‘2001’ — free will, extraterrestrials, God — it seems to turn inward instead of out. (It does both.)” This is a great example of how metamodern sci-fi films differ from post-modern ones, in that they oscillate between, among, and beyond the cosmic and the intimate in an affective, sincere fashion.
Spike Jonze’s Her is a romantic sci-fi film that ostensibly differs greatly from the other two films examined so far in that it concerns itself not with space or aliens but more explicitly with love, as it follows the relationship between a lonely writer, Theodore, and his highly advanced operating system, Samantha. Although it has been labeled as “postmodern”, its director has also been associated with metamodernism for being part of the recent “quirky” wave of cinema that best represents the oscillation between sincerity and irony, engagement and detachment. Indeed, movie critics were quick to note this oscillating tone in the film: we might return to Manohla Dargis, for example, who called it “at once a brilliant conceptual gag and a deeply sincere romance.” Steven Rea called it “sad, funny, and quietly alarming” while Elizabeth Weitzman asks “Will you relate more to the bitter, or embrace the sweet?” And finally, Joe Williams makes yet another 2001: A Space Odyssey comparison, highlighting the same difference: “as the friendly ghost in the machine,” she concludes, “Samantha is a more inviting companion for the great leap forward than HAL9000 could ever dream of being.” Which brings us to my second point: that Her, as critic Andrew Harrison notes,is part of the new era of (metamodern) cinema in which “science fiction has learned to love.”
Striving for Unity: Love as a Metamodern Force
Along with hope and sincerity, love is another defining force in metamodernism. Simone Stirner argues that love is inextricably bound with the return of the subject, which postmodernism famously declared dead. “The subject reappears and it comes with other dismissed categories such as trust, belief, coherence and even love,” she writes. But the reemerged subject, she stresses, is not merely the modern one, because an awareness of how identity and selfhood can be dismantled still exists. Cultural critic Karen Coats, in trying to define the self beyond the postmodern crisis, develops an ontology of the self revolving around “I love, therefore I am.” This formulation, she argues, does not completely dismiss modernism’s claim to individuality, but neither does it fall into postmodern critique, which ignores agency. It understands that we both encounter and act on the world, “in the modes of both passive reaction and active response, both reflective contemplation and affective engagement.” In the struggle to define love, she develops the psychoanalytic notion of love as striving for unity, a concept as relevant to Freud and Lacan as it is to metamodernism. In the process of striving for unity, the self’s notion of the love-object as ideal shatters, which leads to further development of the self. “Hence,” she concludes, what defines the metamodern condition is that “we strive toward unity while maintaining our separateness.”
Her (2013) dir. Spike Jonze
The first metamodern instance of love in Her comes even before the arrival of the machine. The first sequence shows us Theodore in a close-up reading a sentimental love letter out loud in a genuine and heartfelt way, before we cut to the letter being printed as we realize that he is a professional writer working for a business that composes letters for people who cannot write letters of such a nature. The sincerity of love is undercut by the irony of the constructedness of it. This irony is further intensified as we learn that the protagonist himself is lonely and depressed, unable to cope with real relationships.
But this changes when he starts bonding with his operating system, Samantha, whose tone of voice is notably sensitive and tender to match the warm colour of the OS and counteract the coldness of technology as perceived by postmodernism, much in the same way that Theodore wears warm-colored clothes to contrast the bleakness of his surroundings. Soon, Theodore opens up to Samantha about his past relationship, and Samantha develops “feelings” for him, even writing sentimental music about their relationship. However, the film does not warn us about the dangers of technology or mock the characters as we would expect it to, but rather embraces to an extent this tone of sentimentality and encourages us to empathize with them while always keeping the viewer aware of the irony of their relationship being entirely artificial. Rather than irony continuously overshadowing sincerity, when it comes to love, two opposite poles coexist in a state of oscillation. In Samantha’s words, “I’m yours and I’m not yours.”
Love, ironically, plays a bigger role in Samantha’s development of the metamodern self. She feels proud of herself for developing feelings, but also worries about whether her feelings are even real, whether they are merely the result of programming. But eventually, she finds solace in the fact that she is “not tethered to time and space”, which is what allows her to become conscious of herself as a metamodern, simultaneously there and not there. And rather than abandoning the notion of love entirely, Theodore uses the impossibility of loving a limitless, boundless self to regain trust in the world that is possible, namely Amy, a human character; to use Karen Coats’ theory, he “builds [his] own ego from the bits and pieces that remain as the ideal shatters” by investing himself into the Other – in this case an OS.
Moving back to outer space, Interstellar depicts love as a metamodern force capable of bringing unity and hope back to both the intimate and cosmic narratives. Aaron Stewart-Ahn, arguing that the film is about love, writes:
It’s not about a force that conquers all, or anything so glib […] [but that] the only conspiracy or rebellion we can offer against the relentlessness of time, against the universe’s progression toward entropy, is love. The act of committing to memory that which will be lost. Love is not a higher power in this film, but it is transcendental.
The transcendental power of love is expressed through the transcendence of space-time, which, along with the oscillation between self-awareness and sincerity, renders it metamodern. A scene in the film which has been received with a kind of postmodern cynicism is that in which Brand, one of the astronauts, proclaims that “love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.” This is immediately met with skepticism by agent Cooper, who stresses love’s practical value. But in a scene where relativity has distorted time, Cooper displays profound sentimentality and love as he watches his children grow to become his age on a screen; gone is the postmodern detachment Frank represents during the videophone sequence in 2001. And by the end, stuck in the tesseract, he has his moment of anagnorisis, when he proclaims that love is how he “found this moment”, that it’s “the key” (the YouTube edit below perfectly highlights this character progression). This moment, where love is the only thing not bound by time, also restores Cooper’s hope in humanity. One might also argue that the tesseract acts as what Stirner describes as an “artificially created space, where in a human, intersubjective experience, the outside forces exposed by postmodern thinkers can be temporarily shut out”, and the abandoned categories of love and hope can be reclaimed.
In Arrival, too, it is by transcending the boundaries of time that Louise can comprehend love as a force that gives her life meaning. But notably, it is not romantic love – that between Louise and Ian – that in a metamodern way persists throughout time despite an awareness of tragedy, but once again, that between a parent and her daughter. Ian cannot come to terms with their daughter’s inevitable death, with its oscillating tension between love and death, the present and the future. But Louise, who has fully embraced the metamodern encounter that she experienced in the artificial space of the extraterrestrial spacecraft, can cherish the moments she has with her in the present and hold on to the “memory of a future in which light still shines in the darkness”. When Louise tells her daughter that she knows something bad will happen in the future, we can see the bright sun flare up in her face, and Amy Adams conveys what metamodernists may describe as “contained hope that is accompanied by a twitch of melancholy”, while the moment becomes one “of trust and love despite the harsh reality.” If we return to Karen Coats’s psychoanalytic conception of the metamodern self, a quote she uses from Tillich is very much relevant here: “Fulfilled love is, at the same time, happiness and the end of happiness. The separation is overcome.”
Science fiction is unique in its ability to explore different realities, dimensions, and timelines, therefore enabling what metamodernists value as “the simultaneous experience and enactment of events from a multiplicity of positions.”. The three films explored here envision impossibilities, whether they be scientific or romantic, using the metamodern epistemology as if in order to restore the abandoned values of sincerity, love, hope in the real world, while also expressing an oscillating tension, an awareness of being exposed to postmodern critique. Focusing on the return of love in metamodern sci-fi specifically, David Brooks’s take on Interstellar can also be applied to Arrival and Her:he argues that Nolan portrays love as a “magnetic force” that “can exert a gravitational pull on people who are separated by vast distances or even by death. Their attention is riveted by the beloved. They hunger for reunion.” Even if we are always caught in an oscillation between separateness and unity, metamodernist sci-fi gives us hope that one does not necessarily negate the other.
Jamie Wei Huang returned with a stunning collection at London Fashion Week. The collection focused on the long and gruelling journey of pieces being made, rather than the final pieces themselves. In fact, the collection itself was named after a common mental illness OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
The themes of this collection are well explored through materials, fit, and make-up. It very much relates to other art forms such as fine art, and music, where artists explore a sphere of emotions to find out that perfection doesn’t exist. As a saying goes, an artist never finishes a piece of work, they just give up perfecting it.
In this segment, we showcase our top picks of what to catch at the cinema this weekend, what to stream and our short film of the week.
Our pick of the new releases out on September 13th, 2019:
Cinema: Downton Abbey
Rating
Length
15
118 MIN
Director: Michael Engler Starring: Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Jim Carter
Based on the much-adored TV show of the same name, Downton Abbey sees the return of many of the original cast members as they anxiously prepare for the arrival of King George V and Queen Mary. As well as dealing with this royal arrival, the film, much like the television series, is infused with both upstairs and downstairs drama that’s scripted by Julian Fellowes.
Though the film is receiving mixed reviews (currently holding an approval rating of 84% on rotten tomatoes), lovers of the television series and heritage dramas are bound to enjoy the return to an impressive stately home, the glory of the English countryside and (somewhat) simpler times.
Stream: The Spy (Netflix)
Rating
Length
15
Limited Series
Stripped of his boundary-pushing comedy, Sacha Baron Cohen turns serious as he plays Eli Cohen in this new six-part series, written and directed by Gideon Raff. Based on real-life events, Mossad agent Eli Cohen goes undercover in Syria as Kamel Amin Thaabet to uncover their military plans. In Syria, Eli has the charismatic ability to gain critical intel, become deputy defence secretary and still remain unnoticed. But as he does so, he becomes increasingly estranged from his wife (Hadar Ratzon Rotem) and his own identity. This drama is a gripping tale of espionage that nicely dramatises and enlightens a bit of history. It also features a compelling performance by Cohen that feels completely unrelated to his previous work.
Short of the Week: Darlin by Isabel Castro
Premiering at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, this short film tells the story of Darlin, a young, 26-year-old Honduran immigrant estranged from her partner and young son by immigration authorities. Castro’s use of long takes perfectly conveys a mood and adds to the heart-wrenching potency and relevance of this film. It is both a beautifully constructed short film and a fascinating endeavour to provide commentary on our culture and a portrait of the harsh, inhibited lives that many lead under a zero-tolerance policy. Writing about the short film Castro stated: “Documenting things helps me understand them, and in an attempt to understand a government policy that was incomprehensible to me, I asked if I could film her.”