Wednesday, October 3, 2007

neo-baroque iCon

Angela Ndalianis' neo-baroque is doubled or shadowed by the second great developmet in 21st century media: the always-on wireless world. In the old baroque and the new, the immense and immersive spectacle engulfs the viewer-auditor, but also addresses them as individual - individual soul in the old, individual consumer in the neo. By contrast the wireless experience is primarily of isolation, but isolation in perpetual connectivity. The dialectical connection between immersion and connectivity, at present and perhaps forever mutually exclusive as the sublime is irreconcilable with the communicative. A dialectic whose map might be written: Actuality of community, illusion of isolation vs actuality of isolation, illusion of community.

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