21st Century Isms

Though radical manifestos are published less frequently, isms continue to flourish in the 21st century. There have been various 'ismatic' attempts by theoreticians to define the post-Post-Modern era - such as Performatism, Digi-Modernism, and Meta-Modernism - though the avant-garde isms of the 20th century continue to inspire contemporary artists.

Also, isms are increasingly applied retrospectively, redefining previous artistic periods and sometimes misinterpreting genres as isms. Ronald Bergan wrote a whole book of these ersatz isms: Slapstickism, FXism, Documentarism, Avant-Gardism, Hollywood Studioism, Horrorism, New Wavism, Gangsterism, Screwballism, Cartoonism, Costume Romanticism, Anti-Militarism, Propagandism, Cultism, Racialism, Film Noirism, Emotionalism, Biographism, Westernism, Asian Minimalism, Musicalism, Teenagism, American Indieism, Dogmetism, and Disasterism (...isms, 2011).

Some of these neologisms merely assign new names to existing trends. For instance, Technoism (after 20th century Structural Expressionism), Meta-Rationalism (after Rem Koolhass's Manhattanism) and Usonianism (after Frank Lloyd Wright), coined by Jeremy Melvin (...isms, 2005); also, Sensationalism (after Charles Saatchi) and Secessionism (after the Vienna Secession), coined by Stephen Little (...isms, 2004).

Carnivalism

The Carnivalism film presentation in Bangkok, part of Assumption University's 2011 degree show, applied the term Carnivalism to new-media art. The name is derived from 16th century writer Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of the carnivalesque, his concept of subversive, chaotic, and grotesque literature.

Correctionism

Chris Seddon published a magazine titled Correctionism in 2010. According to Seddon's definition, "Correctionism is the term given to any form of mark-making produced with the sole intention of blocking-out of covering up illicit urban art" (A Brief Introduction To Correctionism). He photographed public spaces in which graffiti had been whitewashed or otherwise removed, thus Correctionism is a response to street artists such as Banksy (Existencillism) and Invader (Rubik-Cubism).

Dataism

Dataism, like Neroism, was proposed by Icon magazine in 2006 as a successor to Modernism. Both proposals are rather dystopian, though they are also intended as ironic statements.

Dataism describes the automatic generation of ergonomic designs by computers, after data is entered via design software. It represents "the final victory of the numerate over the literate".

De-Fastenism

De-Fastenism was inaugurated in 2004 with a manifesto written by Gary Farrelly, Padraic E Moore, and Alexander Reilly. Their Defastenist Party Manifesto was inspired by the De-Modernist movement. Farrelly produced a series of works featuring clocks displaying different time zones, including International Clocks (2007).

The De-Fastenists certainly seem dedicated to the cause, with the manifesto emphasising their "complete fanaticism". In the pursuit of their "obsessions and desires", they pledge their "fundamental faith in the Utopian functions of art".

Digi-Modernism

Alan Kirby introduced the term Pseudo-Modernism in a 2006 journal paper, The Death Of Postmodernism And Beyond, in which he argued that increased audience participation and online interactivity resulted in a banal and sensationalist entertainment culture. In 2009, he replaced it with a new term, Digi-Modernism.

His book Digimodernism expanded his analysis of culture after Post-Modernism. Digi-Modernism, or 'digital modernism', is a pun on the two meanings of 'digital': "it's where digital technology meets textuality and text is (re)formulated by the fingers and thumbs (the digits) clicking and keying and pressing in the positive act of partial or obscurely collective textual elaboration".

Kirby cites "infantilism, earnestness, endlessness, and apparent reality" as the central traits of Digi-Modernist culture. He is especially critical of computer-generated imagery in Hollywood cinema, arguing that CGI has produced a cinematic Apocalypticism: disaster movies utilising computer graphics to depict the destruction of civilisation.

Existencilism

Existencilism is a clever pun on 'existentialism' and 'stencil'. Existencilism is also the title of an exhibition by Banksy held in Los Angeles, California, in 2002.

Banksy is one of the world's foremost street artists. Like Invader, who created Rubik-Cubism, Banksy helped to legitimise grafitti as an art form. His subversive stencils have appeared surruptitiously in cities throughout the world, and he directed the documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop.

Gagasmicism

Gagasmicism, a portmanteu of Lady Gaga and 'orgasmic', is a neologism coined by Pan-Pan Prasert for his Gagasmicism exhibition held in Bangkok in 2011. The artist was inspired by a Lady Gaga concert he had attended in New York, and he created a collection of intricate sculptures, including Nang Kwak-Ga, depicting Gaga as a deity.

The objects resemble Buddhist statuettes, with Gaga posed in a meditative position, a camp and kitsch celebration of modern celebrity-worship. Pan-Pan also gave a performance, dressed in a bodysuit, in which he portrayed a Gaga-esque character.

Meta-Modernism

Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker introduced their notion of Meta-Modernism in the journal paper Notes On Metamodernism in 2010. Using 'meta' in the sense of oppositional metaxy, they discuss art that alternates between Modernist sincerity and Post-Modernist detachment: "metamodernism oscillates between the modern and the postmodern. It oscillates between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naivete and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity".

Meta-Modernism is also allied with the 19th century Neo-Romanticism movement and its contemporary revival, Romantic Conceptualism: "metamodernism appears to find its clearest expression in an emergent neoromantic sensibility". The authors identify Meta-Modernist tendencies in art, architecture, and cinema.

Neroism

Neroism, like Dataism, was proposed by Icon magazine in 2006 as a successor to Modernism. Both movements are rather dystopian, though they are also intended as ironic statements.

Neroism advocates hedonistic, selfish consumer behaviour, an acceptance of the failure of sustainability as a design concept. It surrenders to "the inferno of human consumption that is overwhelming the planet's life-support systems".

Performatism

Performatism, or The End Of Postmodernism was published as a journal paper in 2000 and expanded, with the same title, as a book in 2008. According to author Raoul Eshelman, Performatism rejects the irony and inter-textuality of Post-Modernism in favour of art works that invite emotional responses and remain self-contained.

Eshelman cites American Beauty as the archetypal Performatist film, and also applies the concept to literature, architecture, and art. He defines Performatism as "an epoch in which a unified concept of sign and strategies of closure have begun to compete directly with - and displace - the split concept of sign and the strategies of boundary transgression typical of postmodernism".

Pseudo-Modernism
see: Digi-Modernism

Re-Modernism

In 2000, Billy Childish - who had founded Stuckism the year before - launched Re-Modernism with Charles Thomson. Re-Modernism called for a return to Modernist notions of traditional craftsmanship and authenticity, in contrast to the perceived artifice of Post-Modernism. This reactionary movement was initiated with an exhibition in London titled The Stuckists, labelling Childish's Stuckist movement as The First Remodernist Art Group. Joe Machine's painting Diana Dors With An Axe (circa 2000) was featured on the cover of the exhibition catalogue.

The Re-Modernist manifesto begins with a condemnation of both Modernism and Post-Modernism: "Through the course of the 20th century Modernism has progressively lost its way, until finally toppling into the pit of Postmodern balderdash". The manifesto's main emphasis is a return to spirituality, and the writers even seek to "bring God back into art", a surprising ambition in an overwhelmingly secular society.

Despite acknowledging a "wariness of manifestos", Jesse Richards issued a Remodernist Film Manifesto in 1998. Like Childish and Thomson, Richards also called for a return to spirituality, though for him this was distinct from religion. More provocatively, Richards was scathing in his criticism of Stanley Kubrick, "who desperately and pathetically tried to make objective films, instead made dishonest and boring films". Richards directed a Re-Modernist film, Shooting At The Moon, with Nicholas Watson in 2003, a minor footnote in cinematic history.

Romantic Conceptualism

Romantischer Konzeptualismus was influenced by 19th century Neo-Romanticism and 20th century Neo-Conceptualism. Jorg Heiser organised a Romantischer Konzeptualismus group exhibition in Nuremberg in 2007, though the movement's direct roots can be traced back to the 1960s. Heiser emphasised art's emotional content (hence Romantic Conceptualism), in contrast to the perceived sterility of Conceptualism.

Romantischer Konzeptualismus
see: Romantic Conceptualism

Rubik-Cubism

Rubik-Cubism utilises Rubik's Cubes in reproducing iconic art works, resulting in a mosaic effect. The technique, and the name (a pun on Cubism, arguably the 20th century's most significant ism), were created by Invader for his Rubikcubism exhibition in Los Angeles, California, in 2005. Invader constructed sculptures of Space Invaders characters from Rubik's Cubes, and created Rubik's versions of album covers and famous paintings.

Invader - who has also collaborated with Banksy, creator of Existencilism - is one of the world's most famous street artists. In 2008, another artist, CIX, also developed RubikCubism. Then, in 2010, the art collective Cubeworks exhibited Rubik's Cube artworks created in a similar way.

Suggestivism

Suggestivism, coined by Nathan Spoor, emphasises the viewer's sensory response to art. Spoor, who curated the Suggestivism group exhibition in Santa Ana, California, in 2011, was influenced by writer Irving Babbitt.

In his essay The New Laokoon (1910), Babbitt derided 'suggestive' art, just as French critics had dennounced Impressionism in the 19th century. Spoor embraced the criticisms identified by Babbitt and reappropriated them a hundred years later.

Sustainism

Sustainism is a cultural philosophy coined by Michiel Schwarz and Joost Elffers. In their manifesto, Sustainism Is The New Modernism, published in 2010, they argue for a return to sustainability in design, technology, and economics. The manifesto is essentially an exercise in graphic design, with striking logos and typefaces illustrating utopian slogans.

Ambitiously, the writers positioned Sustainism as a new paradigm to replace Modernism's emphasis on industrialised mass-production, defining it as "a movement oriented toward more sustainable and durable strategies for the future, acknowledging the power of networks" and "a collective worldview that stresses interdependence along cultural and natural environments, local and global realities, and material and immaterial bases".

Specifically, Sustainism advocates socially-responsible and environmentally-friendly design, participatory media via social networks, and a localised yet inter-connected culture. Sustainism's founders envision a future in which their philosophy is applied to every aspect of our lives, including food, religion, health, and education. In that sense, their book resembles a party-political policy document. Like a political manifesto, Sustainism has plenty of optimistic soundbites, though it lacks a detailed implementation strategy.