ATLAS 14 - NEU / NEW

Page 37

35

Yesterday’s news – When does the new get old? TEXT

Stefan Kutzenberger

Who wants yesterday’s papers, the Rolling Stones wanted to know in 1967 – a year that saw almost unprecedented clashes between old and new. It was the year Concorde made its debut in France, race riots erupted in the United States, a horrific war raged in Vietnam, and the Summer of Love was proclaimed in San Francisco. Inundated as we are by these constant collisions of polar opposites, why should we still find yesterday’s headlines interesting? “Is there anything older than yesterday’s news?”, the Stones would seem to be asking. But how long do new things stay new? Do newspapers lose their validity at midnight, or when the next issue is published? Today we needn’t even wait 24 hours for the next issue: online platforms update their news every few hours, and often even more frequently. This news cycle is most remorseless in the coverage of politics, but the lifespans of otherwise sedate mediums like novels are shrinking too. Publishers still operate on six-monthly cycles for their new releases, but that doesn’t mean a new book is guaranteed six months’ grace before becoming outmoded. If it doesn’t prove popular during its first few weeks, it gets sold off cheap like a piece of dated kitsch. The adjective and literary genre “novel”, both derive from “nouvel”, the French word for “new”. A few years ago, the Scottish writer Ali Smith began an experiment in which she took the term literally. She announced that she planned to pen a four-part cycle of novels – ­entitled Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer – in which she described what was happening around her, practically in real time. Literary critics were skeptical about this venture, wondering aloud whether a novel produced at such speed could possibly be good. “Autumn”, the first part, was published in October 2016, just four months after the Brexit Referendum. And not only could Ali Smith claim to have written the first Brexit novel. It was a great nov­­el too, selected as one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times. Summer, the series finale, was published in August 2020. Again, despite her antiquated medium, the au­thor managed to produce an ultra-topical nov­ el about the lockdown during the pandemic. Ultimately, how long these novels remain “new”

does not depend on their subject matter: it ­hinges on their quality as works of art. Art Nou­veau is still regarded as art although it is no longer regarded as “new.” Yet the ­never-seen-before comprises the essence of modern art. While the eras of the past took ages to end – think of the Gothic period, Renaissance, Baroque and so on – contemporary art has really stepped on the gas. All of a sudden, the benchmark was no longer a proximity to prevailing ideals. It was being new and different that counted. And when movements are no longer new, they need to be replaced. Almost overnight, the longevity of art epochs shrank from centuries to a few years, as one new “ism” replaced the previous and the pace grew ever more relentless. Impressionism, Expressionism, Symbolism, Cubism, Surrealism all followed in quick succession – until no more acceleration was possible. At that point, people remembered the past. Looking back became acceptable again, as did citing the styles of former periods and creating a new world from their building blocks. With that, the world embarked on a new era: postmodernism, which is basically an incarnation of modernism. In other words, we can’t afford to rest on our laurels, because the imperatives of speed and novelty still reign supreme. What is new is deemed good (begging the evil-twin question: is good still deemed good?). One thinks of a man who buys a new coat, only to discover that he no longer likes his other clothes. He gradually upgrades his ­ex­is­ting wardrobe until the new coat has become the oldest item, and itself needs replacing. And so the cycle begins anew. Our consumer society as a whole seems to follow this pattern: a new cellphone is only good if it is the latest model, even if the previous one is only a year old. The arbitrary nature of our fixation with the new is highlighted when the new happens to be older than the old! In a 2011 exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s works, the National Gallery in London presented a newly discovered piece by the Italian master. Created in 1500, it was entitled “Salvator Mundi.” Although Mona Lisa was probably completed 15 years later, “Savior of the World” is now known as “the new Leonardo.” Or rather as “the expensive Leonardo,” because it fetched 450 million dollars at an


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Impressum Imprint

4min
pages 94-96

Neu im Netz New on the Web

3min
pages 92-93

Nachgelesen Update

2min
page 91

The seven-year switch

5min
pages 89-90

The way forward for land transport

4min
pages 83-85

Mach alles neu

5min
pages 86-88

Wo geht es hin im Landverkehr?

3min
pages 80-82

We’re the newbies

5min
pages 75-77

Wir sind die Neuen

5min
pages 73-74

Good answers to questions posed by the pandemic

5min
pages 69-72

Daily Business

1min
pages 78-79

Gute Antworten auf die Fragen der Krise

4min
pages 67-68

Heute schon etwas gelernt?

2min
pages 65-66

Learned anything new today?

2min
page 64

Recharging your batteries

11min
pages 61-63

Over the sea or through the air?

3min
pages 49-51

Die Welt in Orange Orange Network

5min
pages 44-46

Über das Meer oder durch die Luft?

3min
pages 47-48

Den Reservetank füllen

12min
pages 54-60

When does the new get old?

5min
pages 37-38

Mixed feelings

7min
pages 41-43

Was bleibt, was kommt?

10min
pages 8-16

Gemischte Gefühle

6min
pages 39-40

»Die Nachfrage nach EU-Gütern ist unersättlich«

2min
page 22

Comings and goings

9min
pages 17-21

“The demand for EU goods is pretty insatiable”

8min
pages 23-27

Die Zeitung von gestern – Wie lange ist das Neue neu?

5min
pages 35-36
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