Rachel K. Ward

Waxing Hot: A Postmodern Tradition of the New

The iPhone is new again, Apple.com   Ever changing, like a Joyless eye, That finds no object worth its constancy? “To the Moon,” Percy Bysshe Shelley   The turn of the moon has long fascinated our human desire for novelty. In our postmodern moment, we have a focus on the new as if unique to our […]

Rachel K. Ward

Teaser: The Postmodern Fashion of Provisional Views

Prada, teaser for Candy, by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola   “Ethical, juridical, or political responsibility, if there is any, consists in deciding on the strategic orientation to give to this problematic…for which truth, no more than reality, is not an object given in advance that it would be a matter of simply reflecting adequately.” Jacques […]

Rachel K. Ward

Too Much Love, Never Enough: The Postmodern Culture of Infatuation

Infatutation: (noun) a foolish or all absorbing passion or an instance of this: a mere infatuation that will not last “In the modern philosophy….it cannot hope to find any romance, its romances will have no plots. A man cannot expect any adventures in the land of anarchy.” G. K. Chesterton, “Authority and the Adventurer,” 1908   Too much information, this appears to be our […]

Rachel K. Ward

Hijack Nation: America’s Past-Postmodernism

“America ducks the question of origins; it cultivates no origin or mythical authenticity; it has no past and no founding truth. Having known no primitive accumulation of time, it lives in a perpetual present. Having seen no slow, centuries-long accumulation of a principle of truth, it lives in perpetual simulation, in a perpetual present of […]

Rachel K. Ward

Sanctified: Fashion, Fame & the Everlasting

Above the new brand materials for Saint Laurent During Summer 2012, a subtle shift was made to France’s most significant fashion label. Just a few years after the designer’s passing, Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) has been renamed Saint Laurent.  Born with the last name Mathieu-Saint-Laurent, Yves Saint Laurent was fashion’s golden child, but refining his […]

Rachel K. Ward

So you think you can tell?: Perception and the Postmodern Condition

Apple, Sydney, by Pedro Milanez So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell, blue skies from pain? -Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd, 1975 The classic Pink Floyd song addressed former band member Syd Barrett’s breakdown, and writer Roger Walters’ feelings of alienation. The song’s symbolism has also been aligned with perceptions of a […]

Rachel K. Ward

Altar to an Unknown God: In response to Alain de Botton

For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. Acts 17:23   Candida Höfer, Musée du Louvre Paris IX 2005 Candida Höfer’s photography of monumental […]

Rachel K. Ward

Love By Any Means Possible (and The Postmodern Condition of Desire)

“Love is something like a theater of the world but with only two people in the audience,” -Alain Badiou, “What is love, sexuality and desire?,”[i]   In 1909, E.M. Forester wrote the “The Machine Stops.” He described a future world where people live privately in rooms and interact with one another via screens connected to […]

Rachel K. Ward

Being Relevant: Confronting the latest sacred

  by Rachel K. Ward The spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. Its sole message is: “What appears is good; what is good appears.” Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, 1968 Relevance is the exact opposite of countercultural, the unintended consequences are significant. Gabe Lyons, The Next Christians, […]