Max Ryynänen, "Editorial" (Vol 7)
Volume 3 / 2020
EDITORIAL
Max Ryynänen
Aalto University, max.ryynanen@aalto.fi
Dear reader, This issue does not have a theme, so the articles that we publish here are very different from each other. I think we can still say that all the fresh ones (one of the texts is a republication) touch upon really contemporary issues.
Paolo Euron’s “Half-Naked Bodies in Anime and Western Culture Industry: Intercultural Remarks on the Aesthetics of Transgression” discusses naked bodies in film from a global intercultural perspective. Yvonne Förster’s “Emergent Technologies between Phenomenology and Poststructuralism: A Methodological Question” aims at presenting phenomenology’s special nature as a key for understanding today’s technology (and so contemporary culture). Michaela Pašteková’s “Dance Movement as the Saviour of the Routine in the Pandemic Era” reflects on our current pandemic era, and the way everyday routines (and the way we record and distribute them) now have an impact on dance and choreographic thinking.
This issue’s republication of a ‘classic’ is about Singapore and its modernism/kitsch. C.J.W.-L. Wee’s ”Bland Modernity, Kitsch and Reflections on the Aesthetic Production in Singapore” was originally published with the title “Kitsch & the Singapore Modern” in the Singapore-based art journal Focas (2002, No 3, Jan; we are thankful to Lucy Davis for connecting us to this text).Doryan Batycka’s review of Mike Watson’s book Can the Left Meme? finishes the issue. “The Work of Art in the Age of Memetic Reproduction” is as much about our era as our main articles.
And what’s next? Guest editor Paco Barragan is working on a special issue with the title Storytelling and Its Narrative Modes: Conspiracy Theories, Fake News, Post-Truths, New World Orders, Negationist Theories and Infodemics. This will be Vol 8 and it will be published summer 2021.
