A Current Controversy:
Is There a Contemporary Sea-Change?
Does the Last Wave of a Postmodernist Signal
Their Re-Arrival or a Final Departure?

Is there a current difference in how ‘cutting-edge’ texts are created and received? Or, is the past merely recycled? In this paper the role of reflexivity in a ‘text’ will be examined to establish that a sea-change in the nature of cutting-edge Contemporary texts has started to take place in a trend that goes beyond the Postmodern. [In this exciting exploration of the current cutting-edge boundaries of Contemporary culture we will be collectively testing, through debate, the strength of those new insights as they arise in the reading/re-writing of this paper…]. (0)

Introduction

	First, I will outline the philosophical problem of two closely interrelated philosophical problems, namely, Is there or is there not the advent of a post-Postmodern era of the Contemporary? and, What role does textual reflexivity play in the formation of this new era (assuming that the first question can be answered in the affirmative)? Second, I will examine my intuition that textual reflexivity has an important role to play in the distinctive formation of ‘cutting-edge texts’ that characterize the Contemporary era. In this examination I will look at possible changes in the constitution and consequences of this aspect of textual reflexivity in the production of texts. Third, I will explore whether we are correct in believing that there is, indeed, a distinctive sense of a Contemproary text. Last, we will explore in this interactive essay: Is there a sea-change in the nature of cutting edge Contemporary texts that goes beyond both Modern and Postmodern characteristic styles of production? In this process I will examine the currently-to-be-perceived consequences of this shift in textual production as they-are-to-be-made-manifest in the-lived-world-of-culture, and, I will attempt, in the process, to get your feed-back and evaluation of the possible merit of this thesis that we are currently witnessing the dawn of a new post-Postmodern era of the Contemporary? (1)

I.    Is There A Problem?

…a critic for the Sydney Morning Herald, John MacDonald, in his last contribution to the paper before retiring argued for the use of the term ‘contemporary’ to label art produced recently (‘art’ we must assume that is creatively arrived at and not merely derivatively produced, or rather, ‘re-produced.’) Hence, e.g., the appellation of the Museum for Contemporary Art at Circular Quay in Sydney. (2)

	Of course all production, artistic or not, derivative or not derivative, is contemporary with the time it was produced in. I will later argue for a special sense in which the expression Contemporary, I believe, is apt. (3)

	The intuition that textual reflexivity was involved in this transition and transformation, I believe, is correct but was wrongly formulated. In this paper I would like to show where my previous arguments were wrong in this matter and how I would now reformulate the modus operandi of how this textual mechanism induces this distinctive change (between the Postmodern and the Contemporary). (4)

	Textual reflexivity is indicated in a text when and where it appears to be simulating an ‘awareness’ of itself as a text and/or simulating an ‘awareness’ that its readers or audience are currently ‘aware’ of that text. By text we include all intentional behaviour deposited upon the fabric of the world, but, more usually, a text of a type that sometimes has artistic pretensions, e.g., a novel, a film, a sculpture, a painting, etc. (5)

	Here are some of the examples of textual reflexivity noted in this essay titled: The Passing of the Modern Poet, And our asking ourselves, “Be Headed Where?” (6)

In The Simpsons we find the characters discussing violence in cartoons, telling us ‘the show still has 28 seconds to go so let us have another collective hug,’ or Bart telling Lisa that ‘she is not a cartoon character so she cannot be ugly’ when looking at a picture depicting Lisa, etc. This television series is full of such reflexivity. In another segment we see people (Koreans?) in a closed room at gun point drawing the cartoons for other episodes of this very same show, etc. [Can you think of some instances of this type of textual phenomenon (not necessarily in The Simpsons)?]. (7)

In a slightly earlier paper of mine, on the nature of postmodern culture, titled After Postmodernism - The Suspect Wanted For Questioning, (A Neo-Modernist Critique?) I argued for (at least) four distinctive characteristics in the manifestation of a postmodern aesthetic, namely:

1.	A relatively exaggerated sense of self-reflexivity on a textual level.

2.	Increased invocation of other genres overall and in passing.

3.	Increased use of non-relevant subtexts from a textual point of view.

4.	Exhibition of deconstructive tendencies from tensions in the text. (8)

	I went on to argue that an even more marked use of textual reflexivity induced a transition to, and the transformation of, the ‘Contemporary’ oriented type of text. (9)

	In a contemporary text this reflexivity is now no longer covert, and occasional, but more overt, and continual if not continuous. In other words dramatis personae, when present, are constructed in such a manner so as to directly engage the audience, in so much as, in effect, that appears to be possible, i.e., in virtual, or simulated, terms of reference (with a greater equality between all simulated frames of reference {since all frames of reference are ‘simulated’}). (10)

	In this paper titled After Postmodernism... I also mentioned the example of the then recent movie called Conspiracy Theory where the hero each time he uses violence apologizes, as if these acts of political incorrectness were being committed in front of the audience at that very moment in time and should be verbally atoned for through such an apology. The habit is catching as even the heroine ends up doing the same! (11)

	In contrast to the Postmodern I produced this (provisional, non-exclusive) set of four prominent characteristics of the so-called Contemporary text, namely:

1.	Direct engagement of the (virtual) audience by the dramatis personae, or their    
literary equivalent (to some extent or other).

2.	A sense of simulation qua simulation, with, more or less, an equivalence set up between these various worlds of simulation, or their literary equivalent.

3.	A very broad use of the vernacular along with a greater use of direct speech.

4. 	The overt representation of an existential sense of the present (hence my use of this expression Contemporary). (12)

	As two instances of the trend towards the Contemporary I noted two television series, namely, South Park and a satirical program about the Olympics produced by the ABC just prior to the Olympics in Sydney in the year 2000. (13)

After one episode in South Park where the chef of the school cafeteria is sued by a large record company for harassing them over his belief that they are using one of his songs that he wrote twenty years earlier, a second program discusses in a documentary-like style how this ‘fictitious’ cartoon character ‘actually’ came to assist various popular musical groups, helped to get their careers off the ground, etc. In this first cartoon show this chef character is successfully sued for two million dollars by this large record company. Coming to his rescue, in this second program, various leading figures in the pop world of music, such as Elton John, etc., tell us that they have planned to stage a concert entitled Chef Aid. After this first cartoon show, in a pseudo-documentary style, these ‘real’ characters discuss how this (unreal) cartoon ‘character’ helped them in the past. In all this displayed effort there is a sense of simulation for the sake of simulation, a sense of simulation where any form of simulation is as real as any other form, even though it stands to reason that not all forms of simulation are going to be equally fruitful for us (in our passage through this World-of-Life). All this kerfuffle over the predicament the chef finds himself in also masquerading  as a very, very lengthy advertising segment for a musical CD from the South Park series entitled “Chef Aid.” (14)

A Postmodern playing around with frames of reference is one thing, the acceptance of an equality between ontologically different frames of reference is quite something else! In the innovative ABC production just alluded to let me illustrate both of these characteristics, or orientations, which one should find as more prevalent in a contemporary text? (15)

In a series about ‘the behind the scenes in the staging of the year 2000 Olympics in Sydney’ we were presented with a very witty spoof or send up of a number of issues that arose in the real progress of those preparations. For a start the format is our watching what camera-persons are actually recording as these busy people go about their daily machinations. From time to time these dramatis personae can be seen actually talking to these camera-persons (necessitating the implicit presence of more camera-persons, no doubt), and on many other occasions these dramatis personae can be seen actually talking to us the audience. Their ‘performance’ is arranged in such a manner that appears to purport their actual ongoing awareness of us the audience even though from time to time, often in a ‘crisis’, they forget the camera is there. Here we have a number of frames of reference given more or less an equality with each other, along with an apparent direct engagement of the audience. No ‘asides’ here in a Shakespearean sense, rather, the full engagement with an audience, albeit a ‘virtual’ audience. (16)

	One only has to look at a Modern text like The Flintsones and compare it with The Simpsons or South Park to see or ‘feel’ the distance that has been travelled in the interim of one or two generations. (17)

	So the conclusion I arrived at was this: A greatly increased degree of textual reflexivity realizes a text that is closer to this sense of the Contemporary. More or less, an increased degree of reflexivity heads us towards the Postmodern, and, thence, an even greater degree of reflexivity then heads us towards the Contemporary and the active implication of an audience (virtual or real). Or so I reasoned…. (18)

But, there is a problem! Is this prominent degree of reflexivity (here, to date, treated, first, as a Postmodern phenomenon, and, then, as a Contemporary phenomenon) a relatively recent phenomenon or merely a recycling of textual techniques that have been around for quite some time? (19)
	
	I have recently read Don Quixote by the Spanish writer Cervantes, a text which was published in two parts, first in 1605 and then a sequel by the same author was published in 1615. In the interim, however, between 1605 and 1615 a sequel was published by the writer Avellaneda which annoyed Cervantes no end. He tells us, albeit indirectly in the text of his novel, of this annoyance that that ‘sequel’ got published, doing this in a number of sections in Part II. Let me describe two of these allusions to this unorthodox sequel. (20)

In Part II: LXII Don Quixote enters the premises of a book publisher. Here we get the book discussing the business of publishing a book. On the subject of translation we are told that translations are like a tapestry as if seen from behind. That only Greek and Latin should be translated. But we ‘know’ that the author of Don Quixote is a ‘translator’ and ‘editor’ of a text originally written in Arabic? So, if that is the case, then we are being told, more or less by implication, that this translation has most likely failed. Some failure! The text is talking about its own ‘failure’ by this bifurcation and potential ‘clash’ of a textual dimension that has Don Quixote entering the premises of a book publisher and another dimension where we are informed that translations can only be good ones, if properly conducted, from Greek or Latin, whereas we ‘know’ this ‘translation’ is from the Arabic. But we also know this text is not a translation! In essence, the author has presented a ‘vertical’ textual bifurcation between the textual dimension proper and our meta-textual appreciation of it as a text qua text and our meta-textual appreciation of this interaction, in this instance, as ‘false’, that the text that says “it is a translation” in reality is not a translation. In this segment of the text we even have Don Quixote reading this false sequel published by Avellaneda and being quite annoyed in his reading in it of what is purported to have happened according to that text (we are also currently reading). So we have, in effect, a fictitious character reading about himself and disagreeing with what he reads in that text that purports to be a ‘true’ history about himself. (21)

Further on in the orthodox Part II,  Don Quixote meets and gets a character, one Don Alvaro Tarfe, to agree that the ‘Don Quixote’ that he met in Saragossa is only the fictional character of a false Part II not written by the real ‘author’ Cervantes (in and through his translation from the ‘original’ Arabic). Since Don Quixote was going to Saragossa to the joust there like the bogus ‘Don Quixote’, to prove this point of his ‘reality’, the ‘real’ Don Quixote decides to go to Barcelona instead (Part II, LXXII). He even persuades this character to get a legal deposition drawn up to the effect that the ‘Don Quixote who went to Barcelona’ is the ‘real’ Don Quixote and not the ‘false’ ‘Don Quixote who went to Saragossa’, etc., (and who, he now believes, is currently resident in a mad-house in Toledo?) (22)

	Now, Cervantes is not alone in this tendency to produce a very reflexive text around this period in time. We have instances in the plays of Shakespeare. Then, again, we find the painter Velasquez, e.g., in his painting titled Las Meninas, painted in 1656, where we can actually see Velasquez himself painting a canvas that itself cannot be seen of their majesties, where we would be standing, whom we cannot see except by means of a mirror on a far wall, with a variety of spectators, etc. (23)

So, back to the drawing board! Therefore my thesis “that a Contemporary text is the result of recent shifts in the degree of intensity of textual reflexivity”, as it stands, must be wrong!? [How would you put into your own words what this thesis of mine was, and, how would you then argue that this thesis must be wrong as it stands?]. (24)

	If my intuition of an increased degree of reflexivity were to be correct how could it be seen to be responsible for making this transition to the Contemporary era? Hence let me ask “what is the real nature apparent in this transformation of textuality (that would re-establish this thesis in a revised form)?” Or, put more simply, does reflexivity have an active role to play in this transformation from the Modern to the Postmodern, and, thence, to the Contemporary? [Any suggestion as to how you might attempt this reconstruction of this thesis?]. (25)

II.    Is there a Role for Reflexivity in the Creation of a Contemporary Text ?

	In my recent essay titled “Reflexivity in Don Quixote”, I have found, I believe, a solution to this puzzle, namely, what exactly is the role played by textual reflexivity in the formation of a Contemporary oriented text? Let me briefly outline the steps I took there to reach a confirmation of my intuition in this regard that reflexivity does play this role in textual transformation (from the Modern to the Postmodern, and, thence, to the Contemporary). (26)

	As noted in an earlier essay increased reflexivity shifts the character of the text towards the meta-textual aspect of the textual spectrum.  I would like to argue that an even greater degree of reflexivity also moves us further on and closer to what I have referred to as the non-textual dimension in our experience of a text. Invoking my re-interpretation of the hermeneutic circle (of textual comprehension) I perceive the textual experience to involve three dialectical moments centred, respectively, on the phenomenological moment wherein the phenomenon of the text is approached, the hermeneutical moment of the meta-text (where we experience the genre and form of that text), and, the existential moment of the non-textual (where the text is read as an existential excess of value produced/re-produced through the interaction of these two previous moments) (these three moments being subject to an overall transcendental suspension in an appropriate ‘reading’ of that text). I describe this existential moment as non-textual in orientation by virtue of the fact that we seem to forget ‘we are reading that text’ when we realize and become (en)rapt(ured) with this surplus of existential value. (27)

However, in the arrival of a Contemporary text there is often a profound disturbance of this lived dimension of the text. The mono-dimensional integrity of this simulated sense of world found in our textual re-experience of a Contemporary text is, essentially, bifurcated, disrupted, and no longer presented/represented in an absolutely coherent overt manner! But let me trace my steps in the reaching of this ‘insight’. (28)

	Let me define reflexivity as that textual dimension in our experience that implicates the involvement of a sense of self – an agent that is aware of a text. Experience, being intentional in nature, must be of an intentional object(-state), which, through intentional iteration/re-iteration, must be of a ‘text’ through this process of intentional retention. Hence the phenomenologist must also be a hermeneut, i.e., an interpreter of a text through such iteration (in the current persistence of the thought)/re-iteration (in the re-presentation of the ‘text of that thought’ as it deposits itself upon the fabric of the world {be it on our brain matter as a recallable memory and/or in the form of an inscription, artefact and/or artwork, etc.}). Furthermore, because this reflexive act is intentional there is the necessary ambivalence built into this aspect of experience between the sense of self treated as a intentional subject (in the nominative) and as an intentional object(-state) (in the accusative) and any iteration, or reiteration, of the same must replicate this complexity. (29)

Reflexivity needs ‘space’ (and time) to become reflective within. But it is the nature of an artwork, e.g., to have that space already ‘represented’ there by virtue of its being there to be ‘seen’ as an artwork beyond the mere presentation of its material embodiment through which it announces itself as an artwork be that the pages of a book or the stone of a sculpture, etc. Moreover, this sense of artistic ‘space’ is enlarged when the genre or genres involved are themselves being focused upon as in the practice of literary satire, e.g. So, we should recognize the fact that reflexivity is already involved in the very recognition of an artwork as an ‘artwork’ plus what ever material instantiation is given to it in the process of its being presented as an ‘artwork’ because the recognition of such apparent intent necessitates the recognition of a complex involvement of agency on the part of both ourselves and the artist or author, etc. For example, a painting is both a painting and a concatenation of painted brushstrokes on the surface of a certain medium such as a canvass or a wooden panel, etc. From a certain distance, its transcendental distance, those brush strokes become a painting and cease to be just brush-strokes. (30)

	So this is my first point: reflexivity is already present in our seeing an artwork as an ‘artwork’ regardless of whether it is ‘seen’, ‘heard’ or ‘read’, etc. (31)

	My second point is this: this ever-present reflexivity must somehow be relatively suppressed in our reading of that artwork as an ‘artwork’. In our intentional concentration on seeing the ‘textual dimension’ of that ‘artwork’ we must not be too over-involved in this ‘space’ between its material presentation as a text and its textual representation in a lived dimension of the textual simulation as re-produced, but, at the same time, not over concentrating our overt attention on the latter despite the phenomenological fact that when we read the text we read the apparent intent of the text once the ‘text’ is seen. In looking at a painting, once it is seen as a ‘painting’, we have to force ourselves to see its brushstrokes and patches of colour as brushstrokes, etc. But, some balance must be inherent in the experience because the material basis for the painting qua painting, i.e., the painting qua paint, must be in play otherwise we would see no painting at all. In the same manner all representations and inputs of agency, and their reflexive awareness, should not be either over-emphasized nor under-emphasized. This stands to reason! When the fisherman goes fishing if they were to keep telling themselves “I am fishing… I am fishing… I am fishing…” I am sure the fish would just get away (since there is just too much difference in ‘space’ and ‘time’ between one’s actually being engrossed in the sheer ‘act of fishing’ and the mere reflexive act of ‘thinking about it’!)! Hence this deductive observation that, normally, reflexivity is relatively suppressed in the normal reception of an artwork. Now, how is this relative degree of a balanced suppression engineered? (32)

	That, essentially, this relative degree of suppression is arranged and realized through the ongoing imposition of a overall transcendental suspension. At no stage or aspect within the hermeneutic circle do we concentrate our attention on any one aspect or facet of the textual experience. By such means this relative degree of self-suppression is realized. (33)

	My next point is this: that the textual dimension of the text, its representation, is essentially simulated. This allows the author or artist of a textual simulation, the presentation of its representation, to re-configure its apparent constitution in the course of our reading/re-reading of that text without disturbing the effective stability of this relative suppression of reflexivity. So into this re-configuration various agents, including oneself, can lie, be deluded, have false beliefs, hallucinate or mis-interpret the world, etc. (34)

	This textual stability, despite partial re-configuration, of the simulated dimension of the text, despite dissimulation, re-simulation, parallel simulations, etc., is a desire or prejudice (or pre-judgment) of ours to maintain the semblance of but one world of reality (even if that currently apparent world is being simulated [even as a simulation qua simulation]). Hence this next point: that there is a tendency for the self-maintenance of the textual integrity of the simulation of the textual dimension (unless extra-textual forces are present that are capable of reflexively disrupting it)! (35)

	This aspect of textual stability is observed as a presuppositional necessity in the telling of a lie, the commission of an act of dissimulation. Most of the lie has to be truthfully presented and its only in a small point, the fulcrum of the deception, that the lie is put into effect. (36)
	What then creates an act of textual reflexivity set up by the author and read as such by the reader? Because reflexivity is essentially suppressed this process must be, effectively, a de-suppression of this otherwise ever-present desire to read the text as a textual representation of but ‘one world of reality’ even if covertly regarded as merely fictitious. If we continuously said to ourselves we are reading a text then, no doubt, we would soon not be reading a text but merely stating to ourselves that “we were reading” when in fact we would not be through this over-emphasis upon this reflexive element or aspect (and the complete disruption of the reading process through a loss of the overall transcendental suspension necessary for all processes of comprehension). Hence this next point: The ‘introduction’ of textual reflexivity must involve the relative de-suppression of our tendency otherwise to suppress the same! (37)

	In general, if that is possible, let us ask, how is this element of reflexivity re-introduced in a text? As a tentative answer let me propose this observation that it involves the presenting/re-presenting of a parallel textual dimension that then interacts with the initial textual dimension, when properly proportioned or controlled, with a sense of textual frisson being produced as a result. Hence my next point: that, essentially, the reassertion of a textual reflexivity is (re-)introduced through the bifurcation of the textual dimension and the resultant presentation of a duplicated (or multiple) presentation of textual representations. Let me discuss some examples of this introduction of textual reflexivity, e.g., in Don Quixote we have the following two instances (among many examples throughout the text that could be brought forth as equally interesting examples). (38)

First, after Don Quixote dictates his will, and dies, the text states in its last paragraph that those false histories are already tumbling to the ground. But isn’t Don Quixote, written by Cervantes, a false history too? Shouldn’t this book also ‘fall to the ground’? However, it is true that this ‘false’ sequel, as written by Avellaneda, only gets a second reprinting as late as 1732. (39)

	Second, in this same will ‘dictated’ by Don Quixote we are told that, in a very Christian manner, he, Don Quixote, forgives this author, Avellaneda, for his writing of this false sequel Part II (Part II: LXXIV). We must ask, how can a fictitious character forgive a non-fictitious author for some intentionally directed event enacted by the latter in which the former is suppose to have suffered? Then, again, somehow we can entertain fictitious characters and thence fictitious events as well! This brings me to the following important points. (40)

	That, in our simulation of a text we experience, as ‘lived’, the simulation of its textual dimension. Furthermore, in our desire to live in but ‘one’ world, see ‘one’ world, breath in ‘one’ world… we re-iterate this dimension as the ‘same’ world despite its re-configuration, mis-interpretation, dis-simulation either to ourselves (in a process of delusion, e.g.) and/or before others (as when someone lies to us, e.g.). Hence the mono-dimensional nature of this prejudice/pre-judgment to see the world-as-lived as but ‘one’-World-of-Life! (41)

	In and through the overall transcendental suspension there is this relative suppression of all facets of textuality. Reflexivity being re-engaged through this relative de-suppression of it. But then to appropriately re-engage with this re-engaged reading of the text means we have to again re-embrace this overall transcendental suspension. In this re-engaged overall transcendental suspension this mono-dimensional textual dimension is likewise, once more, re-engaged as but one world of simulated reality in the simulated reality of one world… Hence the relative stability of this natural tendency to read the text as simulating nothing more than one world, one World-of-Live! (42)

	Now, let us ask what happens when this element of reflexivity (or any other factor) is increasingly allowed to make an entrance in our reading of a text? At what point do these parallel readings actually induce a bifurcation in this very sense of one-world as lived? The reader, then, being forced to entertain parallel worlds that are relatively non-commensurable with each other. Ultimately, in a relatively ‘bad’ form of postmodern textual exercise, this excessive proliferation of the world through, the mutually destructive ‘interaction’ of these parallel textual-worlds we would, effectively, find them tearing each other apart (in an act of ultimate deconstruction). Or, in a milder form of a postmodern textual exercise, a relatively ‘good’ form of postmodernism, we might find that we can, somehow, live with this degree of conflict in and through some form of a textual accommodation however uncomfortable that type of experience might be (for one not use to this degree of textual discontinuity). Essentially, the increasing use of reflexivity is going to produce/re-produce a certain degree of dis-continuity without actually effectively disrupting this simulated world of the text-as-lived/re-lived. On the other hand, in a contemporary treatment of this simulated world of the text, to some degree, or other, these forces of disruption are going to establish the fact of parallel textual dimensions. I am going to argue that this has indeed happened and marks a characteristic difference with Modern and Postmodern textuality as a consequence of this re-increased degree of textual disruption and bifurcation. Let me examine some instances of this bifurcation of the textual domain. (43)

	On a more concrete level I would like to make a few observations on a recent film The Company. In the film there seems to be a succession of points of view. One moment we are looking through a window at a male figure - the lover of the woman looking at the guy. A moment later we are looking through the same window from the point of view of the guy looking at his girlfriend albeit ‘us’ through a process of self-identification? Seconds later ‘we’ might be wandering along a street. In the next sequence ‘we’ might be in a building looking at people coming and going from the room ‘we’ currently inhabit. Then, prior to the performance of a ballet, ‘we’ are one second looking at the prime, central box in the audience as if suspended in space somewhere between the audience and the stage. Then, ‘we’ are watching the ballet as if from this same vantage point of that box. During the performance ‘we’ might suddenly be suspended above the dances or next to them or in the wings watching the ballet from the side, or in the other wing watching the spot from where ‘we’ were watching a short period of time earlier, etc. This set of rapidly shifting points of view was noticed by myself as something that seemed unusual. To some degree it was disconcerting because some of these changes seemed to involve impossible actions on the behalf of the viewer (if ‘we’ were to be embodied at that point of space-time) or sudden re-identifications in our visual sense of self. But, in a spirit of voyeurism, ‘we’ allow ourselves to be fascinated and re-fascinated by these shifts in perspective that seem to contraindicate either the presence of an author, or director, or, the omnipresent presence of a divine-like being whose semblance of self is relatively pre-fixed and immutable. These constantly shifting points of perspective may not be a novel feature in film-making, but, I suspect, that the way they are currently being unleashed perhaps is? Or, at least the degree such transformations are being entered into? Under the pressure of set-up expectations it almost appears as if ‘we’, the audience, are virtually writing the script of this visual feast? In this same sense we have the ‘reality’ of reality television, e.g., in essence, a co-authored phenomenon (whether virtual and/or non-virtual in its expression as discussed elsewhere) when the audience decides who stays and who are expelled from the set. At the end of the movie and looking at the credits one realizes that certain important, central characters are being played by actors. Throughout the movie one is prompted to try to discern what is real and what is being simulated. E.g., in the segments of ballet being performed in front of an audience to what extent are the audiences acting as much as the performers on the stage. One is set up to believe that these performances are ‘actual’ performances in contrast to the ‘scripted’ parts of the movie between these ‘performances before a seemingly real public’. Now, I am not arguing here that these features are absolutely novel, rather, that their increased use is and realizes, as a result, a shift in how we see such a text. Or, perhaps we might say, that under the onslaught of a deconstructive reconstructing pressure that undermines previous genres of expectations there arises a point, realized chaotically, that shifts the text into a radically different perspective as to how it apparently should be viewed? That in this transition between the Postmodern and the Contemporary this mono-textual dimension is now no longer a mono-textual dimension but rather a poly-centred affair? The mono-dimensional plane of the text is now a disrupted non-continuous one, yet, in the spirit of the age we live with these discontinuities and somehow contrive a more inclusive sense of a hyper-textual plane that re-allows us to still see this polyvalent experience in one world, namely, the same Life-World as shared by the audience (since our experiences of this text can be re-counted and re-shared through processes of shared recollection). In some sense the world, in turn, is seen as a set of parallel texts that may or may not connect with each other yet still appear to inhere in the fabric of one world, indeed, weave the very interconnectiveness of that world through the frisson of the relative relation and non-relation of those strands to each other?! (44)

	In the previous examination we explored, amongst other things, bifurcations in the spatial dimension of the textual domain. In another movie, Proteus, we find twentieth century characters listening to and talking about eighteenth century characters. In the movie The Russian Arc we find an eighteenth century character wandering around the Winter Palace, in St. Petersburg, talking to a miscellany of characters in various time periods from those situated in the same period to himself right through to the present. In both of these movies we are witness to bifurcations of the temporal dimension in this simulated textual domain (which we naturally prefer to ‘read’ as ‘the’ world, as in ‘this’ world). No longer are we experiencing a pure and simple mono-dimensional textual dimension. Somehow or other we have become accepting of a practice that in my opinion is a characteristic feature of a Contemporary text. (45)

	Into this mix of happy and unhappy forms of discontinuity in the mono-textual dimension we find a distinctively different type of text although forms of genre and genre-hybrids may well have been presaged by the Postmodern era. One distinctive text, here, is that of reality television – an increasingly co-authored phenomenon as the audience is invited to participate in the (illusion of) writing/re-writing that type of text. [In what way is reality television re-writing how we perceive a (visual) text? How are our expectations being altered in this regard?]. (46)

	At this point let me make the following observation that relatively differentiate a Modern text from a Postmodern text, and the latter from the Contemporary text although no text can escape the phenomenal nature of what it means for a text to be a text… (47)

	In a Modernist text the simulational plane is disrupted but never bifurcated (?). The resultant resolution of that disruption is the existential excess that drives the intentional formation and reception of that text. The discontinuity between perspectives and/or characters in a text realizes this type of disruption along with changes between segments of text when viewed from a series of part-whole relationships within the perceived integrity of that text. So, a play would introduce disruption through forms of ethical conflict between characters and resolve the same to some degree or other on those same grounds, or, a poem might introduced dissonance through the clashing of sounds, rhythms, images and ideas and within that milieu seek an ongoing resolution, or, a novel would borrow from the repertoire shared by both the play and poem in order to extend itself, or, a painting, of a landscape, e.g., would engineer a sense of disruption through the elements of a perceived near and far, dark and light, contrasts in colour, a foreground/background, etc; the extreme disruption of a painting or any other text either causing the artist to seriously ‘fragment the canvas’ by some means in order to salvage the text as a series of texts or as a set of texts or through their having to scrap the ‘text’ of that ‘painting’ altogether. (48)
	In a Postmodernist text the simulational plane, again, is disrupted (through the importation of a more prominent meta-textual aspect) but never bifurcated(?). The resultant resolution of that disruption is the existential excess that drives the intentional formation and reception of that text. The discovery, introduction and exaggeration of a discontinuity between the textual and the meta-textual coming to the fore through the play of margins, titles, footnotes, definitions, allusions, asides, introduction, conclusions, other ironic relationships, tensions within and between genres, etc. If bifurcation was induced then I suspect there would be the formation of a set or series of new texts arising from the same through the death of that initial text (if not the unprepared for destruction of the same). (49)
	However, in a Contemporary text the bifurcation of the simulational plane is indeed engineered if not threatened or alluded to as a possibility in some form or other without fatally disrupting it as an intended work of art. In this type of text there is a definite de-centring of the simulational plane whether this ‘fact’ has the full intentional awareness or not of either its author/s and/or audience/s. Now, I am not stating absolutely that a Contemporary text must have some definitive form of a textual bifurcational process resident with its corpus, but, that the net result of a galaxy of Contemporary and Contemporary-like characteristics, complete with considerable elements preserved from a collective Pre-Modern, Modern and Postmodern heritage, will, in effect, produce and induce an effect more or less along those lines of a true de-centring of that text through its de-centring of its primary textual plane of simulation but conducted at the same time without the fatal destruction of that overall text (as a distinctive work of art, e.g.).  Through this pluralization of centres the text brings to the fore the sense of an active conglomeration of voices and thence, through their relativity, the semblance of an audience either virtual and/or actual in constitution. Not that a text is ever written without an audience, but, that in a Contemporary text this process is no longer a merely virtual element in both its formation and reception. Now, a good example of what often is a bad form of Contemporary text is so-called ‘reality television’. Its a ‘good example’ as it patently involves the invitation of an active audience participation in some form or other as an essential ingredient in the constitution of that type of text. On the other hand, merely pointing a camera at a group of people and hoping for the formation of a wonderful text, once the novelty and voyeristic value has worn off, is more often than not a recipe for the transcription of a boredom, ennui, and the banality of an inauthetically lived existence of ourselves-with-others. An artistically productive text in its richness of formation demands some form of provocation, manipulation and editing, etc., as inputs in the formation of an integrated, existentially dense text (regardless of its classification and philosophical-historical location in our hermeneutic understanding of the living world(s) of culture). So reality TV is a good example of a Contemporary text qua Contemporary text, but, usually a ‘poor’ example of a Contemporary text qua text for the reasons as just stated. The ‘integrated’ authorial intent of such a text is de-stabalized by virtue of its actual (and virtual) co-authored formation. The characters that get dropped from such a virtual ‘glass house’ or ‘human zoo’ are selected by some type of audience through their ongoing invitation and participation. We have had audience participation previously in the form of live sitcoms and the audience participation involved in live game shows (which I might add are the perfect vehicle for product placement, i.e., continual advertizing). We also have had ‘participation’ in chat shows where audience involvement is continually observed as the characters discuss their personal lives and problems, and their lack of resolution with respect to each other, all conducted in a context which is often set up to provocatively inflame those present in that actually present audience and by implication the audience passively watching it on television (whose true raison d’être is again a regularly intervening product placement). One might well consider such a (Postmodern) trend as Contemporary in orientation or at least heading in that direction. That, in this respect, a Contemporary text is reached when there is a degree of autonomy in this element of an audience participation and its relatively substantial co-authoring of the ‘final’ text (be it edited or not prior to or during its public transmission). Now, this semblance of ‘audience participation’ need not be actual but could be virtual through the simulation of a plurality of ‘voices’. Through the de-centring of a text there is then introduced, in and through this controlled bifurcation of the simulational plane, the virtual activation of an audience though the voicing of that plurality of simulated voices. An achievement that is orchestrated without the disruption of an overall, ‘final’ semblance of integrity in the production and reception of that text. Although the simulational plane is destabalized it is not fatally disrupted, despite the ongoing maintenance of that sense of bifurcation, when skilfully conducted by the main author, editor, interpreter, producer and/or director or any such combination of the former. Although the simulational plane is bifurcated in some form or other this fact is not allowed to disrupt the overall integrity of that text. How is that Contemporary feat achieved? Somehow the performance of the text engineers this ongoing disruption of the simulational plane without the overall disruption of that text. It makes a virtue of what otherwise would be a fatal defect. By processes of harmonization this destabalization is allowed to occur in the ‘co-authored’ formation of that text to that degree beyond which mechanisms of harmonization and resolution under pre-Contemporary conditions would no longer remain essentially effective. This novel element of dissonance is now revelled in but in such a framework that it is not allowed to disrupt, totally and fatally, the manufacture and reception of that text as ‘that’ text. We have crossed the line in the sand but a new line has been managed to be drawn that allows us to collectively renegotiate what does and what does not constitute this new sense of a textual integrity (which, in effect, transforms the mono-textual dimension into a hyper-textual dimension with its possession of a new, complex sense of a hyper-textual integrity wherein there is the acceptance of a parallel pluralism between relatively less commensurable voices or centres of power, etc.). Indeed, one might argue that as our passage through this World-of-Life is in the company of others this reality on the ground is better reflected through the auspices of a Contemporary text. It certainly is a form of textual democracy in its non-conservative disruption of the previous semblance of an absolute autonomy of authorial intent although a text is always performed with an audience in mind and could never escape some form of social involvement (with a virtual sense of an audience) through the controls and limitations of genre (and its implicit meta-textual inter-subjectivity of socially organized conventions). However, be that as it may, this relatively novel feature of an actual and/or virtual co-authoring of a text has been brought to the fore through this shift of emphasis from the control of the author (or a rather ‘classical’ form of co-authorship) to the involvement of an audience either de facto or de jure. The implication here is that the Contemporary audience ca no longer be expected to receive a text merely in a passive mode even if such a text were meant to shock, incite, seduce, inform, dissimulate itself in front of an audience there now seems to be an awareness of a right of reply either in the text itself or as a result of the emission of that text through a consequent literature (such as, e.g., through letters to the newspaper, critical reviews, emails to the author, audience comments, conducted and transmitted through a variety of media, etc?). (50)
	[Is my intuition correct here? Have we moved beyond the Postmodern to a Contemporary era?]. (51)

III.    Is There a Contemporary Sense of Text?

	There is fashion and there is fashion! Without a doubt some fashions are merely recycled from bits and pieces from the past. Their reassembly does not constitute something truly novel. On the other hand, sometimes the novel is instituted. Indeed, the ‘novel’ itself has been inaugurated though a succession of changes in genre that have continually re-defined it (from Roman times to the present). (52)

	So let me ask is there a sense in which the Contemporary seems to be displacing, replacing, superseding the sense of the Postmodern? [What other types of texts seem to be making an entrance?]. (53)

One argument in favour of a sense of the Contemporary is the perception of a change in how we experience/re-live the sense of the Contemporary? I would argue that the increased use of a very broad adoption of the vernacular and direct speech gives an immediacy not previously obtained in earlier, more genteel forms of textual expression. Furthermore, the multi-voicing of the text in may ways better reflects the reality on the ground so to speak. Then, this shift towards the existential moment and its sense of spontaneity, in the very immediacy of a ‘lived’ textual simulation, reinforces this sense of the contemporaneity… hence this designation of the Contemporary…. (54)

IV.    Conclusion: What Would Be Some of the Key Consequences of this Shift?

	What are the cultural consequences of this (covert and/or overt) practice of textual bifurcation that must re-engender the formation and reception of a change of culture, and, in turn, cause us to find this sea-change re-reflected back into the constitution of our Contemporary texts? (55)

	E.g., in the writing of a recent essay I have argued that a monolithic theology, e.g., is no longer accepted as tenable and that all ‘disciplines’ are presented with the same sort of situation. In the Postmodern era the successful critique of a fully coherent authorial intent has meant that in progressive circles such a concept is no longer acceptable (nor could be absolutely realized and imputed in real practice). What are the consequences for culture when a plurality of voices is considered to be the norm and, at the same time, a better approach in approaching the elusive nature of reality. That there can be no essence, no representation of reality only its ongoing re-presentations! (56)

	To fully appreciate this sea-change we need to better perceive just what has taken place – what has been gained and what has been lost. [What would be your comments on this observation?]. But, then again there is nothing absolutely new under the sun and even though a proponent of the Postmodern, or Modern, may wave to us (as if to say “good-bye”) (either directly in person or through their texts) nothing is really lost, only re-evaluated or overlooked, re-adopted and re-adapted to the situation to hand…. (57)

	Of course, there can be no ‘last wave’ of a Postmodernist, or of a Modernist, etc. The past is never absolutely lost, merely re-packaged and overlaid with new forms of appropriation, re-interpretation, etc. However, through incremental quantum shifts there comes the point, from time to time, when instances of a chaotic re-direction alter the course of culture and our appreciation of the same. It is at these points of relative discontinuity that we experience cutting edge texts as ‘cutting edge’ whether we, or that culture, are aware of that fact or not. On the other hand, our intuition is usually aware of that fact and notes this shift in cultural expression with a greater keenness of attention. Our acceptance of these shifts only occurring when the pre-conditions for their acceptance are finally put in place. These micro-acts of appropriation re-constituting the course of culture and constituting new senses of identity within its midst. Investigation of these processes of cultural change necessitating much philosophical reflection and careful research… [something that we note, but, unfortunately, is beyond the limits of this paper….] (58)

	Thus, with these thoughts, I shall take leave knowing that this topic of reflexivity and its role in the causation of cultural change is one that will need re-visiting…. (59)

							           Noël Tointon, Sydney, 8.8.04.
Postscript

Paragraphs 30-38, or thereabouts, are in need of some clarification. When we see a painting, e.g., we see the paint, brushstrokes, colours, shapes, etc. In an instant we then see the painting. We now no longer see the mere text, its concatenation of brushstrokes, flecks of colours, etc. Seeing this ‘text’ is suppressed in favour of seeing the painting. But, we cannot be looking at the mere picture of the painting. We must, still, also be seeing the paint, etc., since that is the material cause that allows us to see that picture in the first place. At the same time “I know I am seeing a picture” in the painting but if I were merely just “knowing I was seeing a picture” I, surely, would not be seeing that picture whilst currently obsessed with such reflexive thoughts. In other words, seeing the paint, seeing the picture and my knowing I am seeing a picture are all relatively suppressed but not absolutely suppressed in intentional consciousness! Effectively, there must be some degree of balance between the same and that is none other than the exercise an (overall) transcendental suspension. Now, it stands to reason that to re-introduce an emphasis on any one of these feature is to do so at the relative expense of the other two parties (in this hermeneutic circle of comprehension between painted parts, pictorial totalities and a sense of ego involvement as the perceiver of the picture) (assuming the same or similar level of conscious involvement in this process of enjoying the representational vista of that painting is being engaged). Hence it follows that if I am to re-introduce a greater emphasis upon the reflexive component of this process of engagement this must call for a de-suppression of this relative suppression of our sense of ego-involvement already present in our reception of that picture. This situation also applying ipso facto to all other forms of intentionally directed appreciation in whatever genre or set of genres under consideration in our passage through this World-of-Life. So, the increase of a reflexive component in this equation must result in a de-suppression of our hitherto transcendentally balanced sense of a suspension in whatever sense of self is being produced or re-produced in that process of engagement. Consequently, our engagement with that textual situation is in danger of being fatally disrupted through this apparent loss of transcendental balance. The degree of reflexivity is a rough barometer of this passage from the Modern to the Postmodern and thence the Contemporary. I would also argue that there is an increasing emphasis upon the meta-textual aspects of that text in a Postmodern environment, and, that when this emphasis shifts to the aspects of the non-textual we then enter a Contemporary type of textual treatment of the text – some prominent features of this transition being sketched out in this essay. The Contemporary transition and transformation producing/re-producing a non-fatally disrupted text with an increasing sense of an audience along with a pluralization of a dialogical-like de-centring. This apparent sense of an increasing ‘textual democracy’ in turn needing and finding its own appropriate degree of harmonization in this non-mono-textual dimension, in this dimension of the hyper-real. In this there is no death of the author, no death of philosophy, no death of history or culture, etc. Indeed, we are presented with a new era namely, the Contemporary - a complex vision of the world that perhaps better reflects its simulated semblance as a woven fabric… where we find ourselves thrown into a world-as-lived-with-other with a calling forth for a resurrection of all the skills that Contemporary existence calls for from a service to others to our leadership before others… from re-establishing the integrity of our personal identity to a re-constituting the non-material, spiritual values of culture as a surplus of authentically re-constituted values along with our setting out to share this harvest in our open, reciprocal communion with others…. (60) 	N., 8.8.04.

P.P.S:  I was interested to read in the Sydney Morning Herald, 23.8.04, an article titled A quick mod takes gamers beyond their doom. This story concerned the fact that lots of game players end up adding their own code to a game, a term called modding. In this they add a module that can be set up as a down-load for others (like, for example, sticky taping a lantern or torch to the end of a gun barrel). In this way the players of these virtual reality games can also be seen as co-producers of text. This trend for a co-authoring of texts, in my opinion, being an indication that we have entered the Age of the Contemporary (along with the seismic implications this has for, among other things, copyright, the nature of consumerism and an inevitable, irreversible pluralization of political de-centring?) (a trend that might also be reversing the hitherto unstoppable direction towards the Right that has been happening for the last thirty years; a phenomenon that has occurred probably as a result of a general, overall improvement in the standard of life, and the wider availability of lifestyle-options, etc?)? N.