L.A. Harvey

Thought I'd share this one with you guys, I know the article is older now, oh well:

In this article the author is discussing postmodernism as a compression of space-time, a phenomenon which results in a defeat of ethics to aesthetics and a fracturing of morality from scientific endeavour. This space time compression arises out of a modernity steeped in pressures of circulation and accumulation.
The effects of such compression, according to Harvey, have led to a desire for resolution most pronounced by the preference for and production of aesthetic movements over movements concerned with ethical issues. Some examples of this tendency are given: politicians remaining unsullied by their inhumane and hypocritical deeds due to falsified and orchestrated wholesome (popularized) images; urban centers reflecting the wealth of illusory structures, services and transactions rather than the production of materially palpable industries; and the rise of a wealthy new culture fixated upon image-centered consumption and symbolic capital.
Yet as much as this article is about the signs of postmodernism, it is also about its dissolution. Harvey describes a fracturing of this centerless, spaceless way of seeing through such examples as Jesse Jackson’s political seriousness and moral concern despite an image-centered campaign, and Lyotard’s philosophical appeal to a universal concept of justice.

One of the most powerful experiences I had in L.A. involved visiting a John Lautner home, the Goldstein residence. This place was insane: glass bridges, retractable glass walls, open vistas with no railings, a JAMES TURRELL SKYSPACE in the back yard, leather clad sunken beds, and pictures of countless megastars with Goldstein(including a rather graphic shot of Pamela Anderson in the pool). Somehow my experience there might be akin to Harvey’s space-time compression, where reason and order collide with the power of the image and lose themselves. The skyspace is a good example of how the culture of aesthetics and an artistic pursuit of meaning have become part of the same world. Maybe the fact that Turrell’s pieces can exist within this seemingly vacuous landscape is evidence of a continuous return to definitive perspectives.