From Albini to the Beat

The avant-garde and overcoming stereotypes

Abstract

The title of this essay may seem provocative, but it could also be a summary for many of my generations, where the fluidity of our current times has challenged traditional art criticism and 20th-century historiography itself. The influx of experiences and documents dematerialised by computer media, by the impulses that have replaced mechanical friction, have made it almost futile or rather dramatically challenging to recognise ourselves within the cultural categories of us children of the previous century. The rushing flow of information has not only destroyed notions, but has also upset the most advanced theories of pure semiotics and the standardisation of information formulated by the accredited theorists of mass communication.