Prof. Wayne C Hudson (Art Forum)

Abstract

Global culture is changing in ways no one expected. Along with the crisis of transhumanism and a triangulation of art, science and technology, postsecularism has emerged as a major challenge to nineteenth century notions of secularisation. Postsecularism can be defined as Enlightenment which takes account of the relevance of human spiritual performances to both private and public life. It is much more than a debate in political philosophy which has now largely been won (Habermas). Postsecularism involves a nonmundane philosophy of nature (Schelling), a new conception of plasticity (Hegel via Malabou) and a reassertion of spiritual ecology in institutional and personal design. For postsecularism spirituality is about the formation of the Real. Here recent developments in Islamic and Chinese art are pertinent, as is the massive revival of monasticism in Russia. In the twentieth century artists largely accepted secular assumptions, even if some of them dabbled in esoteric or religious ideas. In the twenty first century a new aesthetics is needed based on a different understanding of human creativity, ecology and the universe.