Contemporary, what I think about it, what I understood about it, what I think after reading the article, all shall be answered here. From reading “que es lo contemporaneo” by Giorgio Agamben, we shall get a look at how he views contemporary, to help us understand a bit more of what it is.
At first, I saw the contemporary as a more of a futuristic look, a style used to mix the era with a touch of visionary or ultramodern, using white and black colors, showcasing more spaces than things, and lines very strong and visible. But this is my view of it in architecture, I needed to search for the meaning as a whole, asking myself before reading what is contemporary, a little lost I searched for it, in the web it said, “living or occurring at the same time”, at first I saw it and thought about it maybe being for each person their era, the surroundings of that era, what happened or is happening depending the person, always belonging to his time.
Reading the article by Giorgio, I was lost in the first time I read it, my first thoughts of it where probably not the best, when he said the questions, about what makes u contemporary and who’s contemporary, I thought of “new” people, those who are part of their era, for them it’s the latest era, that why I think of them as “new”, a easy example is now, as people of this generation almost all use and make tik toks, a app that appear recently and rose to fame quickly. But I kept reading and it seemed so different, at one point the contrary, referring to them as people who aren’t in their time, “intempestivo”, which refers to something out or occurring at the inadequate time. But there an instance where he talks about a Friedrich Nietzsche, this philosopher sees contemporary more on what I thought, he talks about the past, and on how it lashes on us, but he says the present is contemporary, but the contemporary is as well he or she who doesn’t lash or perfectly coincide and adapt to it.
This was very educational for me, as I got to see the meaning of contemporary from philosophers, not just in architecture but as in general, specially about humans being contemporary, from contemporary being new, a person’s era, to being “intempestivo”, being about focusing on the present but not adapting towards it. In conclusion, my definition of contemporary did change, now I see contemporary as still being about a person’s era, but more than that, to be in the present, understanding it makes u contemporary, coinciding with it will only make u blind towards it, not seeing it completely.
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