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Modernity

Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that form a specific condition of cultural existence that arose in the processes of transitioning from “traditional” communities to modern societies. Often associated with rationality, modernity incorporates a wide scope of historical processes and cultural phenomena, from art to food production to warfare, and can also refer to the existential experience of the conditions they produce, and their ongoing impact on culture, work, institutions and politics. It also encompasses the social relations associated with the life under capitalism, and the shifts in attitudes associated with secularisation and post-industrial life. In social sciences, modernity is also understood as a historical period and the development of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose out of the Renaissance and also the 18th century "Enlightenment". In art, it is closely linked to aesthetic modernism and developments such as existentialism. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, modern art became dominant movement in Western Europe and North America. The movement broadly desired for the creation of new forms of art in reflection of the newly emerging industrial world. A particular characteristic of modernism is a self-consciousness of artistic and social traditions, along with experimentation and the use of techniques that rationalise the processes and materials used in the making of artworks. The attempt to explain the relationship between geo-cultural differences presents a foundational challenge to understand the condition of modernity. The belief in its supposed universality has been criticised by postmodernism, while the dominance and export of modernism from Western Europe and America over other continents has been criticised by postcolonial theory.

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