‘Contemporary’, the word

These days, you can pass a building-site sign advertising new ‘modern contemporary apartments’ before turning the corner to see a new art gallery calling itself Contemporary and then sitting at a café beside someone reading an interiors magazine offering ‘the latest in contemporary chic’. This isn’t just rhetorical overstatement. This actually happens. I was there. I was that building site.

We live in ‘contemporary’ times. Arguably, all times are ‘contemporary’, in that when they are happening, that’s when they are happening. But that is to overlook precisely how ‘contemporary’ these particular times are.

The message is plain: Leave the past behind. It was probably horrible anyway. And if it wasn’t horrible, well, it’s gone – which is slightly sad, so what’s the point in dwelling? Britain is booming. Why would we want to recall times when Britain wasn’t booming? We are young, wild and free. The cranes on the skylines are testament to this revival: how towns throughout Britain are developing ‘contemporary new quarters’ full of ‘contemporary flats’ or ‘contemporary refurbs’. Just feel the nowiness of now. Get it while you can. It won’t last for ever.

What ‘contemporary’ means here is a slightly chilling continual present with places to eat called ‘eat’ and lots of white paint and glass. Of course, being ‘contemporary’ is actually rather temporary. ‘Now’ always has this awful habit of becoming ‘then’. And what happens then? Once you are no longer hip, hot and happening – 24, say – and start entering old age, you have essentially reached the end of your usefulness and you might well find your support systems closed down – yes, just like Microsoft have been threatening to do for the millions still using Windows 98.
1998? That’s so last century!