ILLU5060 - Post Modernism & Post Internet

Post Modernism & Post Internet Lecture Notes

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Post Modernism – “A cultural blender” Historical & contemporary influences affecting how we operate. Challenging to define exactly.

“Postmodernism remains a difficult, slippery and for some, infuriating topic … it is now so well established as a way of thinking about our time and our “condition” that it simply cannot be ignored” – Rick Poyner, No More Rules

Postmodernism

• Roughly dates from 1980s
• Describes the time we’re living through
• Seductive & fashionable term
• Disputed & elusive – lack of consensus on its meaning or application. Pseudo-intellectual bait.

Post-modernism

• After modernism – modernism has past
• Anti modernism – counter view
• Hyper modernism – modernism accelerated

Modernism

• ~ 100 years – 19th century to late 1970s
• Sustained period of innovation in the arts – linked to changes in industrial practices, science, and media.
• Context: overarching political & power constructs (socialism, communism, fascism, capitalism etc.)

Modernism’s key themes

• Rationalism – science overtaking religion
• Technological determinism – technology affects culture
• Belief in grand narratives
• Foregrounding of high culture

Modernism as determinism – how science and technological innovation affect the production of cultural texts. The camera (Lumiere brothers 1895) changed how artists may produce their work (for example how moving horses’ legs were depicted)
Scientific & academic progress affects cultural development – new ideas & ways of thinking to approach the world.
Modernism as meta narrative: A story of the arts in the 20th century (as told by key cultural figures) – which has a clear sense of hierarchy and order.
Postmodernism
“The Modernist laboratory is now vacant. It has become a period room in a museum, a historical space that we enter, look at, but can no longer be part of” – Robert Hughes, The Shock Of The New (1980)
After Modernism context

• From the 1980s – globalisation increases (hybridity, non-traditional communities, post-Fordian economics).
• Post Internet culture – the rise in new media.
• No more grand or meta narrative.
• Historical fragmentation & disruption of order.

“I define the post-modern as incredulity towards meta narratives” – The Post-Modern condition …

• Grand narratives replaced by localised or individual “micro-narratives”.
• Technology: allows for experimentation with identity & personal narrative. – Cherry-pick your data, lie: tell “your truth”. Everything is rhetoric & not even recorded fact can dispute.
• Contested testimony: post-Truth perspectives – “my truth”.

Social media & internet forums: intense personal narratives.
Post-truth culture

• Distrust in fact/ expert opinion
• Truth is relative, contested, not absolute
• Replaced by “authenticity”

Anti-modernism
“Reason (modernism) has been shaped by a dishonest pursuit of certainty” – Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Post-Modern Condition

• A complex reaction to the failures of modernism.
• Anti-foundationalism – rejection of rationalism, truths, certainties, doctrines, and unstable belief systems – there is no universal truth or philosophy.
• A questioning of the “ideological bias” of all history & knowledge.
• Scepticism towards the grand political schemes of modernism.

Anti-modernism examples

• Contradictory attitudes to modern media – declining trust in the media.
• Feminist anti “Patriarchal” perspectives.
• No more rules – subversion of modernist ideals.

Modernist design is a rational approach with rules & conventions whereas post-modernist design is experimental & free from constraints.
Post-modernist example: David Carson’s RayGun 1990s magazine
Hyper Modernism
“In an amazing acceleration… postmodernism is not modernism at its end but in its nascent state, and this state is constant.” – Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Post-Modern condition (1979)

• Modernism is an incomplete project?
• Cyclical: in tandem with post-modernity.
• Technological acceleration.
• Cyberculture & ideological new.
• Post internet acceleration of cultural hybridity.

Visual culture: Post Modern features

• Merging of high & low cultural forms
• Mutation in public space
• The unstable image
• Society of the spectacle

High Vs. Low Culture

High culture

• Has depth
• High value
• Spiritual
• Elitist
• Long lasting
• Serious
• Unique
• Politically motivated

Low Culture

• Is shallow
• Low value
• Commercial
• Popular
• Transient
• Gimmicky
• Mass produced
• Politically influenced

Mutations of public space
Urban or fantasy architectural spaces – sampling of different period styles, reflecting:

• Global/ cultural hybridity
• Hyper-reality
• Nostalgia culture

Shopping centers/ malls
Theme parks
The hyper-real... the boundaries between the real and the simulated implode” – Jean Baudrillard
The unstable image

• The hyper-real
• The order of the simulacra
• Bricolage, Parody & Pastiche
• Intertextuality & Double-coding
• Hybrid genres & use of irony

Semiotic overload – Difficult to identify the providence of an image.
The hyper-real – Proliferation of image signs that we can only read their representation & not their meaning.
We can no longer trust image as true representations of reality or trhe context in which they were created.
The degradation of the image.
The Hyper-real

• The presentation of images without reality or meaning.
• The real is produced – the hyper-real is reproduced.

Reality television a reality retouched & edited to create a hyper real product.
Order of the simulacra
The representational image sign goes through 4 key stages

• Stage 1. It is a reflection of a basic reality.
• Stage 2. it masks & perverts a basic reality.
• Stage 3. It marks the absence of a basic reality.
• Stage 4. It bears no relation to any reality whatsoever.

Bricolage – sampling of ideas from the past (design, pop music, imagery, aesthetic) to create something new.
Parody: Original text [author & referent] – Parody [loaded simulation].
Pastiche: Images presented without reality or meaning [Blank simulation].
Intertextuality & Double coding
Hybridity & Irony
The Society of the spectacle

• Mediation: life lived on & through a screen.
• Complexity (& simulation) is the new reality (more information but less meaning). “T.V. taught me how to feel, now real life has no appeal” – Marina & The Diamonds, Oh No!
• Multi-modal narratives.

The Gulf War did not take place: “The outcome had been devoured by the retro virus of history. And now that it is over, one can finally take account of its non-occurrence” – Jean Baudrillard (1991)
Last-Thursdayism
Post-modernism conclusion

• A contested term
• Post = after/ anti// hyper modernism
• Visual culture – features & terminology

Some alternatives

• Post-structuralism
• Post-internet
• Post-truth

Post-Modernism Glossary Of Key Terms

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• Anti-Modernism – The idea that postmodernism is a direct counter-response to modernism.
• Bricolage – A work constructed from a diverse range of things. Curated samples reformed into a new work.
• Coding – Intentionally designing a work to have a specific meaning/ association.
• Double-Coding – Designing a work to have multiple meanings/ associations.
• Hyper-Modernism – The concept that postmodernism is merely an accelerated continuation of Modernism rather than a distinctly different concept.
• Modernism – A movement of culture & thought that reflects the contemporary technological advances, philosophical changes, & globalist narratives affecting everyday life brought forth in the in the late 19th century stretching onwards to the late 20th century.
• Parody – A work that emulates another work with the intent to mock/ disparage the original work it emulates.
• Pastiche – A work that emulates another work with the intent to celebrate the original work it emulates.
• Postmodernism, Post-Modernism – An Era of historically informed culture, and thought succeeding Modernism.

Written Extract Notes – What Are You Looking At, (Chapter 19: "Postmodernism: False Identity 1970-89") By Will Gompertz

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What Are You Looking At, Chapter 19: "Postmodernism: False Identity 1970-89

​“The great thing about postmodernism is that it can be pretty much anything you want it to be. But then, the really annoying thing about Postmodernism is that it can be pretty much anything you want it to be. Which is the freewheeling paradox at the heart of this movement…”
​
Postmodernism is defined as a movement after modernism; Post – After. So, Postmodernism is a movement intrinsically linked with what came before.
Postmodernism is a critical reaction to what came before.

French philosopher Jean-François described postmodernism as “incredulity towards grand-narratives” which counters the modernist idea that humanity has a single, shared, global destiny & therefore humanity should address themselves on a global scale rather than divided cultures. This description elucidates the globalist vs. localist dichotomy separating postmodernist & modernist perspective.

The opposition to grand narratives, viewing past instances of them as failures (Communism & Capitalism being the chosen examples), influences the postmodernist tendency to curate & appropriate the successes of history within its designs. An example of this idea is the AT&T building in New York City, which accents contemporary design conventions with design characteristics from historical art movements. An Art Deco style top & a renascence inspired front entrance. A trope-example that shows this concept is museum architecture, featuring roman columns alongside contemporary design features.

AT&T Building, New York City

AT&T Building Entrance, New York City

​Postmodernism is self-aware & its designs may feature irony & derisiveness towards itself & other art & design movements.

Since postmodernism derives itself from historical influences & rejects one singular truth or narrative, any and all influences are valid, therefore any and all pieces of postmodern art & design have merit &, consequently, may have an infinite number of interpretations & associated commentaries.
Perception is reality, and everyone’s perception is different.

As postmodernism is reactionary to what came before, it has an excellent position to observe tropes of previous movements, and can therefore reproduce those elements with commentary.

The deeper meanings & context behind some postmodern works will be utterly lost on viewers who do no possess an awareness of historical works that may be referenced/ parodied within. Therefore, postmodern works benefit from an informed audience. Having the knowledge to understand a postmodern work’s influence enhances the viewer’s experience, but a total lack of knowledge does not entirely undermine the effect of postmodern works.

Postmodernism often takes a cynical view on the world, counter to modernism’s hopeful optimism. Postmodernism views the failures of history and projects the trend onto the future.

Postmodernism, overall, seems to be a justified, if whiny, negative view of the world. Postmodernism uses irony & parody to mock & reject ideals, beliefs, & conviction. Which is a perfectly valid position to hold, but does nothing to actively improve or change the world directly. Postmodernism celebrates the successes of the past, and appropriates those successes back into the contemporary paradigm. These successes emphasise that there are solutions, perhaps not one universal solution to everything, for problems within the world, and that we can change for the better as past examples show.
This illustrates the accuracy of this excerpt’s opening statement…
“The great thing about postmodernism is that it can be pretty much anything you want it to be. But then, the really annoying thing about Postmodernism is that it can be pretty much anything you want it to be. Which is the freewheeling paradox at the heart of this movement…”