A useful acronym: B and H PAIN PIPES

Bricolage & Hyperreality


Playfulness Aesthetic Irony Nihilism


Parody Intertextual Pastiche Eclectic Self referential

As with the previous post link these useful words to the different texts you have studied this year.

Postmodernism: a definition

Label given to Cultural forms since the 1960s that display the following qualities:

Self reflexivity: this involves the seemingly paradoxical combination of self-consciousness and some sort of historical grounding

Irony: Post modernism uses irony as a primary mode of expression, but it also abuses, installs, and subverts conventions and usually negotiates contradictions through irony

Boundaries: Post modernism challenges the boundaries between genres, art forms, theory and art, high art and the mass media

Constructs: Post modernism is actively involved in examining the constructs society creates including, but not exclusively, the following:

• Nation: Post modernism examines the construction of nations/nationality and questions such constructions
• Gender: Post modernism reassesses gender, the construction of gender, and the role of gender in cultural formations
• Race: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of race
• Sexuality: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of sexuality

We're Still Not Past Postmodernism

An interesting article written by Robert W. Butler (The Kansas City Star 2003)

Postmodern media revision

Postmodern Media

What are the different versions of post-modernism (historical period, style, theoretical approach)?

What are the arguments for and against understanding some forms of media as post-modern?

How do post-modern media texts challenge traditional text-reader relations and the concept of representation?

In what ways do media audiences and industries operate differently in a post-modern world?

Modernism and Postmodernism: clarification of terms

Both are artistic movements in culture, new ways of viewing culture; modernism is characterized by the shift from agricultural to industrial society. Modernist view of culture: was rooted in the idea that "traditional" forms of art, literature, social organization and daily life had become outdated, and that it was therefore essential to sweep them aside and reinvent culture. Modernism encouraged the idea of re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was "holding back" progress, and replacing it with new, and therefore better, ways of reaching the same end. In essence, the Modern Movement argued that the new realities of the 20th century were permanent and imminent, and that people should adapt their world view to accept that what was new was also good and beautiful.

Postmodernism is cultural movement that came after modernism, also it follows our shift from being a industrial society to that of an information society, through globalization of capital. Markers of the postmodern culture include opposing hierarchy, diversifying and recycling culture, questioning scientific reasoning, and embracing paradox. Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding modernism. In music for example, “pomo” music contains characteristics of postmodern art-- eclecticism in musical form and musical genre, and often combines characteristics from different genres, or employs jump-cut sectionalization (such as blocks). For example, a Gwen Stefani song which references musical “Fiddler On the Roof” or a hip hop song that samples an older song is considered Postmodern. In the horror movie Scream, when the characters reference other horror movies, it is postmodern. “Pomo” tends to be self-referential and ironic

Postmodern style is often characterized by eclecticism, digression, collage, pastiche, and irony. Postmodern theorists see postmodern art as a conflation or reversal of well-established modernist systems, such as the roles of artist versus audience, seriousness versus play, or high culture versus kitsch.

LINK

Postmodern media revision task (13C/13A )

Choose a text you have studied this year and make a revision guide.

Texts include:

• Fight Club


• Pulp Fiction


• Memento


• 24 Hour Party People


• Inglourious Basterds


• Flight Of The Conchords


• memes


• Stockhausen


• Timbaland


• Girl Talk


• David Bowie


• Music videos
  
  

Include a description of the text, explain it in postmodern terms. Offer examples frrom the text that are relevant and detailed. Include pictures or diagrams. Refer to the appropriate theory to reinforce your points. Post on your blog using a Scribd embed. I will compile the work and disseminate next week.

Grindhouse trailer

Planet Terror trailer

Death Proof trailer

Sexy Beast (trailer) directed by Jonathan Glazer

Wrangler 'Ride' advert directed by Jonathan Glazer

Levis 'Odyssey' advert directed by Jonathan Glazer

UNKLE-Rabbit In Your Headlights directed by Jonathan Glazer

Justice-Stress directed by Romain Gavras

Jus†ice, Stress from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Suicide-Ghost Rider

The main sample from the M.I.A. track is taken from this 1977 classic by American duo Suicide.

G325 January 2010

Postmodern Media

Explain why the idea of ‘postmodern media’ might be considered controversial. [50]

Postmodern Theory-Michael Real

Michael Real (1996) outlines some of the basic qualities of postmodernism:

Pastiche — combining together different styles and content from different periods within the same text, creating unusual combinations of borrowed styles from different eras. Music videos use a montage of images taken from classic films, advertising, television, or rap, and filmed with unusual, non-traditional techniques.

Breakdowns of master narratives featuring the final triumph of good over evil through science or human problem-solving, as well as a clear distinction between reality and fiction. This is evident in much of contemporary fiction by DeLillo, Carver, and Atwood, as well as films: Blue Velvet, Pulp Fiction, Mulholland Drive, Run Lola Run, and Memento, and the television series, Twin Peaks. The texts continually elude definitive interpretation of “true meanings,” by parodying and playing with alternative narrative development and assumptions about the meaning of images. The seemingly tranquil town in Blue Velvet is anything but tranquil. Pulp Fiction plays with three different versions of a crime story as borrowed from detective novels and B-crime films. Mulholland Drive, Run Lola Run, and Memento create alternative narratives around the same events, challenging audience assumptions about “what really happened.” Mulholland Drive portrays one version of events based on the traditional story of the innocent female who arrives in Hollywood to become a successful movie star, only to juxtapose that story against a darker version of the same events. Run Lola Run portrays three different versions of the same event. And Memento shows events occurring in reverse, dealing with issues of memory and time. Challenging traditional narratives or ways of knowing conveys the important role of the media in shaping perceptions of reality — that experience as mediated through media images and discourses.

The ways in communication technology creates mass reproduction of texts, creating copies for which there is no original, what Baudrillard (1983) described as a “hyperreality” based on simulation of reality. Much of contemporary art plays with the idea of endless copies or parodying of texts that only create a simulation of reality that focuses on the image or surface of reality. The sculpture, Jeff Koons, creates glossy statues of pop stars such as Michael Jackson, that parody the constant reproduction of pop star images.

The domination of conspicuous consumerism in which everything is commodified or commercialized; to some degree, postmodernism both celebrates and parodies consumer products, as evident in Target ads portraying multiple images of consumer products.

The fragmentation of sensibility and the plurality or multiplicity of perspectives evident in the often random juxtaposition of images in music videos or contemporary art. Films such as Pulp Fiction parodies different versions of reality by using a lot of references to images from previous films, including the image of John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever. This fragmentation and focus on surface images creates self-reflexivity — the need to reflect on the lack of coherent meaning, as well as an ironic humor.

Mulholland Drive trailer

Run Lola Run trailer

Jeff Koons

Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988. Ceramic. 42 x 70 1/2 x 32 1/2 in. (106.7 x 179.1 x 82.5 cm).

Jeff Koons (born January 21, 1955) is an American artist known for his giant reproductions of banal objects such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces, often brightly colored. Koons' work has sold for substantial sums including at least one world record auction price for a work by a living artist. Critics are sharply divided in their views of Koons. Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch: crass and based on cynical self-merchandising. Koons himself has stated that there are no hidden meanings in his works.