Elective Reflective Writing Cha. 7: Postmodernism and Popular Culture

Chapter 7

When engaged in conversation or debate about contemporary culture, in regard to art, I have discovered an advert annoyance or avoid by my peers and colleagues with the use of the words postmodern or postmodernism. Generally speaking, this presents a few reoccurring transparencies about our language and use of it, while these words may be considered too ambiguous and not well enough understood to be put into a personal context (especially to those outside of an art institution or submerged art culture), I am forced to question how well myself and my peers, and even some of my professors proclaim to understand these words. Undoubtedly, the word “postmodern” can be put into several different contexts and therefore can be easily misunderstood. However, when put into reference with cultural theory, definitions can be found (and many of them), and vast array of examples and metaphors can be made.

I am interested in this chapter because I hope to be able to present coherent arguments and teaching tools to anyone who is interested, and if I am to be an artist, of any sort, in the 21st century, I have a self-required responsibility to society, and in that, I must assert myself as someone who is sensitive to changes in culture, and has an understanding of our culture’s recent past.

This can be productive in the sense that the conversation may presume philosophical inquiry to ideas or value, order, identity, and meaning itself, in relationship to culture, but the use of the word “postmodern”, has proved to be frustrating and confusing for those outside of the current institutional understanding of what the word means.

Here are some of the things that I have learned, or have now been able to better describe:

Postmodernism does not start at any exact point in time, but rather intersects with and permeates late modernity, and since modernism and postmodernism are not concepts that are strictly period specific, there are aspects of both that can co-exist, and oppose each other.

The term “postmodernity” “refers to the experience of living in a postmodern culture”… and there are certain aspects that can be detached from modernity, one being that while modernism was characterized by a sense of knowing, that was positive and forward-looking, and “believing that one could know what was true and real as well as what was best in a given society,” postmodernism is characterized by questioning these sort of beliefs or “master narratives” (or metanarratives) of society. As said by Sturken and Cartwright, “postmodernism’s central goal is to put all assumptions under scrutiny in order to reveal the values that underlie all systems of thought, while questioning any idea of “authenticity”.”

The concept of postmodernism presents an emphasis on pluralism and multiplicity, and that our identities are made up of a variety of identity categories, like race, gender, class, age, the fact that we are a product of our relationship to social institutions, such as a University…

Postmodern theory presents that ideas, texts, or images can have many different meanings, and that images can be interpreted in many different ways.

For the logical of thinking, I can see what “postmodernism” presents a bit of discomfort. The idea of multiple meanings existing in one “text” is well illustrated by the example of hypertext. “A concept used to describe concept used to describe computer texts with multiple links to various threads or a narrative or various points within a larger set of data, hypertext is emblematic of the postmodern condition in using a network model with multiple pathways rather than a linear narrative to organize knowledge and information.”

Of modernity, I though of the metaphor given of the modern experience, of one living in an urban setting becoming accustomed to being in crowds of people that they may never come to know. While modernity produced greater possibility for growth within a formed yet plastic society, it did, as the authors mentioned, create vast amounts of cultural anxiety. This cultural anxiety has created obstacles that are not easy to overcome, since there are many people that feel as if their own cultures and traditions are to be lost. As a result, other than anxiety, minority groups are presented with more stress, or as theorist Elizabeth Munnich says, a “double jeopardy”.

ashley lieber

For the betterment of vocabulary:

Pastiche: an artistic, musical, or literary work made from barrowing, quoting, or imitating another artist’s work or style: a mixture or various works brought into one. A composer of pastiches would be a pasticheur.

Postmodern: a departure and/or rejection of 20th century modernism, in the arts, that incorporates a variety of classical or historical styles.

Reflexivity: A feature of modernism, and is the practice of making the viewer aware of the means of production by incorporating them into the content of the cultural product. Postmodern art also uses this “practice”, in an extended way.

Irony to the Postmodern: can be seen as a context where appearance and reality are in conflict.

Wary: Cautious, careful, watchful, and hesitant

Weary: tired, worn-out, fatigued, and exhausted

One of the first things to strike me about chapter 7 was the argument that politicians use the media to produce their identity (in postmodernism). This projected identity becomes more real than reality itself. This current election is the epitome of this concept. People are fed perceptions from the media and from commercials, and take these as legitimate and real. For example, the Bush administration has portrayed Kerry as a flip-flopper, as have other Republican organizations. This has so saturated voters that they see this trait as part of his personality, and simply take it as truth, as opposed to actually researching why Kerry voted the way he did on certain proposals, what those proposals actually said, how legislation and the making of policy actually works, etc. Both candidates have used tactics such as this that seem to be remarkably effective. Thus it seems we are not voting for an actual man, rather we are voting for a construct of ideals, promises, and perceptions based not on the truth of the candidate himself, but rather on the truth of the mass media and how it is absorbed.

We also are currently doing an identity project in our portfolio class. This also strikes me as odd – we are “constructing” our “identity” (actual terms used), as if a logo and color and font choices could sum up who a person is. I know a middle-aged designer who lamented the fact that she has no established “identity” system, thus she remains unknown and directionless, while her friends are gaining prestige and plenty of work. But this relies on an intermediary medium to project an identity that becomes our definition. It is like watching a 30 second sound byte on TV about a presidential candidate – people receive a biased, filtered, incomplete idea of who the person is, but some take it as the whole truth. I don’t really believe everyone is this shallow though, don’t get me wrong!

In this chapter, Modernism was defined, in short, as movements that broke down past conventions, placing form above content, and paying attention only to the language/materiality of the medium used. This caused me to question our “Image in Space” project, or Kham, according to these principles. Our project would definitely indicate the pervasive nature of and dependency on technology. We used technology to first capture, then sort, then project, then recapture images, finally curating them and using technology to print them. Thus, their content (or lack thereof) is not so important. Rather, the images speak of a societal emphasis on technology.

Postmodernism, however, is about the idea that there is no single truth – that idea is, according to postmodernists, completely invalid. Postmodernism is characterized by skepticism and questioning authenticity, claiming that there is no such thing as a pure, unmediated experience. Postmodernism sticks to the surface level of things, claiming there is no need to go further, for no hidden meaning can be found. Part of the section on Cindy Sherman also reminded me of our “Image in Space” project. The authors write of how Sherman would “enmesh herself in the very world being critically interrogated in her work,” and that this is a distinguishing feature of postmodernism. Thus I tried to think of how this related to the Kham project. Could it also be a commentary on the emptiness and meaninglessness of technology, its superior function yet simultaneous lack of worth? We were very involved in creating fascinating images, even placing our own bodies into the images, but what do they mean? This could be a critique of postmodernism’s superficiality.

Another issue I had was in the section of addressing the postmodern consumer. The authors brought up Benetton and designer Toscani. I had previously thought the Benetton ads were harmless, perhaps even beneficial, because they portrayed sensitive political and social issues, and I thought anything that could get people to think about such issues was potentially good. However, the authors made some very good points; that the images were displayed without any contextual information, but instead were accompanied by the Benetton logo. Thus they were used simply to grab attention instead of informing people. So, Benetton used highly charged images about very real and very serious issues, but did not give any clue as to what was happening in the image, and yet claimed to be socially responsible? This relates back to the beginning of the chapter, the construction of a socially conscious identity that is more real than Benetton’s actual social concern. Their chief concern is sales and brand recognition.

Overall, this was quite an interesting chapter, with far too many good points to bring up here. It helped with an understanding of where we are today, and how images are perceived, which influences how we create them.

Alexis–