Session 8 - Post modernity
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Terminology:
Rationalism: Opposing religious doctrine, darwinism, science (Modernism)
Modernism: Mid 19th centry - 1970s. Influenced by industrial innovation, practices and new media. Linked with social ideologies like communism or capitalism
Meta-Narrative: Unrealized overarching idea in society
Post: After
After Modernism: Modernism is completed and been surpassed, end of the grand narrative
Anti Modernism: Reaction to the failures of modernism. Rejection of rationalism and their belief in an all-encompassing meta narrative truth. Anti political scheme
Hyper Modernism: Modernism an incomplete project. Post internet and cyberculture.
Main points of post modernity:
1. Merging contradicting high and low end culture and taste:
High vs low value
Spiritual vs commercial
Serious vs gimmicky
Unique vs mass produced
2. Mutations in public space: Taking inspiration from many different architectural movements and styles.
3. The unstable image: Semiotic overload with less true representation and hyper-real images with no meaning, like retrovision, irony and parody.
4. Society of the spectacle: Life has moved on to media and living life through the screen. Things have less meaning as things get oversaturated.
Rationalism: Opposing religious doctrine, darwinism, science (Modernism)
Modernism: Mid 19th centry - 1970s. Influenced by industrial innovation, practices and new media. Linked with social ideologies like communism or capitalism
Meta-Narrative: Unrealized overarching idea in society
Post: After
After Modernism: Modernism is completed and been surpassed, end of the grand narrative
Anti Modernism: Reaction to the failures of modernism. Rejection of rationalism and their belief in an all-encompassing meta narrative truth. Anti political scheme
Hyper Modernism: Modernism an incomplete project. Post internet and cyberculture.
Main points of post modernity:
1. Merging contradicting high and low end culture and taste:
High vs low value
Spiritual vs commercial
Serious vs gimmicky
Unique vs mass produced
2. Mutations in public space: Taking inspiration from many different architectural movements and styles.
3. The unstable image: Semiotic overload with less true representation and hyper-real images with no meaning, like retrovision, irony and parody.
4. Society of the spectacle: Life has moved on to media and living life through the screen. Things have less meaning as things get oversaturated.
Figure 8. Roy, L. (1963) Drowning Girl [Oil on canvas]
Postmodernism: False Identity
What Are You Looking At by Will Gompertz
Postmodernism is a hard subject to both talk about and define, because it doesn't have a concrete style or way of being. It can be anything you want it to be. This subject arose after modernism (hence the prefix -post) and ended in the mid 1960's. Critical of it's forerunner Modernism, they strayed away from their grand meta narrative and their quest to find a solution and meaning in life. They also didn't believe in any new big ideas (like communism and capitalism) and believed it would all fail. The only solution would be to take best bits from previous movements and ideologies (Gompertz, 2012, p. 350-351).
Postmodernism is a hard subject to both talk about and define, because it doesn't have a concrete style or way of being. It can be anything you want it to be. This subject arose after modernism (hence the prefix -post) and ended in the mid 1960's. Critical of it's forerunner Modernism, they strayed away from their grand meta narrative and their quest to find a solution and meaning in life. They also didn't believe in any new big ideas (like communism and capitalism) and believed it would all fail. The only solution would be to take best bits from previous movements and ideologies (Gompertz, 2012, p. 350-351).
Modernism Post Modernism
Straight edges No Straight Edges
Rejected Tradition Didn't reject any ideas
Linear & Systematic All over the place
Future Believers Questionable
Serious and adventurous Playful experiments
Straight edges No Straight Edges
Rejected Tradition Didn't reject any ideas
Linear & Systematic All over the place
Future Believers Questionable
Serious and adventurous Playful experiments
Some great names to note who shared this would be Philip Johnson (AT&T building, sampling ideas from different arts), Cindy Sherman (Manipulated cliches using herself as medium), Bruce Nauman (Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square) and Jeff Wall (The Destroyed Room playing off The Death of Sarandapalus). A famous piece of work from the time is also I Shop Theremore I Am by Barbara Kruger. She used to work for a Graphic Design publisher, who would sell the reader the unachievable idea or escapist fantasy. Noticing this, she cut out a bunch of the pictures in black and white, collaged them and put the title on it in big bold Futura, taking inspiration from Bauhaus and Rodchenkos constructivism (Gompertz, 2012, p. 351-365).
One of the first impressions I have of Dada is Marchel Duchamp and his infamous urinal labeled 'Fountain'. I learnt about him during my years of upper secondary education where i took both art and architecture history. It was a strange introduction to it, but is now seen as a staple to the post modern movement in my opinion. This sparked a movement of 'Readymade' art, and it caused a lot of anger and confusion by it's viewers, including me. The idea that by just presenting it as a piece of art is what he believed made art itself. The art of looking further than the functionality and reaching for a deeper meaning. This again makes the post modern movement hard to understand. I do believe though that it opened a new door for our imagination and critical eye.
Gompertz, W. (2012) What Are You Looking At? New York: Penguin Group
Fig. 8 Roy, L. (1963) Drowning Girl [Oil on canvas] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lichtenstein#/media/File:Roy_Lichtenstein_Drowning_Girl.jpg (Accessed 25 April 2020)
One of the first impressions I have of Dada is Marchel Duchamp and his infamous urinal labeled 'Fountain'. I learnt about him during my years of upper secondary education where i took both art and architecture history. It was a strange introduction to it, but is now seen as a staple to the post modern movement in my opinion. This sparked a movement of 'Readymade' art, and it caused a lot of anger and confusion by it's viewers, including me. The idea that by just presenting it as a piece of art is what he believed made art itself. The art of looking further than the functionality and reaching for a deeper meaning. This again makes the post modern movement hard to understand. I do believe though that it opened a new door for our imagination and critical eye.
Gompertz, W. (2012) What Are You Looking At? New York: Penguin Group
Fig. 8 Roy, L. (1963) Drowning Girl [Oil on canvas] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lichtenstein#/media/File:Roy_Lichtenstein_Drowning_Girl.jpg (Accessed 25 April 2020)
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