Postmodernism.

Postmodern art is an artistic movement that typically is described as either arising after or in response to modern art. Although this term enjoys widespread usage, there is disagreement among critics about whether postmodern art actually exists as a distinct movement or whether it is simply a later phase of modern art. Dates that have been proposed as marking the beginning of the postmodern movement include 1914 in Europe and 1962 or 1968 in the United States. Trends in postmodern art include pastiche, appropriation and the use of an ironic affect.

Critical definitions of postmodern art differ regarding whether postmodernism, if it exists at all, is a historical condition or an intentional movement. It can be seen as the collection of characteristics of the current era, as in the former definition, or as art that reacts to and challenges modernism in the latter. Thematically, works of art that are classified as postmodern often address consumer culture, popular culture, globalization, the juxtaposition of high and low art and the role and value of art in society

Conrad.

“Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams...” part 1

POSTMODERNISM

Pastiche

A similar concept is the pastiche. The Oxford English Dictionary defines pastiche as ‘a medley of various ingredients; a hotchpotch, farrago, jumble.’ A work is called pastiche if it’s cobbled together from multiple works. The word comes from pastitsio, which was a Greco-Roman dish made of many different ingredients. Likewise, a pastiche is a quotation from multiple sources.

For example, Austin Powers is a pastiche of the Swinging Sixties. Every fad and cliché of the Sixties is paraded: Op Art, body-painting, psychedelia. The film quotes from multiple sources: fashion, music, films and art. A pastiche can be jocular, but unlike a parody it’s usually respectful.

Pastiche is prominent in popular culture. The Star Wars films by George Lucas are pastiches of 1930s science fiction serials like Flash Gordon. They start with text scrolling across the screen: this is a direct quote from Flash Gordon. Likewise, the Indiana Jones films by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were based on 1930s adventure serials. All the elements are reassembled: temples, buried treasure, sinister villains, damsels in distress. These films aren’t meant to be original; they’re a catalogue of quotations from earlier cultural forms.

Pastiche is also characteristic of postmodern culture. The Marxist academic Fredric Jameson has examined the functions of postmodern pastiche. He describes pastiche as ‘the random cannibalisation of all the styles of the past, the play of stylistic allusion.’ This is partly the result of over-exposure. In the age of mass media there is a sense that we have seen too many films, watched too much TV, too much advertising. We are over-familiar with the forms of mass culture, which means it’s impossible to be original. We can only recycle the conventions of earlier texts – which Jameson calls the cannibalisation of the past.

Jameson describes pastiche as ‘blank parody’. This means that rather than being humorous or satirical, pastiche has become a ‘dead language’ unable to satirize in any effective way. Whereas pastiche used to be a humorous device, it has become ‘devoid of laughter’.

An example of this is Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas is like the capital city of Postmodernism because it’s a pastiche of multiple styles. The buildings quote from global landmarks. This isn’t humorous or satirical. Las Vegas consists of fakes that people are willing to accept as substitutes for the real thing. There’s something inherently bland and shallow about this: the buildings are empty images devoid of meaning. In 1969, the postmodern architect Robert Venturi published a book called Learning from Las Vegas. Rather than criticising the city he argued that architects should study it because it is representative of the postmodern age.

Teddy boys

World War 11 brought about many sociological changes in Britain. A lot of the old barriers began to fall, and when it actually ended, there was an air of optimism. Unfortunately, the country was in a bad way, and all sorts of things were rationed, including many types of food (I well remember when bananas arrived - what a joy!), sweets (candy) and clothing.
Of course, these shortages inevitably led to black marketeering. A lot of servicemen were 'demobilised', and this all led to the rise of 'The Spiv'. This was the kind of person who could lay his hand on anything. During the war, this was the man who sold your girlfriend her silk stockings! Like all people of his ilk, the spiv would advertise his 'abilities' by sporting the latest fashions, no matter how hard they were to get.
In times of shortage, the items in short supply become fashionable, and in times of plenty, the reverse is true. In our own time, where food is plentiful, a slim figure is deemed desirable - you get the point. In a society where material for clothing is in short supply, then a style that flouts material wastefully will be fashionable, and so it was after the war, when Dior created the 'New Look'. It scandalised the puritans in society because of its wastefulness. For the men, Savile Row in London was where all high class suits were made, and in response to the New Look, Savile Row brought in the 'Edwardian Look'. This was a throwback to the stylings as worn by men in Edwardian times. This, too, was wasteful of material, with cuffs on jacket sleeves and extra length on the jackets, too.
Although the Edwardian style was meant for the 'upper crust', it was seized upon by the Spivs and 'Flymen', who merged it with the new American 'Drape' style of jacket. The drape was so named because the jacket hung from the shoulders, and was not 'cut in' at the waist. Coupled with the rather risqué 'drainpipe' or 'stovepipe' trousers, this led to a whole new style in the late Forties. Enter the teenager....
Suddenly, there was a generation of kids leaving school who had money to spend, and because of National Service (two years in the Army from 18 - 20), they saw no purpose in taking on poorly paid apprenticeships when they would learn a trade in the Army anyway. These kids were well educated, had money to spend, and they took on the new clothing style and cranked it up a level, with velvet trimmings on the jacket collars, cuffs and pockets, shiny 'horseshoe' style waistcoats, and ever narrower drainpipe trousers. Coupled with the crêpe soled shoe which had become popular during the blackout, the archetypal 'Teddy Boy' (so named after the 'Edwardian' style) emerged to scandalise society. The kids were out of control, and worse still, even a two year stint in the Army didn't make a lot of them settle down, and they became the image of villainy and thuggery in a society which regarded them as totally 'beyond the pale'. To make matters even worse, a new music craze called 'Rock'n'roll' arrived which immediately became identified with these awful people.
Of course, not all of these Teddy Boys were villains, but they and Rock'n'roll were blamed for a lot of society's ills, and this image is still portrayed as something wicked and disrespectful to this day. Fashions come and go, but here in Britain, we are nothing if not conservative, and in the Sixties when Beatlemania was at its height, certain of us still wanted to be 'Teds'. I had my first full drape tailor-made in 1963, although I'd had cheaper 'off-the-peg' ones before that. There were still areas of Britain where it was cool to aspire to this style, and South Wales, and certain parts of the North West of England were such places, and I also recall meeting a couple of Teds from Lambeth (South London) in the mid-Sixties.

Secondly, there is a concentration on fragmentation and discontinuity as well as ambiguity. The postmodern focuses on a de-structured, de-centered humanity. What this really means is that the idea of disorder and fragmentation, which were previously seen as negative qualities, are seen as an acceptable representation of reality by postmodernists. Modernism considered the fragmented view of human life as bad or tragic, while postmodernists rather celebrate this seemingly meaningless view of the world. It is an acceptance of the chaos that encourages a play with meaning. Postmodernism also accepts the possibility of ambiguity. Things and events can have two different meanings at the same time. A more rigid rational and logocentric or linear approach tries to avoid or reduce ambiguity as much as possible. Postmodern thought sees simultaneous views not as contradictory but as an integral part of the complex patterning of reality.

‘’grand narratives’’

Such talk as there is of history today is more likely to be of "the end of history". There are three senses in which references to the end of history feature in contemporary debates: apocalyptic prediction, postmodernist pronouncement and capitalist triumphalism.

This paper addresses the crisis of historicity in our time in relation to these positions and asks what is it about our age that produces them. It explores the widespread rejection of grand narratives, as well as grand narratives, which nevertheless persist, implicit and explicit, right and left.

It looks at the position of marxism in the 1990s, counterposing it to postmarxism and postmodernism in particular on the question of grand narratives. It calls for resistance to the detotalising pressures of the age and revival of a totalising (as opposed to totalised) philosophy of history.

Hybridity refers in its most basic sense to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Its contemporary uses are scattered across numerous academic disciplines and is salient in popular culture. This article explains the history of hybridity and its major theoretical discussion amongst the discourses of race, post-colonialism, Identity (social science), anti-racism & multiculturalism, and globalization. This article illustrates the development of hybridity rhetoric from biological to cultural discussions.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14