.Inprecise, illusive, contradictory.
. The film 'Jubilee' is a good example.
. Postmodernism...more democratising.
. Pop art was on the cusp of Postmodernism.
. Stylistic eclectism...listening to a variety of music.
. Acceptance of multiple meanings (semiotics).
> Notion of slippage.
. Celebrates parody, pastiche...
. 'Decorating the box.'
. Assumption that art is spurious.
. Rise of global consumer economy.
. Globalisation - Hybridisation - cultural cross overs.
. Key names...
.Baudrillard
.Eco- Hyperreality...nothing real and concrete.
* Post Marxist era- class has gone.
. Identity politics- rise of the other (excluded come to the fore...muslim faith, feminist, etc).
Things have multiple meanings...the gates have opened.
. Hybridity- bricollage, like a jumble sale event.
. A free for all...anything goes.
. Charles Jenks, Frederich Jameson.
. Commodification of aesthetics.
. Depthlessness.
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Notes on Dick Hebdige etc
'Postmodernism is neither a homogenous entity nor a consciously directed movement.'
Its not easy to pin down. It appears that everything has validity, everything is good for the mix.
It seems to embrace contradiction.
'a sense of placelessness' (Jameson on the Bonnaventura hotel) on the abandonment of placelessness.
DECENTRALIZATION.
Bricolage...dict def:1. A construction made out of whatever materials are at hand.
- something created from a variety of available of things.
2. ( In literature)- apeice made from diverse resources.
3. (In art)- a piece of makeshift handiwork.
4. The use of the multiple, diverse research methods.
Individualism serves the consumer well.
Neither: hemogenous entity- all combined together
Nor: consciously directed 'movement.'
It is:' Decor of a room, design of building, slapstick nature of a film, construction of a record, scratch on video, attack on metaphysics of presence, arts documentary or tv commercial, collective chagrin and morbid projections of a post war generation of baby boomers approaching middle age...'
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'Postmodernism could certainly be used loosely to designate the range of symptoms, which announce a break, for instance, with traditional notions of authorship and originality. Postmodernism has been used as a shorthand term to reference certain qualities and tendencies which charecterize the contemporary (western) metropolitan milieu: a growing public familiarity with formal and representational codes, a profusion of lifestyles, cultures, subcultures: a generalised sensitivity to style (as language, as option as game) and to difference ethnic, gender, regional and local difference: what Frederich Jameson has called 'hetrogeniety without norms...' Critical Modernism : Where is Post-Modernism Going? Charles Jencks, Chichester, John Wily, 2007.
. It would appear that in this 'Postmodern world' in which one exists, things have become fractured: there are multiple meanings and representations in our lives: Everything has flattened out. The great land of 'heirarchy' is no more and thus the 'author', ( in my case as that of the illustrator/artist) can't rely on the comforting arms of modernism to give one an elitist platform in which to view the rest of society. We've become shards of glass in an ocean without a centre, no longer can we be pinned down as part of an hemogenous entity.
. Who is the author now? Authorship no longer exists. What is original? How does an illustrator/artist stand out in light of the fact that the floodgates have opened? The world is in a state of overload, to such an extent that I feel it can be likened to that of a wall of white noise. Who am I now? Is it possible for an artist to have a purpose in such times? The human race has become haphazard, like a game of snakes and ladders where rules are thrown out of the window cut up and re-assembled, regarded and disregarded....
. Since the early 80's I've had a theoretical football league in which I, the author 'invented' an imaginary world of teams which at times seem to run parallel to real life but at once rejecting convention. For example, the state or zone of the area 'Athletico' can change or move depending upon the success of the football team. It would be the equivalent of say, Sheffield moving to Birmingham and Birmingham in turn 'upping sticks' and moving on to Cardiff, and so the constantly shifting slippery process continues.
. I, the author, have always felt a sense of 'distance' from these imaginary worlds. I become a sort of agent, or promoter of their existence. In December 2006, 'The Sporting League' gained national recognition as 'I' the artist received a runner up award in a competition called 'The Football Art Prize.' I found myself in a difficult position, Marc Renshaw: prize winner. How can 'I' take credit for something which is a narrative all of its own? It felt like a fraudulent affair.
.What is original today? Is this now a relevant concept? Is it now a case of end game scenarios?
. I feel that we are in a time of uncertainty, are there any longer jobs for life? A set career path? We have Tesco home delivery or the experience of choosing your own shopping 'live' on the shop floor? I google the word 'illustration' and it shows 1-10 of about 99,600,000 results I'm sitting typing on the computer underneath the velux window put into the roof of our c 1750 home with its 2003 reclaimed brick kitchen...but it's 'in keeping'. I've recycled countless envelopes from 'directline insurance', all with the customary centralized base in Leeds.
.I sit here and look closely at the rain run down the window. Perhaps the water is suggesting that I buy the latest mobile phone by O2? It races down the glass, perhaps I need to put on my shoes and race to my nearest supplier. Or purchase online? I could buy one right now sat at the postmodern office space, monitor and keyboard sat on top of an antique table.
. Under the advice given during one of my tutorials, I've been collecting The Guardian newspaper for the past 2 weeks and notice that the advertising illustrations don't give the author/illustrator credit. This would seem to be in keeping with the postmodern ethos...if there really is such a thing.
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Quotes from What is Postmodernism, Charles Jencks, Academy Editions, Fourth Edition.
. 'If one thing is clear today it is the 'we' is plural, both global and multicultural, likely to be related to the world network of information (if not the internet) while immersed in particular cultures'. pp13
. 'We' are constantly reminded that the United Nations will soon mean the loose governance of two hundred nations, that the nation-state is becoming even weaker and that five thousand would-be nation states, such as Bosnia, are waiting in the wings to be granted their identity, status and legal rights. 'We' indeed; how inescapable are the quote-marks which emphasise the ever-increasing pluralism and minoritisation and what must come with them - the questioning of self?' pp13
. 'The psycho-logic of being 'post' is that of transcendence, so there are spiritual and political overtones to the term. Going beyond the modern means, in spatial terms, to get above or outside the present. One should not underrate this desire, the most potent of the inherent meanings'. pp15
. 'Post - modern has chosen us because it is so precise and ambiguous at the same time: accurate about the port we have left and richly suggestive of the destiny for which we are heading'. pp15
on modernism: 'A great new epoch has begun', Le Corbusier proclaimed: 'There exists in this world a new spirit: it is to be met with particularly in industrial production...we must create the mass-production spirit. The spirit of constructing mass-production houses. The spirit of conceiving mass-production houses.'
Was this spirit Protestant? The idea that living in pure, white washing can improve life? So convinced was this prophet of the beneficient effects of a well designed environment that he ended his bible - Towards a New Architecture - with the exhortation: 'Architecture or Revolution...it is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: Architecture or Revolution. revolution can be avoided.'
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Notes from A Report On The western Front: Postmodernism and the 'politics' of style.
. 'from the academy to Academy One, from Jacques Derrida to Blade Runner, there is the same cultivation of postures of confusion or distress around the undecidability of origins, there is the same blurring of the line(s) between shadows and substances, metaphors and substantive truths, the same questioning of the validity of all such binaries'. PP335.
. He is saying that because we have multiple truths, nothing has validity any more. This is also referred to in the Jencks quote by the notion of plurality. In Modernism the tendency was the philosophy of an absolute truth. This is rejected in Postmodernism which rejects rationalism, scientism, or objectivity of Modernism.
. 'it announces the end of any simple faith in what have sometimes been called the 'grand metanarratives' - the Great Stories which for thousands of years the cultures of the West have been telling themselves in order to keep the dread prospect of otherness at bay. The word 'postmodern' marks a decline of the great Stories the West has told itself in order to sustain itself as the West against the Rest, in order to place itself as Master and as hero at the centre stage of world history'. PP337
