Postmodernism (1)

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Postmodernism (1)

• Image Society Postmodernism

Andy Warhol. Toy Paintings Four Monkeys. 1983.
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From Structuralism to Postmodernism
Poststructuralism

• -- ?????(Poststructuralism)?theories which
  challenge the stable structure of language
  (binaries) and traditional value systems sees
  their meanings as slippery, multiple and
  contingent (?????).
• --?????(Postmodernism)?cultures which challenge
  language and the other types of Truth,
  foundation and tradition. (Poststructuralism as
  one example.)
• --?????(Postmodernity)?The socio-economic and
  intellectual conditions which make postmodernism
  possible.

Image society M Butterfly
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Why starts with image society

• --a continuation of semiotics from different
  language forms to societys languages
• -- one major pm phenomenon implosion (??), not
  explosion or expansion, of floating signifiers or
  simulacra, which are dissociated from their
  signified.
• ? Loss of meanings possibilities of
  self-reflexivity.
• -- Our classs uses of images (videos, pictures,
  ppt files, etc.) Are we bombarded by images or
  are we still active learners?

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Outline

• 1. Image, image everywhere.
• A. Causes
• B. Effects
• 1. Conformity and stereotypes
• 2. Loss of meaning/feelings/history
• 3. Self-reflexivity in the use of signs
• 2. Examples
• A. mixtures of images Music Videos MTV
  channel
• B. spectacles Living Mall (???)

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Different Kinds of Images

• Increasing domination of pictures in books,
  newspapers, multimedia books, E-Text,
  letter-writing, classrooms ? influence our
  reading habits.
• Rapid and wider transmission of images through
  electronic means (computer, TV.)
• Penetration of ads and commercials in every
  corner of public spheres such as the streets,
  buses, buildings, subway and highway.
• Growing need of producing and using images of
  the Other and of self (of a commodity or a
  person).

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Causes 1 mechanical/electronic reproduction

• Mechanical and electronic reproduction of image
  (photograph, photocopying machine, computer,
  etc.)
• Walter Benjamin
• -- Art used to be kept in sacred or private
  spaces, to be viewed by a selective few. This
  made it possess an aura (??) as if it were
  sacred.
• -- Aura has declined in this age of mechanical
  reproduction, because Art is no longer unique it
  is more easily available to the general public.
• -- Autonomy denied Artistic autonomy is either
  a-historical or counter-revolutionary.

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Examples of reproduction Creation of Adam
Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel in
Vatican (source)
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Examples of reproduction

Barbara Krugers political revision of Creation
of Adam Untitled 1982 The words are imposed on
the original image to intercept its
representation of power (of Mans).
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Causes 2 development of image

• Baudrillard the successive phases of the
  image
• 1. it is the reflection of a profound reality
  --e.g. of Gods
• 2. it masks and denatures a profound reality
  --e.g. industrial revolution or early capitalism.
• 3. it masks the absence of a profound reality
  --e.g. the death of God or truth
• 4. it has no relation to any reality whatsoever
  it is its own pure simulacrum.
• ? Hyperreality the only real is that which can
  be reproduced.

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Causes 3 development of capitalism

• Jameson
• cultural logic of postmodernism
• Overall commodification Capital commodifies
  everything.
• On the one hand, art is commercialized on the
  other, consumption can be aestheticized, too.

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Effects 1 Conformity and stereotypes

• Capitalism commodifies everything and emphasize
  its symbolic value or value as an image. every
  mass-produced images Conformity The consumers
  identify with the images they buy with the
  commodities and thus are massified by them
  (become a mass).
• ? Self flattened and collaged identity
• ? Other stereotypes

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Effects 2 Loss of meaning/feelings/history

• loss of meaning floating signifiers
• loss of feelings no sense of involvement
• loss of history history presented with
  stereotypes.

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Effects 3 Self-reflexivity in the use of signs

• The destabilization of traditional meaning
  structures also means freedom to create new
  meanings
• -- in art metafiction (e.g. M. Butterfly)
• -- in popular culture mix and re-mix parody
  and pastiche
• -- in consumption choice and combination of
  style choice of leisure activities and routes to
  travel.

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Music videos self-reflexive uses of video images

• Money for Nothing (1985)
• Losing my Religion (Out Of Time 1991)
• If (Janet 1993)
• Atom Bomb (1996)
• MTVs and Channel Vs commercials in 1999.
• ? Gradual loss of meanings?

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1. Dire Straits

• -- took their name from their early financial
  status
• -- "Money for Nothing- chanting that pop stars
  get their "money for nothing, and their chicks
  for free"
• -- But rather than causing a stir in the music
  industry or unleashing a backlash by the video
  community, MTV embraced the song as their new
  anthem. The video, which featured sophisticated
  (for the time) 3-D computer animation, went into
  heavy rotation, and the band became international
  superstars. The message of the song, meanwhile,
  was evidently lost on everyone.

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2. Losing My Religion video as metonymic
expressions of the lyrics

• 1. Lyrics struggle by oneself
• to communicate
• That's me in the corner
• That's me in the spotlight
• Losing my religion
• Trying to keep up with you
• And I don't know if I can do it
• Oh No, I've said too much
• I haven't said enough

2. Video a collage of singing, spotlight
scene, and Icarus scene
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Losing My Religion parodying the Icarus myth
Everything is just a dream.

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If by Janet Jackson
Video desiring and rejecting the male dancer

• Lyrics
• Oh the things I'd do to you
• I'd make you call out my name
• I'd ask who it belongs to
• If I was your woman
• The things I'd do to you
• But I'm not
• So I can't
• Then I won't
• But
• If I was your girl

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If Orientalism desiring the images on the
screen

Multiple choices of virtual sex single, double,
trio, two couples. Janet Jackson still the
central object of desire
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Atom Bomb by Fluke
Fluke, a UK electronic band

• Atom Bomb, a computer game (the Sony Playstation
  game Wipeout 2097) sound track that brought to
  life a Japanese Manga styled cartoon character in
  the shape and form of Arial Tetsuo, aka Rachel
  Stewart. (sources info, image.

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Atom Bomb pastiche of images and identity

• Lyrics
• Baby got a Nobel PrizeGiven for the perfect
  crimeBaby got an alibiBaby got eight more
  livesBaby got the purple hairBaby got a secret
  lairBaby got an army thereI aint never seen
  this baby get scared.

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MTVs and Channel Vs commercials in 1999

• -- The commercials are like the music videos
  themselves with fast-changing images, only the
  the commercials are shorter and even faster in
  pace.
• -- self-reflexive collage of recognizable images,
  such as Munchs Scream.
• -- self-reflexive showing of frames of TV set and
  the multiple space in TV.
• -- not completely without a sense of history
  e.g. ???MTV.

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Example 2 the Living Mall

• Mall a spectacular and self-enclosed space
• which either hide or naturalize its commercial
  reality by capturing the shoppers attention with
  its multitude of signs.
• the Living Mall ???

Capital as the Center of cultures, celebrities
and talents ? Supported by its spectacular design
natural
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The Society of the Spectacleby Guy Debord, 1967

• The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as
  all of society, as part of society, and as
  instrument of unification. As a part of society
  it is specifically the sector which concentrates
  all gazing and all consciousness. Due to the very
  fact that this sector is separate, it is the
  common ground of the deceived gaze and of false
  consciousness, . . .
• 4. The spectacle is not a collection of images,
  but a social relation among people, mediated by
  images. (source) ? We live out the spectacle
  according to someone elses design, like actors
  following a script.

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The mall commodification of everyday life

• to make it work 1) retail mix to attract the
  desired mix of consumers 2) seductive to keep
  the shoppers there. ? maze-like structure,
  special design (of hallway and food court).
• 3) a surfeit of signs, each of which, . .. ,
  serves to actively hide or mask the malls
  function, which is to make money. Or if it
  doesn't hide that function, then it certainly
  naturalizes it, such that the commodification of
  reality becomes simply God-given (Mitchell
  134-35)

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??? a self-enclosed spectacular world1.
Appearance 2. Entering by ascending

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2. Allegories re-written

• --showing its story of construction-- street
  names for each floor-- a space ship? ? soccer

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??? a self-enclosed spectacular world3. The
basement eating court-- like a theatre

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??? a self-enclosed spectacular world (4)
Circular structure supports the shoppers inward
and mutual gazes

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??? space of the spectacle commercial space

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??? space of the spectacle maze-like routes
of ascension

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??? space of the spectacle commercial space

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??? space of the spectacle commercial space

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Interchangeable signs

• Despite their colorfulness, the commodities as
  signs are similar to each other, if not the same
  in some cases.

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References

• Mitchell, Don. Cultural Geography A Critical
  Introduction. Massachusetts Blackwell, 2000.