Postmodernism

1. Postmodernism What on Earth is it?

2. What is PoMo? • Postmodernism is a very broad term, often used to describe Western art, literature and culture in the second half of the twentieth century. • We can’t understand postmodernism unless we have some knowledge of what was happening in the 19th century • In the mid-nineteenth century, many forms of Western art and literature relied on techniques of naturalism

3. Naturalism? • Paintings and literature were crafted in ways that seemed to ‘capture’ the complexity of social structures at the time. • The approach assumes that the real world has a meaning or appearance that is the same to everyone and which can be captured or recreated through art. • This way of looking at the world was shaped in part by the Christian belief that the world was made by God and worked according to fixed laws

4. What changed? • Around the turn of the century, thanks to events such as World War II, and the development of scientific theories (such asevolutionary theory in biology), these ideas began to change. • Many people lost faith in the Christian view of the world and began to question whether life had any intrinsic meaning at all • In art, artists and authors moved away from writing about naturalistic ideas and placed more emphasis on depicting cultural objects and subjective experiences

5. Examples

6. Modernism • This challenging time in art and culture became known as modernism • ‘Modern’ art strives to remind us that we are inhabiting a world that is produced by us and is therefore, a social construct (through various industrial, social and psychological processes)

7. Industrialisation • In the second half of the twentieth century, industrialism played a big role in modernism • The lines between art and consumer goods were blurred e.g.: Mona Lisa being mass produced as a poster or on a t-shirt meant that art had become a consumer good • Artists turned their talents to creating chairs or lights etc. that were then mass produced (think Ikea) • This made us rethink what is was to be an artist. How was an artist a creator if their work could be massively reproduced?

8. Pastiche • These ideas gave rise to the notion of pastiche- borrowing and/or combining elements of other artworks to produce new objects (think of current dance songs that sample from older songs) • The creation of new art through pastiche gave rise to what we currently call postmodernism • Postmodernism is even seen in cookery today (think about all of those ‘deconstructed’ desserts etc.)

9. The Cultural Element • Postmodernism is also associated with a ‘postindustrial’ world- a world in which the exchange of information is more important than the production of goods (Facebook anyone?) • Cultural identity is therefore less defined by traditional roles than lifestyle and values systems. • This gives rise to specialised artistic groups (e.g.: hipsters) • In postmodern cultures it is hard to pinpoint a “typical” or “national” representation as changes occur so rapidly

10. Postmodern Texts • PoMo texts are often deemed difficult to interpret, especially to readers of more traditional literature, as they combine a range of perspectives, styles and values; making them difficult to find one single, coherent meaning • Some critics argue that this makes PoMo texts more valuable because they subvert “dominant” ways of thinking • Still others argue that PoMo is now traditional and so common that it is the “dominant” way of thinking and therefore less subversive • What do you think???