Postmodernism

Frederic Jameson

• Van Gogh's painting of the peasant shoes
• Represents agricultural misery, poverty
• You would never guess the meaning of the painting unless you were aware of what was going on during the time period that it was created in
• Andy Warhol's Diamond Dust Shoes
• Doesn't really speak to us at all--seems like a random collection of random objects
• Representation of postmodernism
• Materialistic and doesn't have any real meaning

Jean Bauldrillard

• We idolize simulations--particularly Disneyland
• "This imaginary world is supposed to be what makes the operation successful. But, what draws the crowds is undoubtedly much more the social microcosm, the miniaturized and religious reveling in real America, in its delights and drawbacks."
• Teaching people to look up to illusions (pirates, the frontier, future world)
• Disney (an infallible world) serves to cover up the fact that America is real--conceal the fact that the real is no longer real
• In order to spend a day at Disney you have to drive there, stand in unbearable lines to enter, stand in unbearable lines again to get on each individual ride
• We see Disney as this great place where you can let out your inner child, when in reality it was created by man to generate profit

Postmodernism Introduction

• In previous societies, if you saw something that was different from you or how you did things, you would fight to change it
• Today, because we know more about different societies and different cultures, we are each our own melting pot of different traditions and customs
• The postmodern world is a mix of everything--identities, realities, cultures, races, gender roles, technologies, economies, cyberspaces, mediascapes
• "Postmodern artists, just like the explorers of past centuries, simply plunge into the unknown and then try to represent it."
• Jean Baudrillard:
• Believes that today's society is too wrapped up in mass media, advertising, television, newspapers, magazines
• Because we have constant access to communication, we don't recognize things as art
• Hyperreality: an order of representation that is not the unreal, but has replaced 'reality' and is more than real, more real than real
• We teach children to idolize hyperreality figures like pirates and Tom Sawyer, and don't teach them their actual significance