An introduction to the exam

G325

 

Postmodern Theories

Jacques Derrida 
proposed that a text cannot belong to no genre, it cannot be without... a genre. Every text participates in one or several genres, there is no genreless text. (Derrida 1981, 61).

Levi Strauss and his theory of 'binary opposites', he also however developed the theory of 'bricolage'.

Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality was heavily influenced by phenomenology, semiotics, and Marshall McLuhan who coined the phrase 'the medium is the message'. By this he means that the manner in which the message is shown becomes more important than the meaning of the message itself.
Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches create a world with the promise of endless amounts of identical food, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite.

Frederic Jameson sees postmodernism as vacuous and trapped in circular references. Nothing more that a series of self referential 'jokes' which have no deeper meaning or purpose.

Jean-François Lyotard
rejected what he called the “grand narratives” or universal “meta-narratives.”
-Grand narratives refer to the great theories of history, science, religion, politics. For example, Lyotard rejects the ideas that everything is knowable by science or that as history moves forward in time, humanity makes progress. -He would reject universal political ‘solutions’ such as communism or capitalism.
-He also rejects the idea of absolute freedom.

• In studying media texts it is possible also to apply this thinking to a rejection of the Western moralistic narratives of Hollywood film where good triumphs over evil, or where violence and exploitation are suppressed for the sake of public decency.
• Lyotard favours ‘micronarratives’ that can go in any direction, that reflect diversity, that are unpredictable. 

Rosenau (1993)
1. Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.
2. While Postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of reason are freely employed to advance its perspective.
3. The Postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.
4. Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in isolation.
5. By adamently rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, Postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid criteria for judgment.
6. Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.
7. Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth claims in their own writings.


Postmodernism theories and texts

PostModernism

Postmodernism is a label given to Cultural forms since the 1960s that display the following qualities:

Self reflexivity: this involves the seemingly paradoxical combination of self-consciousness and some sort of historical grounding

Irony: Post modernism uses irony as a primary mode of expression, but it also abuses, installs, and subverts conventions and usually negotiates contradictions through irony

Boundaries: Post modernism challenges the boundaries between genres, art forms, theory and art, high art and the mass media

Constructs: Post modernism is actively involved in examining the constructs society creates including, but not exclusively, the following:

• Nation: Post modernism examines the construction of nations/nationality and questions such constructions
• Gender: Post modernism reassesses gender, the construction of gender, and the role of gender in cultural formations
• Race: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of race
• Sexuality: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of sexuality

Further definitions

• "Postmodernism is cultural movement that came after modernism, also it follows our shift from being a industrial society to that of an information society, through globalization of capital. Markers of the postmodern culture include opposing hierarchy, diversifying and recycling culture, questioning scientific reasoning, and embracing paradox. Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding modernism"

• "Postmodern style is often characterized by eclecticism, digression, collage, pastiche, and irony. Postmodern theorists see postmodern art as a conflation or reversal of well-established modernist systems, such as the roles of artist versus audience, seriousness versus play, or high culture versus kitsch."

By R. Lee from Media Studies 180 Hunter College, Sections 102, 103

(intertextual references are often found in postmodern texts.)

• Postmodern texts deliberately play with meaning. They are designed to be read by a literate (experienced in other texts) audience and will exhibit many traits of intertexuality. Many texts openly acknowledge that, given the diversity in today's audiences, they can have no preferred reading (Reception Theory) and present a whole range of oppositional readings simultaneously. Many of the sophisticated visual puns used by advertising can be described as postmodern. Postmodern texts will employ a range of referential techniques such as bricolage, and will use images and ideas in a way that is entirely alien to their original function (e.g. using footage of Nazi war crimes in a pop video).
• Intertextuality: The whole network of relations, conventions and expectations by which the text is defined; the relationship between texts.
• Reception Theory: A version of reader response literary theory that emphasizes the reader's reception of a literary text.
• Bricolage: A piece created from diverse resources.
• "A general explanation is that postmodernism is a contradiction in terms, as post means after and modern means now, it is impossible for anything to be after now. The term itself is supposed to be deliberately unexplainable."
• In terms of literature and media it is generally considered to be anything which makes little attempt to hide the fact that it is not real, it wants you to know that its been created and it wants you to recognise elements from elsewhere (i.e. that they have 'stolen' ideas from other sources), that there are no new or original ideas and that everything is in someway connected. Importantly it doesn’t want you to view it as being any more or less valid or important than a text which pretends to be real, postmodernists want everything to be equal, they want to remove binary opposites and start again. Students are often criticised for being post modern as they tend to like 'naff' things and think they are cool precisely because they aren't cool (thus removing binary opposites)".

Rube Goldberg

• Rube Goldberg (Reuben Lucius Goldberg), born in San Francisco 4th July 1883, - 1970. He was a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, sculptor and author. 
• A founding member of the National Cartoonist Society, a political cartoonist and a Pulitzer Prize winner, Rube was a beloved national figure as well as an often-quoted radio and television personality during his sixty year professional career. 
• He was best known for his “inventions”, Rube’s early years as an engineer informed his most acclaimed work. A Rube Goldberg contraption – an elaborate set of arms, wheels, gears, handles, cups and rods, put in motion by balls, canary cages, pails, boots, bathtubs, paddles and live animals – takes a simple task and makes it extraordinarily complicated. 

"A project that is too well planned lacks opportunities for spontaneity and creativity'.


I feel this quote fits with Goldberg as he is reinterpreting objects and using creativity to create them another function. As quoted, Goldberg takes a 'simple task' and makes it into something complicated therefore suggesting that a simple plan lacks creativity, and so he then completely complicates it into something extraordinary. 

What is creativity?

                                     
























Originality, imagination, inspiration, ingenuity, inventiveness, resourcefulness, creativeness, vision and innovation.


How I applied these words to both my AS and A2 coursework...


AS Magazine Coursework


Originality
My magazine is original in the context that 'I' created it; therefore it is my piece of work. Although there are some elements that can be related to magazines with the same genre I chose, these elements were inspiration and were not a direct copy. Elements such as the title, colour pallet, photos used, double page spread article are some that portray that I have been original.
Imagination
Imagination is applied greatly to my AS coursework in terms of creating the idea and coming up with the features that make my magazine effective. This relates to the genre idea and the interview on the double page spread as some examples.
Inspiration
Inspiration helped in terms of forming ideas, creating an effective theme for the magazine, setting the layout with inspiration from other magazines, gathering ideas for effective photos and so on. Without inspiration it'd be difficult to create an effective magazine as you aren't getting any influence from others.


A2 Music Video Coursework


Creativeness
Using creativity created the idea for the project and also involved adapting to situations when a problem arises.
Vision
The main element of vision in the music video project is seeing the project from start to finish - creating an idea and making it work.


Overall, how creative do you feel you've been?
From AS to A2 I feel my creativity has been developed in terms of being able to expand my ideas and putting these into a project. In both years, by having a direct task set for us I felt gave me focus and a target. Expanding on this I was able to come up with ideas and then focus them all into working for one thing - a magazine. I feel having the target set, brought upon slight competitiveness as you were able to research similar magazines and aim to create something like them, but adjusted to my own idea. In turn, this helped to achieve my best ability. Through research of similar magazines and music videos I was able to copy and adjust ideas to form new ones. I have used other people's creativity to create the idea, and all the features with it - the artist, mise en scene as some examples; therefore in my opinion I am being creative myself. Through being creative I have planned a project from beginning to end and adapted to situations when a problem arises.


Limitations

• technology resources were limited
• organising a date where all three of us were free
• equipment
• budget - in terms of booking a studio room
• The artist Eve, who had to adapt to the role, learning the song and play a character that she is not used to.

Creativity - Remember two quotes