How to identify postmodernism

1. Look out for experimentation with the form of the novel. This could be less character development, non-traditional narratives, playing with perspectives and point of view or strange layout or typographical choices.
2. Identify any inference to metafiction, when literature self-consciously exposes itself as a work of fiction. There are several literary devices for achieving this, including narrative footnotes that comment on the story, such as those in "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski, or a book which contains another fictional work inside it, such as Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49."
3. Check for a sense of discontinuity, which may be shown via an unconventional conveyance of time throughout the story. A prime example of this is in Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five," where the narrative -- and the main character -- shift back and forth through time.
4.  Observe any instances of intertextuality, that is when an author interweaves or makes reference to another text entirely. For example "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco references the works of Aristotle and Borges.

5.    Watch for black humour and irony in a novel, as it is often found in postmodern literature. The term "catch-22" comes from Joseph Heller's novel of the same name, the central theme of which is the irony of being in such a situation.

Lady Gaga Telephone

Lady Gaga- Telephone

postmoderism

Blade Runner Notes

Blade Runner

Box office

·         In the blade runner science technology and progress are all being questioned and have been show to be fail

·         One of the key themes is blurring the difference between the real and the artificial (humans and replicas)

·         Blade runner didn’t do amazingly well in the box office however critically the film did very well

·         The film have been re-realised many times with additional thing such as the director cut and final cut addition

Blade runner’s postmodern aesthetic

·         Mixing textual references and images.

·         Voice over f the original realises is juxtaposed with the futuristic

·         Los Angeles in the future is in itself a pastiche of our ideas of the east, west and the future.

·         Images we see give us a mise en scene of decay and decline of this coming to an end of humanity as we know it, and the story of replicants striving ofr an extension of their life span.

Hyperidentities

·         The question that the film poses are to do with the meaning of  humanity in the post modern ages

·         The distinction between human and machine is unclear

·         Postmodernist ask can emotional be programmed, can humanity be manufactured

·         Post modern city – huge advertising images promoting an off world colony and the idea that everyone who can fled the real world for a more attractive virtual equivalent.

Compression of time and space

·         Film is about the time and how there isn’t enough time.

·         We are never sure if the main character (Harrison Ford) is human or not, it remains an enigma

·         A dying replicant in the final scene delivers the line all these moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain, and as in most post modern film we are forced to confront the way in which the modern work is constructed through a set of binary opposites.

·         Deals with racism – extermination of replicants.

·         All science fiction therefore it places a real world concerns in fantasy setting but post modern reading of the film focuses more on the way the classic opposition that have defines our philosophy and undermined or at least exposed as vulnerable.

Blade runner and postmodernism

·         Postmodern film

·         Elements of post modern condition to texture its narrative

·         Ideological centre blade runner explores and utilises the strategies of quotation/pastiche/recycling/hyperreality/identity crisis 

·         Confuses history and mixes up traditions and collapse the difference between the real and the mediated such as supposedly articulates what it is like to live in the post modern world.

·         Textually – quotes of different genres and film movements/periods as well as form visual media and actual historical periods.

·         Consequently, time, history, high /low culture and the relations s and difference between them have been thrown in confusion.

·         Happens in a future but one which is an amalgam of numerous past

·         Recycling in the film refers to both a lack of invention and renewal but also generalised waste. Produced by the architects of this endless city and wasting away of humanity produced by this hyperral city.

·         The media is such an omnipresent force that it becomes the reality indicator – more real than real itself. E.g. we don’t get to see off world colonies sold to us in the film: they appear only as advertising signs therefore without a concrete referent,

·         The world weary Deckard best represents this: his goal driven pursuit of the replicants and his love affair with Rachael are really a journey of his heart. His real quest is a quest to discover his real origins and to find the truth about who he is and where he comes from.

·         Fear that technology and science have to have too much influence and control over people’s everyday life.

·         Also offers us a complex entry point for considering post human defined as new cybernetic creation born of a technological environment in which reality os essentially composed of information patterns. E.g. Deckard often seems to be merely one more electronics circuits plugged into a gigantic info world or virtual merchandising travel advertising and new gathering,

·         The post human throws into confusion human/machines natural/synthetic and mind/body dualisms opening up the self to multiplicities.

history of postmodernism

History
The term "Postmodern" was first used around the 1870s. John Watkins Chapman suggested "a Postmodern style of painting" as a way to move beyond French Impressionism.^[14] J. M. Thompson, in his 1914 article in The Hibbert Journal (a quarterly philosophical review), used it to describe changes in attitudes and beliefs in the critique of religion: "The raison d'etre of Post-Modernism is to escape from the double-mindedness of Modernism by being thorough in its criticism by extending it to religion as well as theology, to Catholic feeling as well as to Catholic tradition."^[15]
In 1917, Rudolf Pannwitz used the term to describe a philosophically-oriented culture. His idea of post-modernism drew from Friedrich Nietzsche's analysis of modernity and its end results of decadence and nihilism. Pannwitz's post-human would be able to overcome these predicaments of the modern human. Contrary to Nietzsche, Pannwitz also included nationalist and mythical elements in his use of the term.^[16]
In 1921 and 1925, Postmodernism had been used to describe new forms of art and music. In 1942 H. R. Hays described it as a new literary form. However, as a general theory for a historical movement it was first used in 1939 by Arnold J. Toynbee: "Our own Post-Modern Age has been inaugurated by the general war of 1914-1918."^[17]

Portland Building, an example of Postmodern architecture

In 1949 the term was used to describe a dissatisfaction with modern architecture, and led to the postmodern architecture movement,^[18] perhaps also a response to the modernist architectural movement known as the International Style. Postmodernism in architecture is marked by the re-emergence of surface ornament, reference to surrounding buildings in urban architecture, historical reference in decorative forms, and non-orthogonal angles.
After that, Postmodernism was applied to a whole host of movements, many in art, music, and literature, that reacted against tendencies in the imperialist phase of capitalism called "modernism," and are typically marked by revival of historical elements and techniques.^[19] Walter Truett Anderson identifies Postmodernism as one of four typological world views. These four world views are the Postmodern-ironist, which sees truth as socially constructed; the scientific-rational, in which truth is found through methodical, disciplined inquiry; the social-traditional, in which truth is found in the heritage of American and Western civilization; and the neo-romantic, in which truth is found through attaining harmony with nature and/or spiritual exploration of the inner self.^[20]
Postmodernist ideas in philosophy and the analysis of culture and society expanded the importance of critical theory and has been the point of departure for works of literature, architecture, and design, as well as being visible in marketing/business and the interpretation of history, law and culture, starting in the late 20th century. These developments—re-evaluation of the entire Western value system (love, marriage, popular culture, shift from industrial to service economy) that took place since the 1950s and 1960s, with a peak in the Social Revolution of 1968—are described with the term Postmodernity, Influences on postmodern thought, Paul Lützeler (St. Louis) as opposed to Postmodernism, a term referring to an opinion or movement. Postmodernism has also be used interchangeably with the term post-structuralism out of which postmodernism grew, a proper understanding of postmodernism or doing justice to the postmodernist thought demands an understanding of the poststructuralist movement and the ideas of its advocates. Post-structuralism resulted similarly to postmodernism by following a time of structuralism. It is characterized by new ways of thinking through structuralism, contrary to the original form.^[21] "Postmodernist" describes part of a movement; "Postmodern" places it in the period of time since the 1950s, making it a part of contemporary history.

Post modern music videos

http://mediachs.edublogs.org/13-postmodern-media/a2-5-examples-of-postmodern-film-tv-video-clips/

this website shows 5 examples of post modern music videos

post modern films

http://mubi.com/lists/postmodernism

this website give a list of post modern films

what is post modernism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

this website tell you all about post modernism and gives a good understandable definition too

Postmodern Theorists

Postmodern Theorists

Postmodernism

As an aspect of style - 'postmodernism' refers to several, now familiar, aspects of contemporary media:

 Hybridity - It is said that all distinctions between high culture and popular culture, have gone, or become blurred. Postmodern texts 'raid the image bank' which is so richly available through video and computer technologies, recycle some old movies and shows on television, the Internet etc.

Bricolage - a French word meaning 'jumble') this is used to refer to the process of adaptation or improvisation where aspects of one style are given quite different meanings when compared with stylistic features from another

Bricolage is quite a useful way of looking at certain media forms such as music videos and advertising that increasingly seem to mix together a wide range of different images that do not appear to have any connection, except that they are somehow 'modern'

Simulation - the blurring of real and ‘simulated’, especially in film and reality TV or celebrity magazines. Simulation or hyperreality refers to not only the increasing use of CGI in films like The Lord of the Rings films

intertextuality is now a familiar postmodern flourish across most moving image media and Jameson specifies pastiche and parody as belonging to a similar idea. This self-reflexive awareness of itself as a text is also termed hyperconsciousness.

Disjointed narrative structures - These are said to mimic the uncertainties and relativism of postmodernity in films

The erosion of history - in non-fiction forms such as television news; in the deliberate blurring of time in films such as Cock and Bull Story (2005) or the extravagant play with historical fact in, say, Elizabeth (1998) or Saving Private Ryan (1998) or Pearl Harbor (2001) historical facts and characters are telescoped, merged or discarded entirely.

Blurring of boundaries - It's easy to spot how boundaries between 'high' and 'low' culture have been eroded.

A society of spectacle – Postmodern media texts share a delight in surface style and superficiality, a delight in trivial rather than dominant forms from conversations about burgers in Pulp Fiction (1994) to Lindsay Lohan or Victoria Beckham appearing in Ugly Betty (2008) – and an alternative, excited, ironic tone involving scepticism about serious values.

This delight in superficiality is countered by a different postmodern approach that involves an atmosphere of decay and alienation – 'structures of feeling' that find echoes in the music of Radiohead or Aphex Twin , the films Blade Runner and Fight Club, the music videos and advertising of Chris Cunningham.

Postmodernism Theories and Texts

Lady Gaga Paparazzi - postmodern

Lady Gaga Paparazzi - postmodern

Lady Gaga Paparazzi