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Example research essay topic: Postmodern Culture Constitutes A Crisis In Representation - 1,315 words

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... paranoia of modernism? Jameson according to Harvey, sees this as a linguistic disorder, a breakdown in the signifying chain of meaning that creates a simple sentence. When the signifying chain snaps, then we have schizophrenia in the form of a rubble of distinct and unrelated signifier's... (The Condition of Postmodernity) Are these the signifier's that postmodernism's are occupied with? The surface meanings or appearances rather than the root meanings and disappearances?

By breaking down the signifying chain are we then left with a spiral of endless present moments of fluctuating changes where nothing can be deemed anchor able? If this is so, then in our treatment of the present of which Lyotard has described as the degree zero of contemporary culture; one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonalds food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and retro clothes in Hong Kong. (A Concise Glossary of Cultural Theory) How then do we treat the past or the future? Must we see the past as mans futile quest of enlightenment and the future as a further fragmented spiral of pluralism? There seems to be little attempt to sustain continuity of values, beliefs or even disbelief's when discussing the postmodernist condition, everything seems questionable. This collapse of time and obsession with instantaneity can be traced along a firm line of cultural production. Harvey talks about the constant re-emphasis of fleeting qualities of modern life. (The Condition of Postmodernity) Thus with new technologies such as multimedia our meanings can be directed easily across the masses, decreasing the gap between popular culture and cultural production.

Although this has been continuing for some time now, Dadaism and Surrealism desperately tried to close the gap between high art / low art in search of all art to be a quest of reason. As Jameson mentioned earlier, we have covered our Arts whether low or high into pastiche, borrowing from other texts and styles across a multicultural discourse of genres until all cultures, all past, all present and even future is broken down. Popular culture is now a self-ironic eclecticism and knowing ness in any form of expression. I can now compare this to the clever and highly kitsch film, which is in contradiction of being popular although without taste, which I feel has succeeded by its immense cynicism and postmodernist questioning? Trey Parker, the creator of the adult cartoon relies on our knowledge of current fleeting events in order to use parody against the masses.

He introduces Saddam Hussein as Satan's lover, Bill Clinton as a robotic mediator, the crowds as paranoid sheep, the educators as schizophrenic, different cultures as pathetic, the Resistance as agnostic and Capitalism as our God. His humour and artwork is based on photomontage / collage , repeatedly mocking post modernist conditioning whilst integrating its supposed teachings. The main theme of the movie is based on the controversy of its existence. He plays on the parental guidance concerns with the launching of the cartoon film, since there was controversy in America about children watching South Park due to its cute artwork yet brassy content.

This clearly plays on our double crisis of fragmented discourse. South Park relies on our conditioning in which we have no truthful representation of ourselves and thus can only laugh or be outraged by its parody. Please take into its account that the parody Trey Parker uses is not concerned with the norm but the lack of norm. It is the postmodern acceptance of futility that has the masses laughing and the serious artists crying. Allan Sekula however is neither crying nor laughing but pleading and screaming at this MTV acceptance; these crises are rooted in the materially dictated inequalities of advanced capitalism and will only be resolved practically, by the struggle for an authentic socialism! (Dismantling Modernism) He describes how artists are gifted with the freedom of expression and how we must educate the working class towards a non-formalist semiotics of media. In his writings he clearly differentiates between them and us.

Them are the Capitalist, the Monopoly, the Marketers and Advertisers of the global future. He warns us that High art is rapidly becoming a specialized colony of the monopoly capitalist media. The us are those who refuse Postmodernism, its Art, its fashion, its liberal obfuscation. Yet Sekula praises Heartfield for his deconstruction of images even though Heartfield is well known as a postmodern artist as discussed before.

Is Sekula contradicting himself, I personally would not think so. My reasoning is that according to Jameson postmodernism replicates or reproduces reinforces the logic of consumer capitalism By this he refers to multinational capitalism and globalisation in which their power has very often ruined the fabric of society yet their products or services are somehow deemed necessary because of lack of competition which is a result of their monopoly. Yet if Postmodernism works as a form of mimicry then would not the critical, negative, conte story, subversive, oppositional art work in representing the resistance of that logic? Sekula although disagreeing with postmodernism is part of the oppositional mimicry of postmodernism.

This would also relate back to Foucoults power discourse theory. Sekula is screaming for an art that documents monopoly capitalism's inability to deliver the conditions of a fully human life. Although he acknowledges that a representation must occur he realizes that it would be of an insufficient condition for the transformation of society. Sekula ends in hope whilst the world continues to commodify all that is there, unfortunately that will include the movement of art and its representation of commodification. In answering the question: what is postmodernism? Lyotard discusses knowledge digressing into commodity in the same league as art, he talks of wisdom spiraling into multinational corporations and power the exploitation of knowledge itself.

Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be vaporized in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its use value. (Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism? ) Lyotard's foreseeable future seems to be closer to our present, information technology, the internet and globalisation seems to be our developed countries culture. Recently Microsoft was taken to court for monopoly of software integration, Microsoft lost however an appeal has been made, who knows how long this will last. Lyotard reasons that Nation States will be without control of multinational corporations. I will have to agree; if modernism has been deemed incomplete and art is corrupted and com modified now and in turn knowledge will closely follow, then is it not as clear as water that some rules have been forgotten and will we bother to retrieve them. Postmodernism denies itself the solace of good forms, the consensus of a taste which would make it possible to share collectively the nostalgia for the unattainable. (Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism? ) What we seek seem to be rules and those rules seem to be searched for already, we might forget and return but realization springs to mind that postmodernism is an agitated understanding of paradoxical thought and Disneyland is easier to live in.

Bibliography: Bibliography Lyotard, Jean Francois Defining the Postmodern Chapter 12 Harvey, David The Condition of Postmodernity in The Post-Modern Reader by Charles Jencks [Academy Editions 1992 ] Jameson, Frederic Postmodernism and Consumer Society from E Ann Kaplan (ed) Postmodern and its Discontents Scharf Aaron Beyond art in Art And Photography [Penguin Books 1986 ] Brooker Peter Under Postmodernism in A Concise Glossary of Cultural Theory [Oxford University Press Inc... New York] Sekula Allan Dismantling Modernism, Reinventing Documentary Notes on the Politics of Representation in Photography against the grain [Halifax 1983 ] South Park The Movie Lyotard, Jean Francois Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism? in The Post-Modern Reader by Charles Jencks [Academy Editions 1992 ]


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Research essay sample on Postmodern Culture Constitutes A Crisis In Representation

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