Chapter 8: Postmodernism, indie media & Popular culture

In this blog post, I intend to examine postmodernism, indie media & Popular culture based on a discussion made with my fellow classmates. You can find the summary of the chapter here:
www.bpatricha.tumblr.com

and a further research in our Lebanese society here:

www.crazylittlethingcalledart.wordpress.com

In this chapter, the author explains that our world is not postmodern yet it’s an ongoing tension between modernity and postmodernism. Postmodernism broke through after the war and it is the phase of technology and information. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard had mentioned that with the rise of technology, images became more real than reality. Postmodernists manipulate the truth, thus we are no longer able to differentiate between reality and our visual reading of the subject.
One of the examples of postmodern works in the book, was the World park in China which is modeled after the most famous monuments in the world such as Taj mahal, the Pyramids of Egypt, Eiffel tour… 

The point of this park is to let Chinese people see the outside world without even leaving China. Throughout our discussion, one of my classmates suggested that postmodernism was not used in a positive manner in this situation, as the World park for her, seemed like a Wake up call to Chinese culture. She believes that this park is telling the Chinese population that they are still primitive and no matter what they do, there are greater things in the world. Another theory suggests that this park imprisons its visitors and is a message to Chinese citizens to stay in China and to not be open to the outer world.

There are similar example of this all around the world, such as the Dubai land which is under construction and it's a huge space representing a small world.

 

Another example is Las Vegas and its hotels which some of them are architecturally built to look like a famous monument such as Eiffel Tour & the Pyramids. For people who have never traveled and saw the original monuments, while visiting Las Vegas they will believe they are true! Postmodernism is a recreation of the original to an extent where we don't know which is real anymore.

Las Vegas Eiffel Tour Hotel (recreation of the real Eiffel Tour)

The Eiffel Tour - Paris

The Luxor Las Vegas hotel - Recreation of the Pyramids

The actual pyramids - Egypt

Reflexivity and postmodern identity:

In this paragraph, the author talks about the works of Cindy Sherman who is a photographer who took photographs using herself as a model.

The series of photos looked like still images from movies, yet they are not. They are not even a self-portrait since she was disguised in costumes and the set was designed to look like a typical Hollywood set of that time. Her photos do not produce a real moment or star, yet they evoke a particular moment or genre which was famous back in the days.

The change of identity became very famous among pop culture artists such as Madonna who appropriated different looks and styles that changed her visual identity. In postmodernism, the body can be easily changed and remodeled.

The world of images today incorporated a lot of parodies and remakes. People don’t actually care about which is the original since we can do an identical replica with today’s technology. Some of the remakes were done in The Simpsons who also incorporated ironic remakes throughout their show. In on the episodes they made a parody about the horror movie Psycho where Homer’s eye lied on the floor of the bathroom and reenacted some of the scenes.

In conclusion, this chapter focuses on the different views of postmodernism and modernism and how they have changed over the years. Due to technological advances and other forms of media, the world we live in today is changing. It is difficult to determine what exactly postmodernism is, whether it be a style, a time period, or a set of ideologies and politics.