Postmodernism

“The artist gazes upon a reality and creates his own impression.

The viewer gazes upon the impression and creates his own reality.” - (Brault, R., 2010)

Postmodernism is obviously a movement which came after and stemmed from it's predecessor, modernism. Postmodernism saw that apparent realities are only social constructs, subject to change with time and place and had a large emphasis on the roles of language, power relations and motivations in today's world. Another big part of postmodernism is their challenges of categorising, for example race, ethnicity, sex, sexuality, gender etc. A good example of somewhat challenging this is the singer, actress and model Grace Jones who burst on to the scene in the 1970s with her androgynous style combining with her supermodel appearance - a combination of masculine and feminine.

Another interesting element of postmodernism is how heavily it uses surfaces and signs in it's which can be applied to many other areas. For example the singer Madonna is known for her many transformations over the years from disco diva to goth to classical beauty, all of which she has used postmodernist thinking to create; taking elements of the past to apply to a new genre of music to a new audience to completely something totally new.

Grace Jones (left) and Madonne (right) have both used postmodern thinking to
 further their careers.

The postmodernists aimed for many targets through their work which included questioning the general narrative, creating distinctive characteristics, the inclusion of social and political commentary, disconnected use of typography and also used pastiches in their work where they would reference styles of the past and recreate them in their "new" style. This obviously shows that postmodernism is not at all closely associated with the Futurist movement as they embrace historical design and appreciate it within their own style of working through obvious reference and recreation.

A multi-disciplinary area, Postmodernism regularly mixed their media and focused heavily on narrative in their work. A 'grand narrative' was always something that they would challenge, as a famous quote by Barthes shows their thinking and idea process:

"The birth of the reader must come from the death of the author"

View of the smashed windows in the poverty-stricken
Pruit-Igoe development.

An even which can be credited as starting the postmodernist movement or perhaps planted the seeds for a change in direction is Pruit Igoe, once a large urban housing area of blocks of flats and apartments in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, USA in 1954. The properties were created to be a sustainable and "new" way of housing that would see masses of people able to live in single accommodation in shared buildings (what was deemed as a very 'modernist' way of thinking). Not so long after it was built, the project fell into decay with gang crime, poverty and other negative factors which led to the demolition of the buildings in 1972, just eighteen years after it was built. This showed to many designers how the old 'modern' system of thinking and creating ideas was flawed and signaled for the new postmodernist era to begin.

The legacy of Pruit-Igoe showed how there was a sociological "clash" in cultures, possibly high culture and low culture which is what many postmodern art or design is based on, the meeting of two seperate ideas which are usually associated yet come together to create something totally new and "postmodern".

I find postmodernism a fascinating blend of old and new and how they can see originality in previously done tasks, pulling them apart and repackaging them with new elements to create something totally unknown yet somewhat honouring those who have gone before.