Late Capitalism and Cultural Eclecticism

Late Postmodernism

• Capitalism expanded its influence after WWII, entering a new phase called "late capitalism" or "post-industrial capitalism".
• Globalization of consumerism is a key result of this phase.

Cultural Eclecticism

• People blend cultural elements freely in today's globalized world.
• Examples include listening to reggae, watching western films, eating McDonald's and local cuisine, wearing Parisian perfume in Tokyo, and retro clothes in Hong Kong.

Technology's Role

• Technology is a major driver in late capitalism.
• Multinational companies prioritize information in marketing, research, and production as their most important resource.
• Society is saturated with high-tech advancements like medical supplies, weaponry, surveillance tools, and consumer goods like phones and computers.
• Mass-produced images, advertisements, and experiences are cheaper than physical products and are distributed through technology. Technologies like computers, TVs, and digital music are used in their distribution.

Effects of Postmodern Society

• Alienation from Reality: People are detached from what feels genuine or real in a media-saturated society. While work remains real, it's not as tangible as farming or shipbuilding. The majority of work is done on computers with information rather than physical interaction.

Virtual Living

• Entertainment/leisure time mostly involves consuming media, simulations or virtual worlds. This results in a sense that life is more virtual and representative rather than real.

Virtual Reality in Everyday Life

• Virtual reality is often experienced through special gear.
• Virtual reality as a daily experience of life is part of our current realities (e.g. using TV, reality shows or internet chatrooms, emails, interacting with celebrities).

A New Era

• Baudrillard believes history has transitioned from representing symbolic structures to constantly exchanging signs, lacking true meaning.

Simulation

• Baudrillard calls this process "simulation". We often experience something virtually before experiencing it physically in today's world.

What is Simulation?

• Simulation is interacting with representations rather than the physical objects or situations.

Examples of Simulation

• Maps (Google Maps) allows exploration before visiting a location (pre-conceived notions).
• Reality TV shows are presented as real, unscripted, but constant observation creates an artificial environment.
• Canned laughter, vintage items, celebrity culture, online dating (often beginning with fabricated profiles), and pornography as examples of simulated experiences rather than real experiences.
• War as representation highlighting that war and its portrayal are inseparable.

What is Postmodernism?

• The term is derived from modernism and shows its connection and opposition to it.
• Originated in the late 1950s, it became a broader critique of modernism rather than a clear philosophy.
• Developed further in the 1960s for application in literature, architecture, dance, theatre, painting, film and music.

Postmodernism's Main Idea

• It critiques and rejects modernism's goals of progress via knowledge, art, technology and freedom.
• Sceptical of the concept of creating a better society without recognizing past failures.
• Challenges the myths of progress in art, culture, and philosophy.

Key Characteristics of Postmodernism

• Blurs boundaries between art and everyday life; high and popular/mass culture
• Eclecticism combining multiple styles, codes, and genres
• Playfulness and irony, focusing more on surface appearances than depth
• Challenges the idea of originality in art. Suggesting all art is repetitive and built upon previous art.
• The belief that distinctions between types of art are blurred.

Postmodernism in Music

• A focus on four-chord use in popular songs, emphasizing the concept of repetition rather than originality.

Artistic Genius and Eclecticism

• Traditional ideas of art as original creation and artists as geniuses are challenged.
• Postmodernism views cultures as a blend of existing styles and periods, blurring boundaries between serious/classical and popular/commercial art.

Recycling and Eclecticism

• Memes as examples of postmodern recycling, using and modifying existing ideas.

Postmodernism in Music

• Max Martin: A prolific songwriter who uses formulas and familiar patterns to create popular music.
• Trailer music that relies on reused sounds for emotional impact.

The Performance: Marina Abramovic's Rhythm 0

• A performance art piece that involved audience participation.
• Involved viewers performing actions (e.g. giving objects or doing actions like hitting with a knife). Giving the audience the control over the performance rather than the artist.

Postmodernism Characteristics

• Key features of postmodernism are irony, parody, appropriation.
• Andy Warhol's art embraced mass production and consumer culture.
• Postmodernism's art in music, literature and in popular culture reflects a blending of multiple styles and themes.

Postmodernism in Literature

• A new sensibility emerged in the 1960s challenging or adapting modernist techniques in literature.
• Postmodernism influenced various fields like social theory, media studies, visual arts, philosophy and history

Postmodern and Historical Fiction

• Postmodernist historical fiction challenges realism.
• Recognises historical fiction as constructed rather than a reflection of the past, highlighting the influence of interpretation.
• Combines in depth study of history with an entertaining narrative structure.

Key Features of Postmodern Texts

• Self-Reflexivity: Texts acknowledging their construction.
• Critique of Realism: Questioning traditional storytelling.
• Focus on Reading Process: Highlighting reader interpretation.

Fictionality

• Fictionality is that stories are constructions, not direct representations of reality but presented through someone's perspective
• Postmodern writers contrast the fictional world with the real world.

Irony and Double Meaning

• Awareness that "reality" is something constructed and shaped by factors (capitalism and media influence).
• Postmodernism uses irony to express this awareness. Irony presents a situation where the actual meaning is the opposite of what is expressed.
• Language in postmodern writing is flexible and can shift meaning.

Metafiction

• Metafiction highlights its own nature as fiction.
• It directly addresses the reader by creating awareness that the story is not real, but rather created.

Realism

• Realism in literature, art, and film seeks to create a relatable and plausible world, simulating real life.
• Mimics the aspects of the real world.
• Attempts to give a precise representation of life and its detail, not a fantasy.

Modernism

• Focus on personal experience and subjectivity, rather than objectivity.

Stream of Consciousness

• This writing technique presents a character's thoughts directly.
• Bypasses traditional narration. Presents internal thoughts and perspectives directly to allow the reader to be immersed in the character's mind.

Suspicion of Realism in Postmodernism

• Postmodernism challenges realism.
• Postmodern fiction acknowledges the constructed nature of the world.
• Postmodern writers often show how reality and fiction blur.