Postmodern Art and Culture Quiz

Chapter 6 Terms/Distinctions/Questions

• Alienation: Feeling distant from others, losing your sense of self, or feeling powerless. In Marxism, it's separation from work and relationships; in psychoanalysis, it's a split in the self where hidden thoughts and feelings drive actions without awareness.
• Citizen Journalism: Ordinary people using digital tools and social media to report events, often challenging mainstream narratives. This highlights truth, marginalized voices, and questions traditional media structures.
• Culture Industry: A concept by Adorno and Horkheimer describing how 1950s capitalism standardized culture, limiting creative choice and promoting passivity and fake individuality.
• Diaspora: Communities of a specific ethnicity, culture, or nation living outside their homeland. Diaspora studies examine their experiences with migration, displacement, and hybrid identities, focusing on memories of home.
• Frankfurt School: A group of 20th-century scholars using Marxist theory to analyze culture and society under capitalism. They opposed Enlightenment philosophy, believing reason became a tool for social control. Key figures include Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, and Habermas.
• Global Media Events: Large-scale, publicized events like political occurrences, natural disasters, or cultural spectacles broadcast worldwide. These events shape global perceptions and narratives.
• Globalization: The growing interconnectedness of the world through migration, multinational corporations, advanced communication, global trade, and declining nation-state power.
• Mass Culture/Mass Society: The culture and society of large populations, often viewed negatively. This trend emerged during industrialization and became prominent after WWII, shaping public opinion and shared experiences, though often perceived as uniform.

Chapter 7 Terms/Distinctions/Questions

• Brand: A product or company's identity that includes its name, logo, and packaging. Today, brands build deep, emotional connections with consumers via advertising and design.
• Capitalism: An economic system where private individuals and corporations own production and trade, prioritizing profit and market value.
• Commodity Culture: Goods and services are central to social life and personal identity, with status often expressed through purchases.
• Commodity Fetishism: Goods lose their production meaning (labor and origins) and gain symbolic value through advertising. Value is attached to cost and image rather than use.
• Conspicuous Consumption: People buy and use expensive goods to display wealth and social status.
• Consumer Data: Information businesses gather about consumer behavior to tailor marketing and shape brand strategies.
• Consumerism: The idea that personal happiness and economic growth are tied to buying more goods and services.
• Cultural Imperialism: One culture, often Western, dominates others via media, brands, shaping global consumption.
• Culture Jamming: An anti-consumerist movement critically examining media and consumerism, often through parody or disruption of advertisements.

Chapter 8 Terms/Distinctions/Questions

• Genre: Categorization of cultural products (e.g., movies, TV shows) based on familiar formulas and conventions to categorize and understand.
• Hyperreal: A world where simulations of reality, rather than reality, are simulated as real, often using techniques like naturalistic sound.
• Intertextuality: One text referencing elements of another (e.g., films, TV shows, celebrities) to add extra meaning. This assumes the viewer is familiar with these references.
• Irony: The intended meaning contradicts the literal meaning (e.g., opposite or contradictory meaning). Common in postmodern style.
• Master Narratives: A broad framework attempting to explain aspects of society or life, like religion, science, or Marxism.
• Polysemy: A single word or expression having multiple meanings, dependent on context.
• Postmodernism: A period of radical change in society, marked by global migration, digital technology, and the decline of traditional nation-states following the Cold War.
• Simulation/Simulacrum: A sign or image that may not have a real-life counterpart or may even precede it (e.g. virtual experiences are sometimes more engaging than realities).

Chapter 9 Terms/Distinctions/Questions

• Algorithm: A set of rules in a system to process and organize data.
• Anthropometry: The study of human body measurements.
• Cyborg: Humans enhanced with technology. This concept highlights the integration of technology into the human experience.
• Digital Body: How technology represents or alters the human body, exploring digital representations and virtual realities.
• Eugenics: The idea of improving genetics through selective breeding leading to social and ethical issues.
• Genome: The complete set of genes in an organism.
• Morphing: A computer process where one image is layered over another to create a new combined image.
• Physiognomy: The study of facial features to judge personality or character.
• Ultrasound Images: Images created using sound waves to view the inside of the body

Chapter 10 Terms/Questions

• Medical Gaze: The way doctors look at and view patients, both historically and in the age of digital and genetic technologies, often neglecting the whole person in favor of data, leading to potential depersonalization of the patient.
• Ethical Issues in Body Worlds Exhibition: Ethical concerns over consent, the dignity of the deceased, commercialization of bodies, cultural sensitivity, and the potential for desensitization to death and body.

Test your knowledge on key concepts in postmodern art and its cultural implications. This quiz covers topics such as parody, intertextuality, algorithms, and more. Challenge yourself and see how well you understand the complexities of postmodernism.