postmodern unpacked
DESCRIPTION
This presenation was used to introduce staff and students to the Postmodern movement at St Stithians College, Randburg. Authors Andrew Moore and Piers CruickshanksTRANSCRIPT
A Knight’s TaleDirector: Brian Helgeland
(Columbia 2001)
We Will Rock You
Postmodernism
?
IntentA Knights Tale: MovieFatboy Slim: MusicPeter Blake: ArtVenturi: Las VegasMadonna: PhilosophyMatrix: PhilospohyRobbie Williams and Mona Lisa: ?
er … so what is …
• Post-War Modernism responded to new urban issues
• Problems with slums & overcrowding
• Need for architect as authority to …
… design a ‘machine for living’
• Good design would lead to good living
1945-52
Unite de Habitation – Marseille
Le Corbusier
‘MACINE FOR LIVING’
1954-8
Seagram Building – New York
Mies van der Rohe / Johnson
St Georges Hotel – Cape Town
‘Form Follows Function’
• The function of a building should determine its shape.
‘Less is More’
• No Decoration
Integrity of Materials
• Nothing must masquerade as something else
Exposed Metal & Glass – No Plaster
No Outward Decoration – Less is MoreRepetition of Mass Produced Units
Office space expensive in CBD hence tall structure – Form follows function
Architecture
15h32 – 15/07/72
PRUITT -IGOE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT
St. Louis
PUBLIC SERVICES BUILDING- PORTLAND
Modern Technology but …
Decorations & Colour
Retrospective References
- Art Deco
- Egyptian
GRAVES
RetrospectiveHistoricist
…but skewed proportions
Romanesque Arches
Greek Columns
VENTURI
AT & T BUILDING
New York
Chippendale Cabinet
Grand Father Clock
JOHNSON
VernacularFamiliarity
Common Vocabulary
Window that is not a window!
Window that is a window
‘Double Coded’
Vernacular
Disney World is nearer to what people want than what Architects have ever given them. Disney Land is the symbolic American Utopia
- Robert Venturi
Familiarity
Common Vocabulary
FEDSURE OFFICE CLUSTER
Cape Town
Rolls Royce Engine Grill?
RCI OFFICES
Belville
Classical Architectural Style
Acropolis Ruins - Greek Holidays
Modern Glass Facade
Irony‘Loss of innocence’
‘Intelligent audience’Umberto
Eco
U2
Song Writers
Musicians
‘Play their own music’
Play within a recognizable ‘Rock?’ style
Music
The Story of OVO
Peter Gabriel
References to other cultures Mixed in a western format
Pluralist
Mixture of styles
Eclectic
Barcelona
Freddie Mercury &
Caballe Monserrat
Lyrically – Synthesis of High and Popular culture
Marriage of high & pop culture
Progressive & retrospective
High & Pop - Lyrically - Barcelona
Because We Can
Fatboy Slim
Retrospective – Can CanCreative Process – LoopsCreative Process - MixVocals?
Bitter Sweet Symphony
The Verve
Musically – Mixture of StylesElectronic & Classical
Mixture of styles - Musically - Bittersweet Symphony
Mixtures- Historically – Because You Can
Sampling- Process –Sound Bytes
Linear
Plot
Genre Based• Westerns
• War
• Horror
• Action
Time Frame Authenticity
Film
Brian Helgeland
Baz Luhrman
A Knight’s TaleDirector: Brian Helgeland
(Columbia 2001)
Medieval Setting
21st Century Sensibility
A Knight’s TaleDirector: Brian Helgeland
(Columbia 2001)
Church vs Beauty & Materialism
Moulin RougeDirector: Baz Luhrmann
(20th Century Fox 2001)
Paris 1899
20th Musical Setting
(1960’s – 2001)
21st Sensibilities
Moulin RougeDirector: Baz Luhrmann
(20th Century Fox 2001)
Elephant love song
Moulin RougeDirector: Baz Luhrmann
(20th Century Fox 2001)
Gun Scene
Art
Roy Lichtenstein
Pablo Picasso
Jackson Pollock
Roy Lichtenstein
Erased De Kooning drawing
Rauchenberg
Rauschenberg
Peter Blake
TheoryJean Francois Lyotard
Jean Baudrillard
Michel Foucault
Fredric Jameson
Jacques Derrida
Deleuze & Guattari
Roland Barthes
Julia Kristava
Theory
Jean Baudrillard
Postmodern Issue No. 1
Can signs & images that originally represented reality exist independently?
BAUDRILLARD The 4 Phases of an Image
• The image/sign is a reflection of basic reality
• The image/sign masks or perverts a basic reality
• The image/sign marks the absence of a basic reality
• The image/sign bears no relation to any reality. It exists as a postmodern ‘simulacrum’
Simulacra?Copies of real objects
’Death of the Real!’
Modonna
Postmodern Issue No. 2
So what is reality?
There are in fact multiple realities
Parallel realities
Postmodern Issue No. 3
So what is real?
The MatrixLarry & Andrew Wachowski
(Warner Brothers 1999)
Future Dystopia
Reality vs. ‘The Matrix’ Simulation
Remember … The PM Question – ‘What is Real?’
NeuromancerWilliam Gibson
(Victor Gollancz 1984)
Cyberpunk Science Fiction
Cyberspace: The Internet
as geographical space
Cyborgs – Human/Machines
Manipulation?
9/11, the Afghanistan & Gulf WarsCNN Television Network
Mediated Reality
9/11, the Afghanistan & Gulf WarsCNN Television Network
Mediated Reality
“When the real is so systematically mediated through codes, images and models it becomes not unreal or surreal, a myth or a fantasy, but hyperreal, that is a reality that is produced from miniaturized units, from matrices, from memory banks and command modules.”
Simulacra
‘Mediated reality’
Cyberspace- Cyberia
- Cyber war
- Cyber Sex
Hyper Reality
The MatrixLarry & Andrew Wachowski
(Warner Brothers 1999)
The Matrix explained
Hyper Reality
A window that is not a window
A song that is really a sound byte
A Madonna that’s no virgin
Brands that are more powerful than product
Monism--Pluralism
Elitist--Populist
Purposeful--Playful
Progressive--Retro
Serious--Ironic
Simplicity--Elaboration
Newtonian--Chaos
What now?Movies-Blade Runner (Ridley Scott 1982)
-Pulp Fiction (Quintin Tarrentino 1992)
-Malholland Drive (David Lynch 2001)
-Shrek (2001)
-Adaptation (2002)Philosophy- J Lyotard: The PostModern Condition: A Report on
Knowledge (1984)
- C Jencks: What is Postmodernism? (1986)
- M Foucault: Discipline and Punish (1972)
Novels- S Coupland: Generation X (1996)- John Fowles: The French Lieutenant’s Women (1969)- K Vonnegut: Slaughter House 5 (1969)- I Calvino: If On A Winters Night (1986) - S Rushdie: Satanic Verses & Midnights Children (1981)- J M Coetzee: Foe (1986)- T Pynchon: Gravities Rainbow (1973)- McEwan: Atonement
Robbie & Mona?
The beginning …..