CMST 2TM6 Lecture 15: Postmodern Theory
16 Jan 2019
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Document Summary
Social, economic, political, technological developments, characterizing transition from modern to postmodern way of life. Pop art, culture, media replacing elitism of high modernism. Shift in thought about how to deal with reality. Human freedom comes from breaking the bonds of existing ways of thinking, which are usually ideological. So freedom comes in making your own meaning. This requires you to actively create new meanings. Breakdown of distinction - high and popular culture. Influenced by marx, freud, ff school, foucault, mcluhan, nietzsche, etc. Signs imitate real things -> reality is constructed through representation - e/g. , map, painting. Signs refer to signs which imitate real things -> 1st order representation reproduced by mechanical tech (photograph, film) Signs no longer represent real things, mask absence of reality) -> no connection between reality and representation = simulacra, hyperreality. Media is a huge part of this =- media conceal processes of simulation, distorting real vs simulation = the ecstasy of communication.
