Postmodernism and Theory - Essay Example

Postmodernism As a breakdown of the term might seem to indicate, Postmodernism is an artistic movement that followed the Modern art movement of the first half of the 20th century. This movement is characterized by an increased awareness of the constant interaction that occurs between the art, the artist and the audience. These were ideas that were considered in the past to some degree or another, but the postmodern movement, with its emphasis on illuminating the sublime, brings these ideas to the forefront. “The political and the aesthetic are inseparable, simultaneously present, faces of the postmodern problematic” (Burgin, 1982). To a large degree, postmodernism is focused on an examination of reality versus unreality, discovering in the process that there is more blurred areas between the two than there are clear distinctions. These ideas are discussed through several works including Baudrillard, Mulvey and Nochlin. Introducing the idea of the simulation, Baudrillard says that we have come to a place where the false precedes the real. In addition to discovering that the simulation no longer matches the real, Baudrillard says it has gone farther, reducing everything down to miniature and making it hyperreal, something that exists in and of itself, with little to connect it to the original. The real, in this system, has become little more than a series of signs that stand in its place. The danger with simulacra as opposed to representation is that representation starts with the idea of the real within the representation while simulation wraps around the representation and calls everything false. Disneyland is used as an example of how the imaginary happy social world contained within its gates as opposed to the isolation of the parking lot masks how the world we believe to be America is just as falsely envisioned. "It is always a question of proving the real by the imaginary; proving truth by scandal; proving the law by transgression; proving work by the strike; proving the system by crisis and capital by revolution” (10). This same concept is traced through the actions of Watergate, where the political angle revealed that there is no difference between facts and denunciation. This same sort of breakdown between what is false and what is true can be discovered in Mulvey’s article “Visual Pleasure.” Here, Mulvey uses psychoanalysis to determine how fascination of film is reinforced by pre-existing patterns of behavior and social formations, demonstrating the way in which film has been influenced by and has influenced a patriarchal society. Scopophilia, the pleasure to be had in looking, is discussed as having an objectifying effect upon the object of interest, claiming films do this unconsciously by introducing a world that exists with, yet separate from, the audience. This idea goes further than just looking, though, developing scopophilia in its narcissistic aspect, encouraging viewers to misrecognize themselves as superior projects outside of themselves based on what they see on screen. Within mainstream film, characters are set up to be the active/male who does the looking and the passive/female who exists to be looked at. This is done because female involvement on a human scale tends to interrupt the flow of the film, while cut out shots of body portions serve to objectify while allowing the male dominated action of the film to continue. Men drive the action, women decorate it. To illustrate her points, Mulvey discusses Sternberg, who works to blend the image of the woman and the space of the screen into one complete entity that is the form and focus of the spectator as accomplished by his focus on cyclical time, misunderstanding and situations rather than linear time, conflict and suspense, first. Hitchcock is discussed second, as a director who focuses on the scopophilic perspective of the male character evoking either voyeurism or fetishism on the part of the audience. Nochlin emphasizes these points in her discussion of why there are not more female artists discussed and how those female artists who did exist remained rigidly under the control of a single worldview – that of the white male patriarch. Her solutions to the question of why there were no great women artists in history examines the possibility that women artists were suppressed, the possibility that women’s art needs to be judged by a different standard than men’s art and ends up rejecting both. Instead, she argues that society itself restricted women’s art in its simple conformation. Artists generally rose up from the middle or lower classes rather than the aristocracy and women in the lower classes were obliged to work in the home all the time in order to maintain her family to the standards set. It was not conscious suppression of her creativity but nevertheless served to keep her so preoccupied that pursuits in art and other activities were generally neglected or relegated to small snippets of time insufficient to develop truly great talent. This was then reinforced by the concepts of the ‘lady painter’ as an amateur and the overall impression that women’s efforts were necessarily less than men’s, causing less effort to be expended and less ability to experiment while still finding social favor. This discussion emphasizes the way in which art, artist and audience function to define what and who might produce. Representation, whether expressed in words or images, is not a neutral or innocent activity, but rather one with profound effects on everyday lives. Although some would argue that postmodern art relies on a non-definition of societal symbols and forms to provide the ultimate expression of the sublime, the reality is that there are no forms that have not attached to themselves specific societal meanings. However, current examples within the art world demonstrate how artists have been working to redefine some of these symbols by taking advantage of the sublime to influence contemporary thought, an inexact science in itself because of the indeterminate nature of the message contained in the sublime. What is clear through postmodernism is that images change us at the same time that we change them through our various cultural, historical and societal perspectives. By challenging our ideas of specific images, these art forms become powerful tools in reshaping political and/or societal views and blurring the boundaries of what we thought we knew. Works Cited Baudrillard, Jean. “Simulacra and Simulations.” Burgin, Victor. (March, 1982). New Jersey: Humanities Press Intl. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Artists?” Read More