Dr. Rog’s statement about postmodernism being an aura, not an era is the best explanation of the term I have heard. An aura is defined as a distinctive atmosphere surrounding a given source as well as an energy field that is held to emanate from a living being. By fusing these two definitions we can easily see that postmodernism is not necessarily a frame of time, but rather a frame of mind, an environment of sorts. It’s a frame of mind with statements and ideas about the cultural and intellectual aspects of society. Postmodernism is not so much a period in time as it is a philosophy towards the world we live in.
We don’t know what it is like to live in a non-postmodern world. We grew up with cell phones, ipods, laptops, Bluetooth, credit cards etc. which make everything in society faster and more complicated. Postmodern culture has opened our eyes to see that anything is possible. From “certainty” to “indeterminacy” is related in that there are so many variables that affect every part of our life that there are so few certain truths. As Hassan said, “Postmodernism suffers from a certain ‘semantic’ instability. Things get distorted and the meaning is changed. I’m sure we’ve all played the telephone game when we were younger where one whispered statement goes around a circle of people and the meaning ends up 180 degrees from what is started as.
There are so many modes of communication that hardly anything is repeated exactly how the originator had planned. Art for example, not until recently have copies of great works of art been mass produced and distributed. There used to be only one print of the Mona Lisa and now there are probably millions of copies all over the world. Things like that lose authenticity since it can be spread so easily and then become so accessible.
1 comment:
You make some good points. You stated that Postmodernism is not a frame of time but a frame of mind and I think that is very well put. I also thought your ideas on communication and things being lost in translation was interesting, especially when you used the game of telephone as an example. Dr. Rog did say in class that Postmodernism is about retro and re-inventing things and I think you are right in saying that when we do this we lose bits and pieces of the original along the way.
-Starfish
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