Why is Blade Runner Postmodern?

Blade Runner is set in a dystopian future, the film has a post apocalyptic sense straight away, with no sun, neon-lit streets and a cold, dark LA. Blade Runner has several features which would allow us to consider it post modern.

    Blade Runner is said to have a postmodern aesthetic, which mixes textual references and images together, the film noir voice-over is juxtaposed with the futuristic styles and images in the film, Los Angeles is shown in the future, and is a pastiche of our ideas of the West and East in this possible future.

     Baudrillard’s theory of ‘simulation and simulacra’ is also shown through the replicants in the film, who are ‘copies without originals’ and this then makes the distinction between the human and the machine unclear, which makes us as audience wonder whether humanity can be manufactured, which are the same questions asked by the postmodern philosophers about the hyperreal.

    There is also a variety of styles in the clothing and set design on the film, the film-noir styles, which is shown through Rachel and Deckard, are mixed with punk, sixties fashion and the language in the street is a mix of Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and German and a good scene to back this up is when Deckard is chasing Zhara ( the women backstage with the snake), the streets are filled with a diverse mix of punk rockers, people in uniforms and oriental headgear and there are glimpses of an advertisement for Budweiser, reminding us as audience of consumerism, which can show an example of intertextuality.

   Blade Runner is also about the compression of time and space, as we are never sure if the main character Deckard, whose job is to destroy the replicants, is human himself or not. Deckard is with a dying replicant in the final scene who delivers the line, “All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain”, and this shows that we are forced to confront the way in which the ‘modern’ world is constructed through binary opposites (human/machine) and it places ‘real-world’ concerns in a fantasy setting.

    The film quotes from different film genres throughout, as in terms of the films visuals, it quotes from ‘Metropolis’, ‘New York Skyline’ and links and makes references to science fiction comics and documentaries. These are juxtaposed against the Egyptian-like pyramids, neon-lit Chinese decorations and palaces, meaning that history and time and the difference between the two has been thrown into confusing, and there isn’t a line between them anymore, they have become one.

   This sense of confusion is shown through the characters too, who struggle to find a place to call home in the city, there is no sense of comfort and the film is constantly on edge.  Deckard feels this when he looks out across the city, a confusion that he feels at the issue of being a human, or possibly a replicant.

   The films technophobic elements highlight the fear that techinology and science have come too much of an influence on the world, and are controlling the people and their lives so much that there are now human replicants existing.

   Overall, I believe that Blade Runner is a great example of a postmodern text, with its images and sumbols and overall context, its clear to see the reference to postmodernism.

Run Lola Run

A young woman in Germany has twenty minutes to find and bring 100,000 Deutschmarks to her boyfriend before he robs a supermarket

Director: Tom Tykwer
Writer: Tom Tykwer
Stars: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu and Herbert Knaup

Storyline
Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manny. He lost 100,000 DM in a subway train that belongs to a very bad guy. Lola has 20 min to raise this amount and meet Manny. Otherwise, he will rob a store to get the money. Three different alternatives may happen depending on some minor event along Lola's run.

Release Date: 22 October 1999 (UK)
Budget: DEM 3,500,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $123,643 (USA) (18 June 1999) (12 Screens)

postmodern speech

ugh.

my webcam has decided to throw a fit, and is not working:( so ive recoreded a temporary speech on my phone but its crap really. so will be recording the proper pomo speech at the weekend when I get use to another webcam, sorry!

Speech

Sorry about how out of sync it is, dont know how to change that, and this is just a rough video reallyyy so its not the best!:) oh and for some reason the sound is really quiet so may have to turn up loud to hear!

How has the word ‘Postmodern’ been used by different theorists?

There are many different theorists who have come up with ideas and perceptions about the word ‘Postmodern’. Postmodernism is a philosophical movement away from modernism, it’s basically a reaction against this view of modernism, in all disciplines/forms, like art, film, philosophy, history etc.
Postmodernist theory grows out of and extends the modernist thinking, one of the first of these theories was by an English historian, Arnold Toynbee, 1938. He used the word ‘postmodern’ to be used as the declining influence of Christianity and the Western nations.
The second theory was by Marshall McLuhan 1960, who said the phrase ‘The medium is the message’ which means the manner in which the message is mediated becomes more important than the actual message itself. Following from this, grew the idea that theories were possible for how mediation works, how its built, how it influences audiences and how it references itself.
Another way the word has been used was by Baudrillard, who developed the ideas from McLuhan so that it was possible to deny the message underneath the medium has any substance at all, so the audience comes to perceive through the media a world that appears ‘real’ but is not. He also developed the idea of simulation and simulacra, Baudrillard said what has happened in postmodern culture is that our society has become so reliant on models and maps that we have lost all contact with the real world that preceded the map. He said there were 3 steps to simulacra 1) in the first order of simulacra, which he associates with the pre-modern period, the image is a clear counterfeit of the real; the image is recognized as just an illusion, a place marker for the real; 2) in the second order of simulacra, which Baudrillard associates with the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, the distinctions between the image and the representation begin to break down because of mass production and the proliferation of copies. Such production misrepresents and masks an underlying reality by imitating it so well, thus threatening to replace it. 3) In the third order of simulacra, which is associated with the postmodern age, we are confronted with a precession of simulacra; that is, the representation precedes and determines the real. There is no longer any distinction between reality and its representation; there is only the simulacrum.
From this idea, Baudrillard 1983 developed the idea of hyperreality, which is where reality has been replaced and that today we only experience prepared realities. He came up with points to a number of factors within the postmodern present:
• The loss of history
• Mediatzation – movies and television keeping turning to history and to ‘retro’ recreations of the past.
• Proliferation of kitsch-Our culture, according to Baudrillard, has been inundated by trashy, kitsch, mass-market products, which contribute to our society of simulation and consumerism.
• Urbanization
• Language and ideology
Another theorist was Lyotard, he rejected what he called ‘grand narratives’ or universal ‘meta-narratives’. These grand narratives are referring to the theories of history, science, religion and politics, he believes these have given structure and meaning to western civilisation has come to an end. Lyotard rejects ideas that everything is knowable by science or history. He is suggesting that we now live in an era where this adherence to particular beliefs/cultures is at an end and our lives are therefore without a direction or purpose.
Frederic Jameson was a theorist who actually rejected postmodernism, he believes it provides pastiche, humorously referencing itself to other texts and has a meaningless circle; he has a somewhat more critical view of pastiche, describing it as “blank parody”, especially with reference to the postmodern parodic practices of self-reflexivity and intertextuality. Jameson coined the phrase ‘The waning of Affect’ in relation to postmodernism.
Another ‘non-postmodern’ theorist was Talcott Parsons, who was a sociologist in the 1950’s, and he said that postmodernism rejected structure and roles which is what he believes in.
Most postmodernists would have no problem in making no particular point, but for Jameson, cultural and literacy output is much more purposeful and this then makes him a modernist in a world increasingly dominated by postmodern culture.
Jonathon Kramer was a postmodern theorist of music, he stated the idea that postmodernism is a surface style or historical period of an attitude, he also stated 16 characteristics of postmodern music, were things such as on some way it is ironic, it challenges barriers between high and low styles ect.

Postmodern%20 questions[1]

View more presentations from laurapearce.

lady gaga

• Pastiche. The video has it in spades. It references other forms of media (Tarantino, exploitation films, Thelma & Louise) left and right, while parodying none of them. This is because parody relies on an underlying normative standard, which postmodernism categorically rejects. Instead it merely shows the audience a barrage of media, almost a celebration of how clever the director is for cramming so many references into a single video.
• Consumerism. The product placement is obvious, but it is not portrayed as humorous. The camera lingers too long on each product, and the video knows it, but it still manages to avoid parody. Rather, the video uses these consumer images as an integral part of its aesthetic without any comment on their social context.
• Self-reference. The blatant product placement shows a self-awareness in the video, but this particular brand of ironic detachment harms the video’s ability to make any sort of overall message on its own. Instead it implies that celebrating consumer culture is fine as long as we’re appropriately ironic about it, but this is a largely unintended consequence of the video’s aesthetic.
• Appropriation of identity-based struggle. Lady Gaga is interesting for turning the male gaze back on men, and for portraying women as subjects rather than objects in her videos (albeit still scantily-clad subjects). However, the resistance to power on Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s part is purely individual and brief (it’s very telling that Lady Gaga is bailed out of prison rather than escaping) Behind this initial layer of feminism there is still an individuated desire to become rich, given that Lady Gaga was saved from prison by money. She maintains her glamorous image inside and outside the prison’s walls, an implicit message that “excessive materialism is empowering to women, somehow,” as Alyx Vesey observed. Therefore her kind of feminism is integrated neatly into the agenda of neoliberals, who love to talk about glass ceilings being shattered while heaping disdain on poor women. 
• Incredulity towards metanarratives. Lyotard’s famous description of the postmodern condition applies even here, as it’s difficult to find an overall message or narrative in the video. There is a sequence of events interspersed with pop culture references and product placement, but little else.

 This shot is the beginning of the music video with Lady Gaga wearing cigarette glasses which shows her rebellious side and that shes not afraid to do 'unusal' things, also representing the society we live in today.

This is a close up of Beyonce, the first time we see her.

This is after they have both poisoned the people at the cafe, Beyonce in black is typical as its the colour associated with death, and Lady Gaga is dressed in opposite to this.  

This is a close up of Lady Gaga in prison, here she looks like Madonna used to, meaning she could be trying to convey the 'pop star' image and resemble Madonna. 

This shows the poison being made.

These glasses are what lady gaga wore in a previous video after killing someone, as they are mickey mouse glasses they could be trying to twist Disney in some way, as its again associated with death and murder in this scene too.

Postmodernism

'How do postmodern texts challenge the traditional relationship between producer and audience?

have audiences become accustomed to the stimulation and excitement of spectacular films/games and a sense of spectacle has become something that (young?) audiences increasingly demand from cultural experiences?

- has narrative coherence become less important for audiences?

- in terms of ideas, has cultural material become more simplistic and superficial, and audiences are no longer so concerned with the process of understanding a text. Think here about a film like Moulin Rouge where the plot is in some sense irrelevant to the overall impact of the film.

- has the attention span of audiences reduced as they become increasingly accustomed to the spectacle-driven and episodic nature of postmodern texts

- in its ‘waning of affect’, has postmodernism contributed to audiences become emotionally detached from what they see. They are desensitised and unable to respond ‘properly’ to suffering and joy.

-      has postmodernism contributed to a feeling among audiences that arts and culture does not really have anything to tell us about our own lives and instead simply provides us with somewhere we can escape or retreat to

Postmodernism and Audience Theory

Two commentators have developed some interesting ideas about postmodernism and audiences.

Alain J.-J. Cohen has identified a new phenomenon in the history of film, the ‘hyper-spectator’. ‘Such spectator, who may have a deep knowledge of cinema, can reconfigure both the films themselves and filmic fragments into new and novel forms of both cinema and spectatorship, making use of the vastly expanded access to films arrived at through modern communications equipment and media.  The hyper-spectator is, at least potentially, the material (which here means virtual) creator of his or her hyper-cinematic experience’ (157)

‘VCRs and laserdisc-players or newer DVDs have produced, and are still producing, a Gutenberg-type of revolution in relation to the moving image.’

Anne Friedberg has argued that because we now have much control of how we watch a film (through video/dvd), and we increasingly watch film in personal spaces (the home) rather than exclusively in public places, ‘cinema and televison become readable as symptoms of a “postmodern condition”, but as contributing causes.’ In other words, we don’t just have films that are about postmodernism or reflect postmodern thinking. Films have helped contribute to the postmodern quality of life by manipulating and playing around with our conventional understanding of time and space. ‘One can literally rent another space and time when one borrows a videotape to watch on a VCR….the VCR allows man to organize a time which is not his own…a time which is somewhere else – and to capture it.’

Anne Friedberg: ‘The cinema spectator and the armchair equivalent – the home-video viewer, who commands fast forward, fast reverse, and many speeds of slow motion, who can easily switch between channels and tape; who is always to repeat, replay, and return – is a spectator lost in but also in control of time. The cultural apparatuses of television and the cinema have gradually become causes for what is now…described as the postmodern condition.’

The video opens with men marching to a militaristic rhythm, some of them having their heads covered, maybe hinting that those men are prisoners of some sort. One of men is inside a pyramidal shape while another holds a hexagram as the prisoners march
The video then cuts with a funeral procession. Gaga wears a black veil and holds the Sacred Heart, the bleeding heart of God for humanity. Something is dead inside of Gaga and it seems to be her love for Alejandro.
  In a later scene, Gaga is shown laying down, wearing a red latex nun suit and holding a rosary.
The halo around the finger is a wedding ring and Alejandro has a halo around him, which signifies he is considered “holy.” The wedding ring represents Gaga’s union with God through religion, but she is now ashamed of this marriage. She hides the ring in her bolsillo, the Spanish word for pocket.
  The concept of rejection is thus applied to God as he does not seem to satisfy Gaga’s spiritual needs. She then decides to seek godhood herself by embracing a new type of spirituality. It seems to me the nun becomes a Luciferian priestess.
  The rosary is a set of beads used in Catholic tradition for prayer and meditation. By swallowing the rosary, Gaga incorporates within her a symbol of religious devotion because 1) it is shocking and would get media attention 2) represents Gaga seeking to obtain godhood by her own means.
   Later in the video, Gaga is violently pushed around and abused by the dancers surrounding her. She surrenders and removes her robe for sexual, ritual initiation.
  Gaga wears a “gun bra,” in accordance with the agenda of the sexualization of oppressive imagery. Her back-up dancers are dressed in uniforms reminiscent of dictatorships of the era of Hitler, Stalin, Franco and Mussolini.
  

In the video, the “telephone” is a metaphor for Gaga’s brain and the fact that she is not answering that phone (her brain) means that she has “dissociated” from reality. Dissociation is the ultimate goal of Monarch mind control. It is induced by traumatizing events, such as electroshock therapy or torture, to force the victim to dissociate from reality.

  Lady Gaga is dressed similarly as Madonna, she is ‘playing’ with the idea of being a pop icon.

 She has aluminium cans for curlers, an ironic reference.

  She wears glasses made out of cigarettes, currency amongst prisoners, highlight the consumer driven culture we live in today.

 She wears barely any clothing which could reinforce our obsession with objectifying women’s bodies.  She is marking her body as a crime scene.  Crime scene tape is a very literal representation of how the greater culture is scared of the criminal female.

   The prison scenes were a metaphor for imprisoned identity

 The poisoning of the food was a way of turning something that normally provides life into something deadly.

 The murder is a metaphor for the many different ways in which people rebel against the darlings and the great symbols of American culture.

    Beyoncé and Gaga’s poisonous honey is actually their music and videos, which are served to the general public through mass media.

     Beyonce puts on the mickey mouse glasses- Mickey Mouse ears or designs often occultly refer to mind control , probably because Disney films were known to be used on MK slaves during their programming.

  Beyoncé’s black dress and the veils hint to the ritualistic nature of the murders.

Lady Gaga

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (born March 28, 1986), better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American pop singer-songwriter. After enrolling at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2003 and later performing in the rock music scene of New York City's Lower East Side, she signed with Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records. During her early time at Interscope, she worked as a songwriter for fellow label artists and captured the attention of recording artist Akon who, recognizing her vocal abilities, signed her to his own label, Kon Live Distribution.

Gaga came to prominence following the release of her debut studio album The Fame (2008), which was a critical and commercial success and achieved international popularity with the singles "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". The album reached number one on the record charts of six countries, topped the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart while simultaneously peaking at number two on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States and accomplished positions within the top ten worldwide. Achieving similar worldwide success, The Fame Monster (2009), its follow-up, produced a further three global chart-topping singles "Bad Romance", "Telephone" and "Alejandro" and allowed her to embark on her second global concert tour, The Monster Ball Tour, just months after having finished her first, The Fame Ball Tour. Her second studio album Born This Way (2011) topped the charts in all major musical markets after the arrival of its singles "Born This Way", "Judas" and "The Edge of Glory" – the first-mentioned achieved the number-one spot in countries worldwide and was the fastest-selling single in the history of iTunes, selling one million copies in five days.

Inspired by glam rock artists like David Bowie, Elton John and Queen, as well as pop singers such as Madonna and Michael Jackson, Gaga is well-recognized for her outré and ever-changing sense of style in music, in fashion, in performance and in her music videos. Her contributions to the music industry have accrued her numerous achievements including five Grammy Awards, among twelve nominations; two Guinness World Records and the estimated sale of 13–15 million albums and 40–51 million singles worldwide. Billboard named her the Artist of the Year in 2010, ranking her as the 73rd Artist of the 2000s decade Gaga has been included in Time magazine's annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world as well as being listed in a number of Forbes' annual lists.

Analysis of Rihanna's music video- only girl in the world.

This video is very surreal, it uses bright imagery which almost looks fakes and starts off with Rihanna spinning around in the wind with a colour theme of pink and red, making us as audiences feel like we are watching another world, it has positive imagery.
The video supports the lyrics of the song as she literally is in a deserted place which makes it seem she is the ' only girl in the world' and with the imagery used of the unreal places it makes it very effective- it could be said that she is like a drug and the place she is in makes it seem like she is under the influence of drugs, the camera shots used are often very sudden so the video speeds up as the song does, this again reinforces the song title, and give soft a postive effect as she looks happy and the colours are all light and feminine, alhtough the outfits Rihanna wears show her off as an artist and again her red hair stands out.
The video also seems to be ' out of control' for us audience, yet Rihanna seems to have full control in the video- when she lays down the flowers go her way and she always looks directly at the camera as it moves, as if she is directing it, showing her power and status.
The colours of the video represent lust and passion as they are mostly reds and pinks, they also make the location seem out of this world and the video has a very 'girl power' feel to it, although it contrasts the lyrics to the song as she is asking a man to make her feel like she does.
I think this video shows off Rihanna as a artist well, and gives off positive imagery as its a upbeat and fast paced song

Music video ideas

Analysis of AS coursework

Research and Planning

using media convention

Your Production experiences

Relation to real world texts

Post-production

Digital Technology

Creativity

Hello :)

Welcome to my blog, you can follow the links above to the different sections, enjoy :) xoxo

Postmodernism is a movement away from the viewpoint of modernism. More specifically it is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the problem of objective truth and inherent suspicion towards global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. It involves the belief that many, if not all, apparent realities are only social constructs, as they are subject to change inherent to time and place. It emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations; in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial. Rather, it holds realities to be plural and relative, and dependent on who the interested parties are and what their interests consist in.




Second Postmodern definition

A general and wide-ranging term which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism, among others. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.

Postmodernism is "post" because it is denies the existence of any ultimate principles, and it lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth which will explain everything for everybody - a characterisitic of the so-called "modern" mind. The paradox of the postmodern position is that, in placing all principles under the scrutiny of its skepticism, it must realize that even its own principles are not beyond questioning. As the philospher Richard Tarnas states, postmodernism "cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical overviews against which the postmodern mind has defined itself."