Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-post-postmodernism

In this seminar, we discussed and critically analysed the postmodern, both in its artistic and its philosophical forms, and how postmodernity sprung from roots in modernity and the modernist movement. These notes form a record of the learning from that seminar.

In discussing artistic postmodernism, it was important to consider the influence of modernism on this subsequent form. Modernism was typified by the industrial revolution – a feeling of ‘heading towards the future’, and the idea of the ‘grand narrative’ was integral to this: the idea that there was an ultimate direction for each of us, guided by the forward march of change and a look to the future influenced by technological and industrial advancement. This modernism was seeded in the mid-to-late 19th century. Artistic modernism influenced the idea of ‘form follows function’ – for instance, in the architecturally modernist ideal that “buildings should be machines for living in”, a saying attributed to Swiss architect Le Corbusier (Open University, 2001). Modernist painters were drawn to pure form and colour, and abstractions, which were intended to achive an ultimate truth and echo a sense of grand narrative – for instance, the works of Piet Mondrian featured clean blocks of colour dissected by bold black lines, a form-based expression with clear focus on rigour and technique which attempted to capture an artistic purity inkeeping with the idea of uncomplicated grand narrative and collective direction towards an idealistic future.

Mondrian, Piet (1939-43) ‘Trafalgar Square’. Available from: http://www.piet-mondrian.org/trafalgar-square.jsp.

This sense of grand narrative and ultimate direction was fractured by the sudden jolt of realism which came in the shape of the First World War, and this fracture was the natural precursor to artistic postmodernism, which rejected the desire for forward advancement and guiding grand narratives which characterised modernism. Postmodernism did not possess the same concern with progression, but was instead an “eclectic return to possibilities thrown up by the history of art and literature” (Fry,  2009), a recapturing and reappropriation of forms declared obsolete by modernism – a deliberate artistic look to the past rather than to the future.

Postmodern art resisted the art market by producing works which focussed on process rather than a commodifiable end product. John Cage’s work 4’33 (1952) is a prime example of such postmodern work: a musical work made up of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence from the orchestra, wherein the ‘music’ of the piece is formed from the sounds of its audience. Shuffling and sniffling became the music of the piece, turning its focus upon the audience’s presence and their act of consumption of the artistic work. Cage called his work “an exploration of non-intention” (Cage, in Kostelanetz, 1993, 241). It is this focus on the process of the making, framing and consumption of artistic works which is an artistic manifestation of postmodernism.

John Cage’s 4’33 as performed in 2013 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Lawrence Foster live at the Barbican. (BBC, 2013)

We also discussed postmodernism in its philosophical sense, in which postmodernism constitutes a doubt about the relationship between parts and wholes, which introduces an element of doubt into epistomelogical certainty: the idea that “how do I know that I know what I know?” The message from the seminar which had the most notable impact on my understanding was our lecturer’s (Dr Andrew Westerside) point: how can I know my arm is a part of the whole of my body, when it is a whole in itself in relation to my hand? We continued to discuss this idea in relation to national flags, for instance in the German flag, each strip could be considered a ‘whole’ in itself, part of the whole of the flag, or part of the whole of the ‘field of blackness’, ‘field of redness’ and so forth; that is, one part of the whole of another symbolic register, such as the symbolism of particular colours. We discussed the privileging of sight in the interpretation of artworks, and that our sight can also emphasise this doubt in the relationship between parts and wholes: that an item when held close to the eye is a whole, but when held away becomes a part of a wider subjective viewpoint as well as a whole in itself, destabilising the idea of the whole. This comes back to the postmodern rejection of the idea of grand narratives – that if we cannot be certain of what is a whole and what is a part, how can we possibly made statements about truth and other similar grand narratives?

I will try to return to continue some other thoughts on philosophical postmodernism in another post, as it is a particularly interesting theory and one which I believe is inherently valuable to artistic discourse. However, for now, this post is a useful record of the initial ideas and discussions around the artistic and philosophical postmodern which we began in the seminar.

Works cited

BBC (2013) 4’33” by John Cage – John Cage Live at the Barbican – BBC Four Collections. Available from: https://youtu.be/yoAbXwr3qkg [Accessed 12 October 2015].

Fry, P. (2009) The Postmodern Psyche lecture transcript. Open Yale. Available from: http://oyc.yale.edu/transcript/465/engl-300 [Accessed 12 October 2015].

Kostelanetz, R. (ed.)(1993) John Cage: Writer. New York: Limelight.

Open University (2001) Le Corbusier. Available from: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/heritage/le-corbusier [Accessed 12 October 2015].