post-modernism?

Question

what does this mean? and in simple terms

Answer 1

Okay... I can really only answer this from an arts perspective and this is dredging up stuff I did at uni a few years ago, but I'll do my best!!

Post modernism is the period that came after modernism (obviously) and this is said to have started roughly in the 1950's.

One of the big ideas behind post modernism is that there are no longer any new or orignal ideas left in art and so existing things have to be viewed frm different angles , or recycled and played around with. For example, peices of music, which are not new compesitions, but instead pre existing music looped, played around with, used as backing for new music etc. Turning a peice of classical music into the base of a dance track would be post modern.

Post modernism is also often described as being "self aware" or self referential. For example, in a film such as Ferris Buellers Day Off at the end of the credits Ferris turns to the audience and tells them to go home. The film is aware that it is a film. Or in the Life of Brian Eric Idle tells the audience that the soundtrack can be bought in the foyer.

Films that reference others also come storingly into the post modernism band, for example, when Bill and Ted play and mine sweeper and twister with death in their Bogus Journey they are referencing the film The Seventh Seal in which a knight plays chess with Death in order to win back his life.

The Scream films are also a very good example in that they reference other of carpenter's films in a very obvious self aware way. For example, in the second one Neve Campbell's character has a Freddie style jumper haning on the back of her door.

I hope this makes sense and gives you some of the answers that you are looking for. there is a book you can get called The Beguinners Guide to Postmodernism which you should be able to get from a library and is pretty easy to read.

Ps, sorry about the spelling... I have spelling issues and the spell check won't play the game!!

Answer 2

Post-modernism is a movement which is a criticism of, or reaction to a particular style which has gone before. In philosophy it was a response to Western philosophy. We even manage to have post-post modernism. In art, it is more difficult to define.

In simple terms, it can be defined in a single word.... FASHION!!!

Answer 3

http://www.bucks.edu/~docarmos/PMnotes.html