In this lecture we looked at the features of Post Modernism in design, from the lecture I noted these key words down for Post Modernism which I think explained the movement quite well:
- Pastiche
- Language
-Gender
- Fractured narrative
-Repetition
- Cultural discourse
-Parody
-Mirrors
-Tensions
-Rejection of binary
-Multiperspective
-Collapse of the sign
One thing we looked at was deconstruction, which is a form of literary and philosophical analysis and aims to show how truth and meaning are always unstable and contingent. It questions logocentrism - the privileged category within a text/work which suggest a 'truth'. Truth is leased language and language is not a fixed system but 'free-play' of signifiers.
We also looked at how deconstructivist typography was popular in the 1990's and also self-referentiality - making transparent the reason that design happens.
Also, we covered Jean Baudrillard - Simulacra and Simulation and the idea of 'Hyper reality' an example being the Disneyland theme park which is visual reality, the houses look real, but then at the same not real, and there is a questioning of what is real and what is a phantasm. We also looked at 'Plato's Cave', an idea posed by the philosopher Plato about prisoners who only ever see shadows of the real world, so the shadows are their reality, not the real 'real world' things making the shadows. The shadows are the simulacrum.
In the seminar following this we watched a clip from the film Avatar and the Matrix linking to the theme of 'augmented reality' and were asked to consider in the Avatar all the features which show the idea of simulation and hyper reality. These features could place Avatar on the 'Uncanny Valley' graph as it is sort of 'real beyond real' so real the reality is questioned like the Disneyland example.
