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Postmodernism: Deconstructed past questions.

Task 1:

Previous postmodernism questions: Deconstructed…

Q: What is meant by ‘postmodern media?’

·         The topic: Postmodernism.

·         The aspect: Postmodern media.

·         Instruction: Define and explain how and why the used examples of media texts are postmodern.

·         Viewpoint: That certain qualities of a media text make it postmodern.  

Q: Why are some media products described as ‘postmodern’?

·         The topic: Postmodernism.

·         The aspect: Postmodern media.

·         Instruction: Define and explain how and why the used examples of media texts are postmodern.

·         Viewpoint: That postmodernism is becoming increasingly significant in media.

Q: Explain how certain kinds of media can be defined as postmodern.

·         The topic: Postmodernism.

·         The aspect: Postmodern media.

·         Instruction: Define and explain how and why the used examples of media texts are postmodern.

·         Viewpoint: That postmodernism is becoming increasingly significant in certain areas of media.

Q: Explain why the idea of ‘postmodern media’ might be considered controversial.

·         The topic: Postmodernism.

·         The aspect: Postmodern media.

·         Instruction: Define and explain how and why the used examples of media texts are controversial.

·         Viewpoint: That postmodernism is damaging the quality of production in the media. (Jameson argues that postmodernism and postmodern media is pointless and trapped in circular references)

Q: “Postmodern media blur the boundary between reality and representation.” Discuss this idea with reference to media texts that you have studied.

·         The topic: Postmodernism.

·         The aspect: Postmodern media.

·         Instruction: Use examples of postmodern media to explain how and why they blur the boundary between both representation and reality. (Refer to the idea that modernism is about ‘purpose’ and postmodernism is about ‘play.’)

·         Viewpoint: Postmodernism in media has decreased the separation between reality and representation.

Q: Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of postmodern media.

·         The topic: Postmodernism.

·         The aspect: Postmodern media.

·         Instruction: Define and explain how media texts which are controversial such as Hobo with a shotgun and Scott Pilgrim hinder the idea in the people that postmodern media is not a legitimate ideology. (Refer to the complaints of Jameson)

·         Viewpoint: People generally possess disbelief in the idea of postmodern media being a genuine and significant idea associated with media.

Jon Kramer's music theory: examples.

Song: Gangnam style.

·         This song is ironic due to its success despite the tune and lyrics possessing mediocre quality. It is still the most watched YouTube video.

·         It challenges barriers as it status as a successful worldwide MV is exceptionally high despite its low quality of production in contrast to other mainstream music.

·         It questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist values. Since the video is supposedly intended to be bad, at least arguably, its presence as mainstream music argues against other elitist high production, high quality no. 1 singles.

·         Music is considered relevant to the social context of women as objects of the male gaze. Hence the ‘sexy lady’ lines in English.

·         The music embraces contradictions as it is some fat, short, unattractive man starring as the main image in the video, yet despite subverting a media convention, it works.

·         It distrusts binary oppositions by disregarding the fact that a short, fat middle aged man is trying to dance around and hit on sexy ladies.

·         It encompasses pluralism quite literally by having a lot of people in the video serving different performance or narrative purposes.

Song: Dan Black’s Symphonies.

·         It is ironic as it uses intertextuality and bricolage to progress the narrative with new meaning evolved from previous texts. Despite its unoriginality, the lyrics praise the creation of the song itself.

·         It does not respect the procedures of the past as it is a pastiche of various media texts, blatantly ripping them off to progress its own narrative forward.

·         Questions exclusive elitist and populist values by using texts of such famous prestige and creates a pastiche/parody of these uses of bricolage. It questions what makes these media texts so great to most cultures and demographic groups by mocking them.

·         Music is relevant to the western culture as it takes various classic texts from it to create a pastiche which they should recognise and read.

·         Considers and uses the technology used from media filmography to create the effects required to make an effective postmodern pastiche video.

·         Includes discontinuities by suddenly having the protagonist of the music video appear in different locations sometimes without even any transition. Just to create bricolage.

·         Encompasses pluralism by using bricolage to create new meanings from previous texts to create a pastiche or parody and develop different readings from the audience.

·         Presents multiple meanings regarding the uses of bricolage. Maybe it is a pastiche, or a parody. Arguably, it might even be a homage.

Song: Kanye West’s Gold Digga.

·         It is a repudiation of modernism by containing an extension from a previous media text; I got a woman by Ray Charles. This was also an extension from It must be Jesus.

·         It is ironic because the song contains a subject regarding a woman using the male artist for his money. Its predecessor, however, praises the idea of a man having a woman.

·         Does not respect procedures of the past by containing the same soundtrack as I got a woman and it must be Jesus despite the soundtrack already being established with those songs.

·         Sows disdain for unquestioned structural unity by presenting the message to its audience that females are evil, manipulative, thieves. This argues against feminist ideals.

·         Relevant to the political issues regarding feminism and political and social equality currently praised and supported by the political system.
-          Embraces the contradiction that other music videos and media are postmodern and take references from previous texts, while being this itself.
-          Includes discontinuities because the character/protagonist just moves from location to location with little or no inclusion of visual transition.
-          It locates meaning from its listeners.

Why Ted is postmodern:

Ted is postmodern for a number of reasons:
* It is making the audience develop an emotional attachment to a stuffed teddy bear which is not really alive and could not exist in reality.
* It deconstructs the themes of 'children's wish' stories such as A Christmas Carol and makes the audience come to the realisation that these themes and events are not realistic. In reality, these events do not happen to people in the way these children's wish stories imply. Hence the teddy bear growing up into a pot smoking casanova.
* It develops cynicism into the audience by showing them a more relatively 'realistic' view of how one of these stories would likely occur. It shows us the negativity behind the unrealistic narrative portrayed in modern fiction, and just like the effects theory implies, makes us more cynical people who demand to be in on the joke.
* In the uncut DVD of Ted, extra footage that was left out the original DVD was being included as a bonus to promote capitalist ideals by having gullible audiences purchase the DVD for the purpose of watching extra unseen footage with a CGI bear on a talk show. The bear not being real when the footage was taken and when broadcast on TV, Jimmy Kimmel was talking to a sound, also contributes to how this use of extra bonus footage is PoMo because audiences are paying to see footage of an interaction that does not exist between a teddy bear and a talk show host. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IuzzA3046C8)
* Ted, despite being just a sound when the actual footage was taken, appeared at and presented the oscars. The actual event witnessed mark Walberg speak with nothing and a sound being generated through equipment. Yet when shown on TV or on DVD, the footage contains CGI so that Ted can become visually present at the event. In this respect, Ted is as alive as Mark or any of the other 'real life' celebrities at the event. The inclusion of Tupac and other dead celebrities being brought into the oscars further extends this by having the dead be as alive as the alive themselves. (http://youtu.be/ztyqsRX_64M)
* Ted deconstructs media conventions from the genres of comedy (the use of jokes), fantasy (the intro at the beginning resembling a children's story book opening), romance (by using a binary opposte between romance and bromance to form a hybrid between the romance and comedy genres) and action (the chase scene at the end) to create new meanings and defy the meanings of traditional conventions by replacing them with cynical, circular, intellectual references and bricolage.

Postmodernism practice tasks:

Postmodernism revision tasks by JackKerryASMedia

Modernism vs postmodernism:

Modernism vs Postmodernsim by JackKerryASMedia

Bricolage:

In lesson, task was to use material from the texts I have learned thus far to create a new meaning.

I used the Hobo with a shotgun poster, added a pitcure of Brad Pitt in his Inglorious basterds attire using Photoshop elements. Other features I added include:

- The amalgamation of the Basterds title, made the title of this poster 'Basterd with a shotgun.'
- The impossible staircase used in the movie Inception.
- The spinning top is in the top left in the background, also from the movie Inception.

So using this material, I have transformed a poster about a movie with a hobo with a shotgun, intended to be poorly produced, into a Brad Pitt on a rampage narrative movie with a lot of impossible twists and elements featured.

Music video: Media language.

How is media language used in my music video text in order to create representation?

A media text = a sum of its many parts.

My music video contains a lot of micro elements within it such as mise-en-scene, camerawork, etc…

Notes of my music video:

My music video utilizes mise-en-scene to create a representation regarding the characters within the narrative. For instance, the costumes of the characters in the video help to represent their personalities, and this in turn creates a series of different readings that the audience can perceive from the messages conveyed in the metanarratives of this video.

My music video uses camerawork and its 4 significant aspects also, another example of my media text using various micro elements to apply representation. For example, the single, front angle shot throughout the entire video easily establishes a source of continuity, disregarding the incorrect time manipulation added into the narrative. The shot shows a chain of events which take place in that same location filmed in the camera shot. This chain of events establishes an evolution of the narrative involved of a relationship between the 2 characters. The shot helps to represent the plot and thereby enables messages to be generated towards the audience.

The lighting is an effect that affects the entire video visually. When in the editing stage, I added a lighting effect to the footage to make the video gradually become darker as the narrative also becomes more negative. This use of lighting portrays the downfall of the equilibrium and the negativity of the ruined relationship visually as darkness surrounds the event quite literally as a result of the lighting technique in this video.

Besides the lighting technique, not a lot of editing or special effects were required for the production of my music video. The one shot video was rather simple and easy to produce.

There are some theorists of media language also. Charles Sanders Pierce was one of them. Charles Pierce stated signs only represent anything when society attributes meaning to them. Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as ‘signifying’ something. This is a semiotic study and one that can be applied to my music video. For instance, the sign that the female character is the nice, caring one is only applied if the audience interprets her cuddles, meal offering and emotional reactions as a sign of her concern and love for her partner. If the audience takes an alternate reading to this preferred one, then the sign put in place in the narrative to make the audience sympathise with the character is non-existent. If this sign is applied to the narrative of the music video, it would be an iconic type of sign. 

Group work: Task 2.

Group work: Task 1.

Grumpy cat meme video:

Top 10 itunes song shuffle task:

Postmodern music presentation: Soulwax.

Inglorious Basterds: Intertextuality presentation.

Music video narrative theory:

Narrative Theory in My Music Video by JackKerryASMedia

Various terms of Postmodernism in media:

Pastiche: A form of insulting or making a humourous rip-off of another media text. (Taking the p**s.)
E.g. Hobo with a shot gun is a pastiche of various old 1980's action movies.
E.g. Spaceballs and Robot chicken towards primarily the Star Wars franchise.
E.g. The One direction song about the members being gay.
E.g. Maybe Paul was this to E.T.

Homage: A more serious form of using features from another media text. Sometimes a tribute or show of respect for this text.
E.g. Inglorious basterds to war films, despite none of its features (music or text) being very fitting.
E.g. Arguably, Percy Jackson to Harry Potter.
E.g. Gold Digga to I got a woman to It must be jesus in music. Each song seems to have serious sentiment behind it, while paying tribute to a previous great song of a past generation.

Pathos: Where a media text is effective in achieving what its aim is...
E.g. Inglorious basterds is this, despite its clear mis-use of correct music or text.

Bathos: Where a media text is intentionally bad...
E.g. Hobo with a shotgun. (A copy of a copy of a copy of something that never existed to begin with. Designed to be bad in every way.)

Creativity practice question 2:

media creativity question by JackKerryASMedia

Creativity practice question 1:

Here is my first essay practice based on creativity. Apologies for lack of neat writing. I timed myself and had to write fast. Also, I accidentally scanned the last page twice. Just ignore that.

media creativity question by JackKerryASMedia

Postmodernism: Lesson 3.

What have I learned?

Levi Strauss considers 4 things when you might create something:

-          Addition.

-          Deletion.

-          Subtraction.

-          Transformation.

Also:

Some examples of how music bands stolen from various other media sources. An example of this would be the group Daft Punk from France which stolen from various other media texts, including some classic music videos of other genres, as well as cartoons from the 1970’s which contained a similar standard of art design.

A short written exercise we did was where we considered the main elements of the concept of postmodernism such as the illogical equation of '5 + 5 = 1' and we tried to determine what postmodernism was in short...

Postmodernism: Lesson 2.

This lesson, we focused on how postmodernism was formed, including the rise of postmodernism among people when they became too aware of their ruthless efficiency to kill. The following piece of paper shows notes I taken while learning about the infamous reaction to modernism...

Coffee

Postmodernism: Lesson 1.

What we learned:

Intertextuality: Where a media text uses a feature from another media text to create a new layer of meaning.

E.g. Apocalypse Now uses the Vagner song from Birth of a nation to create a hidden meaning of racism.

Bricolage: Where a media text uses a referentiality taken from another media text to create a new meaning.

E.g. British gas advert used Vagner song too but not necessarily for a racist purpose.

10 or 11 creativity quotes:

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things.

Steve Jobs

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.
Ray Bradbury

Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model.
Abdul Kalam

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Albert Einstein

I think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created. They're tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.
Bill Gates

Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting.
Edward de Bono

Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity. 
T. S. Eliot

President Obama's view of a free economy is to send your money to his friends. My vision for a free enterprise economy is to return entrepreneurship and genius and creativity to the American people!
Mitt Romney

Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can think of. If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too.
Jimmy Buffett

I had a very happy childhood, but I wasn't that happy a child. I liked being alone and creating characters and voices. I think that's when your creativity is developed, when you're young. I liked the world of the imagination because it was an easy place to go to.
David Walliams

Energy is the key to creativity. Energy is the key to life.
William Shatner

CD Cover: Random production.

Using Pete's blog, an examiner, I was able to produce an album cover using 'random' uses of creativity:



This image is one I used following a creative process involving random selection of features. I used name generators for both the title of the band and the title of the album, I then used a random image generator to selected the used picture. Compare this random selection of features to my actual album cover from my a2 coursework:

Which is better? That is the debate relevant here. One involved lots of planning. The other had none whatsoever. But the difference in quality?