Pastiche: is when an artistic piece of work is done in a style that of which imitates another piece of work, artist, or period.
Bricolage: is the process of the tinkering with other things things to create something new
Intertextuality: is the formulation/moulding of a text’s meaning by the influence of another text. examples: allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody.
Implosion: Implosion arises from the destruction of meaning and the reality-effect due to the precession of simulacra, which is a representation of a person or thing. For example, a statue of a god is a simulacra
cultural appropriation: is when an element or elements of one culture is adopted by members of another culture.
Postmodernism – A mixing of different art forms, media and style which therefore, corrupts and breaks stereotypes and theories. Developed in the mid/ late 20th century across philosophy, the arts, architecture, and criticism; postmodernism focuses on the individual.
Pastiche – Pastiche work can be seen as a parody of a piece of work as it does imitate certain aspects in order to recreate it. However, unlike parodies, Pastiche works aim to celebrate the original work rather than mock it.
Bricolage – The creation of a piece of media or art from multiple things that are (at the time) available. A creation through the use of mixed media or a diverse range of things.
Intertextuality – The shaping of a texts meaning based upon/ sharing other texts. This is common especially with pieces of media from the same genre due to the shared code and conventions.
Implosion – Implosion is similar to the idea of ‘internal contradictions’ in Marxism. It refers to a tendency to collapse arising from the system’s own dynamics – the internal collapsing of all the energy of the real.
cultural appropriation – Similar to stereotypes, cultural appropriation is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture by members of another culture. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from disadvantaged minority cultures.
In relation to my music video –
My overall finished music video can be seen as a pastiche work as I have been inspired by and taken techniques from my style models – other music videos. In addition, my video will have some bricolage aspects due to the combination of props/ characters/ location and camera settings; variables/ satellites that if changed can adjust the whole meaning of my video. As my video will fall into multiple genres due to their sharing of typical codes and conventions some intertextuality would be expected as this allows the audience to relate to the video more due to the familiarity.
In relation to my Style Models –
Intertextuality is clear in all of my style models through the lyrics which relate to popular or well known metaphors/ editing techniques.
postmodernism – understood as a philosophy that is characterised by concepts such as RE-IMAGINING, PASTICHE, PARODY,COPY,BRICOLAGE. It’s an approach towards understanding, knowledge, life, being, art, technology, culture, sociology, philosophy, politics and history that is REFERENTIAL – in that it often refers to and often copies other things in order to understand itself.
silly
music videos are often very postmodernism
re-imagining – looking at a source and re creating it from your own perspective
new expressions of identity and meaning are actually new iterations of previous expressions of popular culture
It is therefore possible to understand postmodernism as a complicated and fragmentary set of inter-relationships, a practice of re-imagining, pastiche, bricolage and self-referentiality, which may be understood alongside another key expression / concept: intersectionality
intersectionality – small divisions in society (e.g. a white feminist’s experience is going to be different from a black feminist’s)
PARODY v PASTICHE
PARODY
a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony
PASTICHE
is a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist (e.g a reference or imitation)
the simpsons very often uses pastiche
parody movies focus on surface signs
A good place to look for illustrations of postmodern culture, in terms of media studies, is the music video. As Shuker notes, two points are frequently made about music videos: ‘their preoccupation with visual style, and associated with this, their status as key exemplars of ‘postmodern’ texts.’ (2001:167). Shuker refers Fredric Jameson’s (1984) notion of the ‘metanarrative’ (discussed in more detail below) that ’embody the postmodern condition’ (168). For example, the fragmentary, decentred nature of music videos that break up traditional understandings of time and space so that audiences are ‘no longer able to distinguish ‘fiction’ from ‘reality’, part of the postmodern condition’ (ibid). Alongside their similarity to adverts (essentially the music video is a commercial tool to sell music products) ‘making them part of a blatantly consumerist culture‘ (ibid). And of course, the ‘considerable evidence of pastiche, intertextuality and eclecticism‘ (ibid) which is the focus of this next section.
Bricolage – a useful term to apply to postmodernist texts as it ‘involves the rearrangment and juxtaposition of previously unconnected signs to produce new codes of meaning’ (Barker & Jane, 2016:237).
intertextuality – another useful term to use, as it suggests signs only have meaning in reference to other signs and that meaning is therefore a complex process of decoding/encoding with individuals both taking and creating meaning in the process of reading texts.
if the priority is play then the emphasis is on the surface:
in other words, if the main focus is the idea of just connecting one product to another, then the focus is superficial, shallow, lacking depth, so ‘in a postmodern world, surfaces and style become the most important defining features of the mass media and popular culture‘ (Strinati: 234). The emphasis of style and surface over substance, means that what something looks like becomes more important than anything else, as opposed to what something might mean, or what it could be used for.
richard hoggart
richard hoggart noticed the shift in modern societies particularly the impact of ‘neighbourhood lives’
locality, until the shift in globalisation causing the world to be populated by ‘consumers’
most of society does not make anything and consumes more than creates
postmodernism is linked to capitalism: with the need to consume put over everything else
consummation is the desire to continue to desire. For example, coke adverts advertise enjoyment which draws consumers in as they want to enjoy
fragmental consumption = fragmental identities
This process of fragmented consumption separating, splitting up and dividing previously homogeneous groups such as, friends, the family, the neighborhood, the local community, the town, the county, the country and importantly, is often linked to the process of fragmented identity construction.
Again think about mobile telephony which is now able to construct multiple possibilities identities, at multiple moments in time and space. Think about the way we construct, our (multiple) digital identities, visable and varying across different digital platforms – work identity, social identity, family identity etc, which is most often not consistent with our analogue (human?) identity – look for example, at your profile pictures?
As an example, mobile telephony (both hardware and software) now appears to proliferate and connect every aspect of our lives, and generally does so from the perspective of consumption – consuming images, sounds, stories, messages etc – rather than production. We don’t make mobile phones, mobile networks (hardware) or Apps, content and platforms (software).
So in summary, the focus on FRAGMENTATION OF IDENTITY is characterised and linked to an increase of consumption and the proliferation of new forms of digital technologies. In effect, another key characteristic of postmodernism is the development of fragmented, alienated individuals living (precariously) in fragmented societies.
The loss of a metanarrative (overall narrative)
A good starting point would be to return to the concepts of PASTICHE and PARODY, as Fredric Jameson claimed that Postmodernism is characterized by pastiche rather than parody which represents a crisis in historicity.
Jameson argued that parody implies a moral judgment or a comparison with previous societal norms. Whereas pastiche, such as collage and other forms of juxtaposition, occur without a normative grounding and as such, do not make comment on a specific historical moment. As such, Jameson argues that the postmodern era is characterised by pastiche (not parody) and as such, suffers from a crisis in historicity.
This links to Jean-Francois Lyotard’s proposition that postmodernism holds an ‘incredulity towards meta-narratives‘ (1979:7) those overarching ideas, attitudes, values and beliefs that have held us together in a shared belief, For example, the belief in religion, science, capitalism, communism, revolution, war, peace and so on.
Lyotard points out that no one seemed to agree on what, if anything, was real and everyone had their own perspective and story. We have become alert to difference, diversity, the incompatibility of our aspirations, beliefs and desires, and for that reason postmodernity is characterised by an abundance of micronarratives.[28]
It can be also characterised as an existence without meaning, as Žižek suggests it is an existence without ‘The Big Other’ , an existentialistt crisis of existence when we realise we are alone (Lacan).
Strinati points out that ‘the distinction between culture and society is being eroded’ (231) and suggests that our sense of reality (the overarching metanarrative) appears to come from the culture (eg the media), rather than from society which is then reproduced, represented and relayed through media communication. In terms of media studies, this marks a juncture from previous conceptions of mass media communication, for example, as a ‘relay system’ – a process which just relays information and events in real time to a mass society, or the conception of the media as a ‘window on the world’ (Strinati:233).
From a societal perspective the ‘real’ seems to be imploding in on itself, a ‘process leading to the collapse of boundaries between the real and simulations’ (Barker & Emma, 2015:242). A process which the French intellectual Jean Baudrillard would describe as IMPLOSION which gives rise to what he terms SIMULACRA. The idea that although the media has always been seen as a representation of reality – a simulation, from Baudrillard’s perspective of implosion, it is has become more than a representation or simulation and it has become SIMULACRUMnot just a representation of the real, but the real itself, a grand narrative that is ‘truth‘ in its own right: an understanding of uncertain/certainty that Baudrillard terms the HYPERREAL.
i will have a protagonist walking through the woods, feeling lonely and thoughtful
shot of her friend walking (focused on shoes), then scene cuts to the protagonist walking in the footsteps of her friends past footsteps. this represents the idea that the protagonist doesn’t want to let go of the past (doesn’t want to accept the loss of her friend.)
Scene of protagonist climbing onto top of cliff, sitting on the edge with headphones in.
Disruption
shots of scenario – ocean, sky, woods, beach
scene cuts to her dancing on the beach in the water (representing her relieving emotional pain)
New Equilibrium
*have not planned*
overall she feels alone and isolated as she has lost all connection with her friend
Pastiche = this is an artistic work or style which is similar to the work of another time period or artist
Bricolage = this is a process where a traditional object or language is given a new and often subversive meaning and context
Intertextuality = this is when you shape a text’s meaning by another text and is also the interconnection between similar/related works that might influence the audience’s interpretation of the media. It is also the relationship between text, which is inflicted as a means of quotations and allusions
Implosion = implosion happens when an organisation or a system suddenly collapses or fails and implosion can also be used to describe a person who is subjected to increased pressure and, emotionally at least, bursts inwards
Cultural appropriation = this is the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of customs, practices and ideas of one person or a society of members of a more typically more dominant society. Cultural appropriation is also called misappropriation. It can be seen as controversial when the members of a dominant culture appropriate from a disadvantaged minority culture
These terminology definitions link to our production task because our style models mean we will create a pastiche because our work produced will be similar to other music videos that follow the theme of isolation. Our production task is in the theme of isolation, therefore we will be applying intertextuality because we are shaping the meaning of isolation by following a tripartite structure in our music video. Implosion links to the themes of isolation and the economic crisis in “Ghost Town” by the Specials and “Letter to the Free” can be seen as a bricolage of equal rights, no matter what skin colour you have. Finally, cultural appropriation links to our style models, as “letter to the Free” has cultural appropriation of the discrimination of black people due to their skin colour.
My Style Models – The Representation of race, ethnicity and cultural difference
In Just the Way You Are, Bruno Mars is mixed race/latino and stars in the music video, and appears to be in love with a white women, thus emphasising that it doesn’t matter about the colour of your skin, people will fall in love because of what’s on the inside, not based on looks and skin tone. Similarly, Sunflower by Post Maline challenges the dominant ideology as stereotypically in all the Marvel films, the superheroes and villains happen to have white skin, however the creator of Spider-Man: into the Spider-verse has used the protagonist (Spider-man) as being a black man, thus emphasising that anyone can be a superhero and therefore giving a sense of power to black people, especially as with recent events, black people have been discriminated and felt powerless. Overall, most of my chosen style models represent race and ethnicity in a positive way, however The Scientist does not include any black/mixed race people in the music video. Instead, the music video shows cultural difference as Chris Martin (the protagonist) appears to be walking in the more poorer areas of London, but then throughout the video he walks to an open forest, which could be seen as identifying the sense of freedom that he has.
In 1981 Britain was in a ‘state of crisis’, the government was unpopular, unemployment was on a rise and riots were breaking out across the country. the song is described as ‘the soundtrack to an explosion of civil unrest’. the specials announced a gig promoting racial unity on the day of ‘Ghost Town’s’ release due to the riots that were caused by indiscriminate use of police stop and search powers on the black community and the murder of of a local teenager in a racist attack.
How does the music video create and communicate meanings in media language?
the music video shows images of an empty city which creates an eerie atmosphere, the band are driving around the town in a car singing their song. the lyrics ‘the people getting angry’ refers to the current riots going on in the UK.
Essay
Explain how representations used in music videos communicate information about their cultural and political contexts:
The Specials ‘Ghost Town’ music video was released in 1981, a time when many of the UK citizens were rioting due to the government in control, the rise of unemployment and racial attacks on the black community. In the music video the band are driving round an eerie and deserted city which makes reference to the title ‘Ghost Town’, whilst driving the driver is seen to swerve the car many times and drive in the middle of the road rather than sticking to the white lines, this may represent the loss of control that the government experienced during the riots of 1981 and how nobody was following the laws. The deserted streets depicted in the music video also communicates the representation of the high amount of unemployment as nobody seems to be working so there is nobody out in the streets, making it seem like a ghost town. The use of police sirens in the background at the end of the video suggest a Link to recent riots that were fuelled partly by police abusing their powers and specifically targeting members of the black community.
The preferred reading of this music videos message is about the decline of coventry, where the band grew up but it also relates to the bands split and the feeling of hopelessness. There is a different message in the song for the Audience and the actual band members.
the music videos suggests a tone of anger towards the government, police, big cooperations and unemployment and the way the country is being run, it expresses anger not only from the band members but also from the general publics point of view.
Post Colonialism
colonialism – when a country or nation takes control over another country and exploits it economically
Post colonialism – the academic study of colonialism and imperialism
Diaspora – ethnic people outside of their original country
BAME – a term to refer to black, asian and minority ethnicities
Double consciousness (GILROY) – internal conflict in groups who are oppressed by a society
cultural absolutism/racial essentialism – the idea that ideas such as intelligence and honesty do not differ from culture to culture
cultural syncretism – a combination of separate concepts into one new unique idea
Orientalism (SAID) – a way of seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of Europe and the U.S
Appropriation – adoption of an element or elements of one culture by members of another country
cultural hegemony – the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society
the public sphere (Habermas) – an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify social problems and through that discussion influence political action.
Mood board
non copyrighted song
Preliminary images
Music video style models
statement of intent
…..
essay
how useful are ideas about narrative in analysing music videos? refer to the close study products ‘Ghost Town’ and ‘Letter to the Free’ in your answer.
Post Modernism
Pastiche – an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist or period
Bricolage – refers to a do it yourself tinkering process where you make something new out of other things, e.g. existing film clips
Intertextuality – the shaping of a texts meaning by another text, intertextual figures include: allusion, quotation, plagiarism, translation and parody.
Implosion – something collapsing violently inwards or the collapse of an organisation/system
Cultural appropriation – the inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices and ideas of one society by another more dominant society.
