Postmodernism can be 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.
pastiche is a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist good example: Simpson
parody is a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony
new expressions of identity and being – often found in popular culture and/or modern technology, are actually new iterations (versions) 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
Intertextuality: (surface signs, gestures & play) is 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.
“the concept that the meaning of a text does not reside in the text, but is produced by the reader in relation not only to the text in question, but also the complex network of texts invoked in the reading process.“
Postmodernism can therefore be understood as deliberate, intended, self-conscious play, signs about signs, notes to notes? Often (and again unlike other creative movements such as modernism or structuralism) this may be frivolous, trite, casual, surface, throw-away. It may even be ironic, joking, or literally, ‘just playing’. However, it is always a deliberate copy (of the old). Therefore, the old has been re-worked into something new,