Postmodernism is a theory that looks at how the world is transforming into a place that is populated by a culmination of signs which are neither truthful nor fake.
Postmodernism is an almost re-imagining of what has came before. A copy, bricolage of past creations.
‘the concept that the meaning of a text does not reside in the text, but is produced by the reader‘
Postmodernism can be seen as a sort of parody, confusing and deliberately existential concept generated to create a confusion between simulation and reality.
| TERM | DEFINITION |
| Pastiche | Work of art, drama, literature or music that imitates a previous work. |
| Parody | Work that uses irony or ridicule to imitate a previous work/performance. |
| Bricolage | A French term that translates to ‘do-it-yourself’. The idea looks at how to create art from any materials that are available. |
| Intertextuality | Referencing other work in new works. Copying elements of literature, film, art etc. as influence for something else. |
| Referential | |
| Surface and style over substance and context | |
| Metanarrative | Meta = Big Narrative = How a story is structured |
| Hyper-reality | The idea that we live in a world that is “beyond reality”, an illusion or simulation far from the truth. |
| Simulation (sometimes termed by Baudrillard as ‘Simulacrum’) | Something that replaces reality with its representation |
| Consumerist Society | We currently live in a society that survives off of advertising, buying, selling and consuming. This level of consumption leads to the feeling of a simulation. |
| Fragmentary Identities | The idea that we often construct different identities dependant on where we are, who we are with etc. This is fragmented. |
| Alienation | The idea that we are disassociated to the world we live in. |
| Implosion | The idea that meaning is now meaningless. Due to a combinations of signs within society. |
| Cultural Appropriation | Taking properties and characteristics from other cultures and appropriating them to another. |
| Reflexivity |
‘The Love Box in Your Living Room‘ is a parody. It is structured using the codes and conventions of a documentary: a mockumentary of the BBC and how it originated.
Actor and comedian Paul Whitehouse plays a parodied character of Lord John Reith – the first Director General of the BBC. It is clear that this is a parody due to his caricature appearance.