‘SURFACE’ and ‘STYLE’ over ‘SUBSTANCE’

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.

It is argued that there is a deliberate focus on ‘style’ and ‘surface’ to distract people from . . . the issues that arise from a postmodern world (economic crisis, climate crisis, rampant consumerism, computational surveillance, individual anxiety and wellbeing etc etc)

If it 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).

Putting it very simply, the transition from substance to style is linked to a transition from production to consumption.

STRINATI (235)

Music Videos as Postmodern texts

In terms of the key principles of art and design the priority is in formal elements: of shape, colour, texture, movement, space, time and so on. As opposed to more discursive principles of: narrative, character, motivation, theme, ideology. Or put simply: STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE. Put another way, are we more interested in the surface of an object than its’ inner meaning?

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).

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)

For example, The Art of Noise were a group of white experimental musicians from the 1980’s who presented themselves through abstract, impressionistic videos (see below). The focus is therefore on image, surface, style. Meaning and interpretation is obtuse, disguised, removed and difficult to apprehend. No surprise then that this group of middle aged white art-school musicians ‘were voted the second best new black act’ because ‘they think we’re black‘ Anne Dudley band member interviewed on BBC breakfast time (link here)

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