Postmodernism – time and space.
Postmodern media has the ability to manipulate time and
space through a variety of mediums. However it does not solely go out to do
this, poster modernism aims to make the audience question there reality using
time and space. It also aim to do many other things to modern society such as
create a world with no specifics. For example we can all listen to a variety of
music genres and when making something ourselves have the freedom to mix up any
genre and/or media we like. Over time a postmodern society has started to
become more apparent as original ideas are almost impossible to come across,
musicians and directors have to take inspiration from the work of their peers
and mix up time periods to make for a more interesting text.
An example of this comes in today’s film world, in things
such as Inglorious Basterds where a world war two based film changes the course
of history and look very ‘unrealistic’. Jameson talks about this as he says
postmodern media has historical deafness and no one really cares what happened
anymore. This also a use of pastiche by Quentin Tarentino as it takes the mick
out of supposedly more historically accurate war films. He realises that these
are not historically correct at all and they use as much out of place props and
music etc. as he does. In The Inglorious Basterds time is manipulated by the
use of homage to David Bowie who has no connection to the war or time period.
In between chapters different fonts are used to match the genre of film that is
going to be shown in that chapter, this is typical of post-modern media and a
manipulation in time and space because a war film shouldn’t have aspects of Art
house film or westerns although it does. This may be classed as depthlessness
by some but I think that it is more about entertainment that historical
accuracy etc. The depth is given through smaller stories within the film. The
way that Tarentino makes us question reality by changing up history in his film
again is something that will make us question reality in a similar way to
inception that leaves us believing we could be dreaming. Fiske’s theory is that
as time goes on people’s perception of the world is from media instead of us
basing our media on the real world. This is a manipulation of space given to us
by Jacques Derrida who says that everything is of a genre.
The film Inception manipulates both time and space in a very
different way; it is far more obvious but has some discreet aspects. The idea
of a dream within a dream as happens in the film is itself manipulating both,
in each level they can travel to anywhere of their choice, very unrealistic
again, and the more they dream the slower time goes. This film goes out to make
the audience come out of the cinema thinking about the possibility that they
themselves are currently dreaming, so space as they know it is non-existent.
The director has done this by using a piece of calming music, by one of
Hitler’s favourite composers so not so calming, from the mid 90’s throughout
the film. This music is heard by the dreamers when they are about to feel a
kick and wake up. The audience also hearing this can give us a similar feeling,
especially at the end of the film. Space is not affected as much through
Inception but can be shown to change in ways we can’t imagine. For example at
one point the ‘Architect’ bends the world over itself defying gravity.
In other media texts such as music time is very often
manipulated by samples from every genre and era being mixed. This is common in
Hip Hop culture but is also allowed more than in other genres, I think this is
because of the way artists pay homage to each other as opposed to using a
pastiche. Space is also manipulated in music as it inspires other things that
have no relation to it. One example is when The Beastie Boys had an album name
used by a brand. Pauls Boutique clothing isn’t really boutique but is based on
an album which the buyers probably have no knowledge of. Space is being
manipulated here as the music is creating objects in another genre almost. Time
mixes in music shown by albums such as the grey album are often un-noticed by
the audience. This album uses a mix of ‘the white album’ by The Beatles and ‘the
black album’ by Jay Z who are from different eras and genres of music but work
very well when mixed correctly.
Postmodernism has many possible future paths. As simulacrum
may become overly common and everything will be a copy. However these copies
will not be seen as stolen and could be recognised as original pieces of work
as the old one is forgotten. Another path it could take is that copyright laws
etc. will block anything from being produced without a lawsuit as there is no
such thing as a new idea anymore. This would lead to an anti-postmodern society.
