POST-MODERNISM - "Modernity without the hope and dreams which made modernity bearable." A rejection of the traditional visual forms of modernism - distrust of theories and ideologies associated with how meaning is constructed - later capitalism and the media saturation of western societies.
SIGNS OF DISCONTENT
Low Culture - the taste or means of the general public and the use of forms often associated with contemporary commercial media.
Rick Valicenti - Designed insert for magazine that represented stereotypes in popular culture.
Seems randomly thrown together, but was carefully put together to create the look of low culture.
Jencks - Pluralism - two or more theories, visual references, principles, meanings, etc, coexist in or are called forth by the same design.
Jencks - Double Coding - objects can inspire plural meanings. That things will mean different things to different people depending on their own knowledge of visual language.
Post Structuralism - emphasizes plural and deferred readings of text - reluctance to ground the analysis of text in any single theory. No reading of text can be innocent of the values or biases that come with such a position.
THE READER WRITES THE TEXT
Readerly vs. Writerly
Readerly - Author imposes a singular meaning on the text
Writerly - Reader constructs or writes the meaning as an active participant in the communication process.
DECONSTRUCTION - Form of literary and philosophical analysis that arouse out of post-structuralism. Literary Text professes & undermines its own authority.
Characterized by fragmented form and jagged shapes.
"Practice of disjunctions."
ONE VERSUS MANY
Literature may be viewed either as a work or as a text
Metanarrative - Modernism relied on these overarching concepts/stories that provide comprehensive explanation for historical/cultural experience. Post modernism questions these narratives and reveals their biases.
METAPHOR AND METONYMY
Metaphor - analogy or implicit comparison between two things/concepts. Metaphor asserts that two things are alike in some way.
Metonymy - something is called by the name of another thing. Or when a single attribute is substituted for a larger concept.
CULTURAL POSITION
We all have cultural positions - certain identities and subjectivities that frame our interpretations of the world. Dominant cultures marginalizes others cultural positions.
HYPERREALITY AND LIVING IN THE IMAGE
hyperreality - simulations created by post-modern culture in which all cultural forms and language have taken on the expressive character of advertising.
The act of designing is essentially one of social production . . .the images we create produce the society in which we live, over and above any short-term goal to sell or persuade.
Post-Modern Design - "Overly Ambiguous Form" - lost on the public audience, which was a major concern.
DESIGN IS A FORM OF CULTURAL AND SOCIAL PRODUCTION. AND OUR CONCEPT OF THE AUDIENCES FOR DESIGN AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO THE MAKING OF MEANING CONTINUES TO EXPAND AND DEEPEND.
