THE GENEALOGY OF POST MODERN

HISTORY

CAN WE SPEAK OF POSTMODERN

HISTORY?

Not if we take postmodern theory seriously.

Postmodernism challenges the idea of unilinear history.

ARCHITECTURE CLAIMS TO HAVE A PRECISE DATE FOR

THE INAUGURATION OF

POSTMODERNISM...

THE DESTRUCTION OF

PRUITT-LODGE HOUSING

DEVELOPMENT IN ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Charles Jencks: “This proclaimed

the death of the International Style of Modernist architecture, the end of “buildings as machines for living” envisioned by the abstract functionalist”.

PO MO VERNACULAR

In 1972, the American Architect Robert Venturi formulated the postmodern creed.

In place of the unilateral “glass boxes”, po mo architects offers the vernacular, an emphasis on the local and particular as opposed to modernist universalism.

A return to ornament, with reference to the historic past and its symbolism, but in the ironic manner of parody, pastiche, and quotation.

VENTURI AND OTHER POSTMODERNS PROPOSE A “COMICSTRIP” ARCHITECTURE—ECLECTIC,

AMBIGOUS, HUMUROUS: UNPRETENTIOUS.

The New York AT&T Tower

now, the SONY Tower by Philip

Johnson.

Po mo Architecture’s ironic energy, its radical eclecticism, seem to give immedicate credibility to postmodern theory. This is because the building itself serves as visible proof of the theory.

Le Cobusier:

“We could achieve the transformation of sociallife by transforming architectural space as a substitute for political revolution.”

COMPUTERIZING DIFFERENCE

Modernist experimenters failed to change the world of capitalism—in fact, the utopian purity of their glass towers ended by glorifying the power of banks, airlines and multinational corporations.

Po mo architects CANNOT avoid being employees of capitalism. They CANNOT invent history simply by changing the look of buildings.

CHARLES JENCKS

Computer-modelling , automated production and sophisticated market research allow us to mass produce a variety of styles and almost personalized products.

Theorists believe that computer can replace the stereotyped uniformity of modernism by multiplying difference...

HYPERMODERNISM

The amnesiac zone of postmodernity

Technology and economics merge and are disguised by alternative labels.

Example: olestra,a sucrose polyester of hyperreal fat

CYBERIA Cyberspace

-coined by science-fiction writer William Gibson in his novel “Neuromancer”

- defined as “consensual hallucination”

- any “room” or any space generated by software within a computer that produces a Virtual-Reality experience.

- designed to trick our senses that we are in another world

CYBER Cybernauts

- those seeking computer driven transendence and travelling through cyberspace

Cyberpunk

- started all the cyber-enthusiasm

- represents the implosion of the future into the present and total intrusion of technology into human lives.

Cyberculture

- the culture spawned by cyberpunks and cybernauts

Cyberia

- civilization springing up on-line

JEAN BAUDRILLARD

• The true neuromancer-theorist of Po Mo.• Introduced the four phases of images

STEP 1: THE IMAGE IS A REFLECTION OF

BASIC REALITY

A painting by Vincent Van Gogh.

STEP 2: THE IMAGE MASKS AND PERVERTS A BASIC REALITY

Classical Pre-Industrial Phase

An image is a counterfeit of reality

“Art Imitates Life”

STEP 3: THE IMAGE MARKS THE ABSENCE OF A BASIC REALITY

Age of mass reproduction

STEP 4: THE POST-MODERN SIMULACRUM

- a simulacra, expensive street –cred models, sportwears with nothing to do with sports

CYBERIAN STREETSCENES: POSTMODERN HABITAT

Advertising Hyperreality

- advertising is not merely to create dreams and desires, but to endanger a new commodified reality shaped by a company’s logo or slogan.

UNITED COLORS OF BENNETON

The Benetton campaign encapsulates the past, present, and future in a single time frame offering images which conjure historic, futuristic, and apocalyptic element within a grammar of race.

Difference is commodified and a portrait of plurality is produced.

This is advertising as a “social conscience”, an artificially constructed reality that projects an image of harmony to sell a brand name.

X-RATED CYBERSEX GAMES

Cybersex fiction takes a quantum leap towards reality with the arrival of the “teledildonic” suit. This consists of a head-piece with video and audio input connected to a suit that stimulates erogenous zones.

MADONNA, CYBERGIRL

Postmodern icon of the 80’s

The Queen of Appropriation

The Cyber-Model of the New Woman

ENDLESSLY CONTEMPORARY AMNESIA

Hyperactivity

- Zapping or zero-consciousness- is a postmodern symptom of impatience without depth. The traditional richness and subtlety of nature, art and religion have faded away before our eyes and we are left with the “recession of reality”.

Zapping out the past

THIRD WORLD POSTMODERNISM

Islam and the so-called third world are left out of most accounts of postmodernism.

Parallels on the condition of colonial or neo-colonial dependency.

Transformed post-modernism into a culture of resistance.