Dubstep music, in my opinion, is probably one of the most “postmodern” music genres in contemporary music culture. The genre uses only electronic means to create its sound and is heavily dependent on the use of sampling. The music itself has its roots in Jamaican dub and reggae and relies heavily on the use of reverberating bass frequencies with a slower, darker tone. Some dubstep music is described as having a sci-fi quality, because of its heavy reliance on computer technology, which would only be possible in the postmodern era. Some artists even use old-school video game sounds in their music, which would be characteristic of a nostalgia for older technology, that is then reused to make something new. The genre also makes no distinction between high and low art because artists will remix any song, whether it’s a classic like the Beatles or Pink Floyd or a contemporary commercial artist like Lady Gaga or Kanye West. The genre takes influences from many different genres; anything from classic rock, techno, punk, new wave, to hip hop is incorporated into the music and then fragmented to the point where it becomes a completely new sound in itself.
Here are some examples:
(You might recognize this one from the end of Fight Club)
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
The Wilderness Downtown
After talking about advertising and conspiracy theories the other day, I was reminded of this website:
http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/
Google's advertising technology is able to read the text of our e-mail to create targeted-advertising, while Google Earth is able to use geotag information from pictures we take on our cellphones. From this information they can create street-level views of places, allowing them to catalog our positions and the position of photographs within time and space. It's pretty creepy to say the least, since, Google probably knows more about us than we know about ourselves.
Anyway, here's an "interactive" music video that uses the Google earth technology to create an individualized viewing experience based on whatever address that you give it.
http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/
Google's advertising technology is able to read the text of our e-mail to create targeted-advertising, while Google Earth is able to use geotag information from pictures we take on our cellphones. From this information they can create street-level views of places, allowing them to catalog our positions and the position of photographs within time and space. It's pretty creepy to say the least, since, Google probably knows more about us than we know about ourselves.
Anyway, here's an "interactive" music video that uses the Google earth technology to create an individualized viewing experience based on whatever address that you give it.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Fight Club
David Fincher’s Fight Club has examples of postmodern thinking, such as consumerism, schizophrenia, waning of affect, weakening of historicity, depthlessness, as well as, the use of pop culture references and the breaking of the conventions of Classical Hollywood Cinema.
The film has several references to the consumer society. A great example of this is the “IKEA-nesting instict” that he describes. He spends his time looking through IKEA catalogs to find housewares that “define (him) as a person.” He also talks about corporations, and the way that they would begin naming planets and galaxies after name brands, like IBM, Starbucks, and Microsoft. He also talks about the simulacra created by these image-commodities, and says that everything is “a copy of a copy of a copy.”
Schizophrenia is represented by the split personality between Jack and Tyler. Jack representing the person he is within society, while Tyler represents the person Jack wishes he could be.
The waning of affect plays a major role in the film. In the beginning of the film, Jack finds himself going to different support groups in an effort to cure his insomnia, caused by postmodernity. The fight clubs work in the same way as the support groups. The members fight each other in an attempt to feel something again. This would be like the intensities Jameson describes because the crying at the support groups has the same therapeutic value as the extreme anger and violence experienced at fight club.
The weakening of historicity is evidenced in the lack of a great, lived historical moment that Tyler describes. At one of the fight club meetings, Tyler says: “(We are) an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables: slaves with white collars. Advertising has our taste in cars and clothes; working jobs we hate to buy shit we don’t need – we’re the middle-children of history… with no purpose or place. We have no great war, no great depression. Our war is a spiritual war, our great depression: our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’ll become millionaires, movie gods, or rock stars. But we’re not, and we’re slowly finding that out and we’re pissed off.”
Depthlessness is another postmodern idea that is referenced throughout the film. In one scene, Tyler describes this when he’s talking to Jack after his condo blew up. He says: “we are consumers. We are a byproduct of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty: these things don’t concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy’s name on my underwear, rogaine, Viagra, Olestra… Martha Stewart is polishing the brass on the Titanic, so fuck off with your sofa units and spring green stripe patterns.”
There are several references to pop-culture. When Jack and Tyler are talking about whom they would like to fight, Jack says he would fight William Shatner. Right after this, they see a Gucci underwear ad; Jack then asks; “is that what a real man looks like?” In another scene, Jack describes one of the women at a support group, saying: “Chloe looked the way Meryl Streep’s skeleton would look if you made it smile and walk around the party being extra nice to everybody.”
The breaking of conventions is apparent at many points throughout the film. In the movie projection scene, Jack and Tyler break the fourth wall and directly address the camera. At this point, Jack explains how Tyler splices single frames of pornography into children’s movies. As Jack talks about the cigarette burns, where the changeover happens, we are shown a cigarette burn, which Tyler then points to, bringing attention the artifice of the film.
The film has several references to the consumer society. A great example of this is the “IKEA-nesting instict” that he describes. He spends his time looking through IKEA catalogs to find housewares that “define (him) as a person.” He also talks about corporations, and the way that they would begin naming planets and galaxies after name brands, like IBM, Starbucks, and Microsoft. He also talks about the simulacra created by these image-commodities, and says that everything is “a copy of a copy of a copy.”
Schizophrenia is represented by the split personality between Jack and Tyler. Jack representing the person he is within society, while Tyler represents the person Jack wishes he could be.
The waning of affect plays a major role in the film. In the beginning of the film, Jack finds himself going to different support groups in an effort to cure his insomnia, caused by postmodernity. The fight clubs work in the same way as the support groups. The members fight each other in an attempt to feel something again. This would be like the intensities Jameson describes because the crying at the support groups has the same therapeutic value as the extreme anger and violence experienced at fight club.
The weakening of historicity is evidenced in the lack of a great, lived historical moment that Tyler describes. At one of the fight club meetings, Tyler says: “(We are) an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables: slaves with white collars. Advertising has our taste in cars and clothes; working jobs we hate to buy shit we don’t need – we’re the middle-children of history… with no purpose or place. We have no great war, no great depression. Our war is a spiritual war, our great depression: our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’ll become millionaires, movie gods, or rock stars. But we’re not, and we’re slowly finding that out and we’re pissed off.”
Depthlessness is another postmodern idea that is referenced throughout the film. In one scene, Tyler describes this when he’s talking to Jack after his condo blew up. He says: “we are consumers. We are a byproduct of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty: these things don’t concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy’s name on my underwear, rogaine, Viagra, Olestra… Martha Stewart is polishing the brass on the Titanic, so fuck off with your sofa units and spring green stripe patterns.”
There are several references to pop-culture. When Jack and Tyler are talking about whom they would like to fight, Jack says he would fight William Shatner. Right after this, they see a Gucci underwear ad; Jack then asks; “is that what a real man looks like?” In another scene, Jack describes one of the women at a support group, saying: “Chloe looked the way Meryl Streep’s skeleton would look if you made it smile and walk around the party being extra nice to everybody.”
The breaking of conventions is apparent at many points throughout the film. In the movie projection scene, Jack and Tyler break the fourth wall and directly address the camera. At this point, Jack explains how Tyler splices single frames of pornography into children’s movies. As Jack talks about the cigarette burns, where the changeover happens, we are shown a cigarette burn, which Tyler then points to, bringing attention the artifice of the film.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Vivre Sa Vie
Godard's Vivre Sa Vie, in my opinion, has many postmodern qualities to it, and seems to be a good example of extreme human commodification in the form of prostitution. Nana - who is trying to become an actress - is forced to work retail in a record store, but finds it impossible to make ends meet. After being thrown out on the street and being picked up by the cops for attempting to steal money, she decides to become a prostitute.
At its most basic level, the film could be considered postmodern because of Godard's use of the Twelve Tableaux, which break up the narrative into episodes, or chapters. This could be interpreted as fragmentation, which is emblematic of postmodernity.
The film also has many references to popular culture, which is a common motif in postmodern works. Examples of this would be the pop music played on the jukebox, the references to consumer culture throughout the movie, and the large role movies play within the film. Nana constantly voices her desire to "go see a movie," and at one point is shown watching Carl Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, while towards the end of the film, we see a shot of a movie marquee displaying Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim.
An obsession with the photographic image is also a recurring theme in the film, which would be associated with postmodernity. At several points during the film, Nana is either looking at photos of herself or is talking about having photos taken of her. This represents her desire to become an image, which could then become commidified: in the form of her becoming an actress whose image is sold through the cinema. This commodification of the image, however, becomes realized in the form of prostitution. She uses the image of femininity and sexuality to sell herself literally as a human commodity, by having people pay her to fulfill their sexual desire. In the process, she is subjected to capitalist exploitation. The pimp, Raoul, controls her the way a worker would be controlled in a capitalist society. Thus, she is turned into human capital, working within a system, which controls her through politics and police force, as evidenced by the scene in which Raoul explains to her the rules of being a prostitute. These rules have been clearly delineated by laws, which control her working conditions and define where she can and cannot go in the city. Raoul also tells her about how her beauty affects her place within the hierarchy of prostitution. The more attractive girls have a higher price, which translates to more money, while the less attractive ones have a lower price and generally make less money. Because of this, her beauty directly determines her exchange-value as a human commodity.
During the scene where Nana first meets Yvette, she makes a comment, which ultimately sums up the capitalist attitude towards human life, and foreshadows the ending quite well. When Yvette mentions escaping to the tropics, Nana responds by saying that "escape is a pipedream." Later, when Nana tries to leave the life of prostitution, Raoul tries to sell her off to another pimp which ends in Nana's death. This is reminiscent of the "Society of the Spectacle", in which Debord suggests that: "The tendency of use value to fall, this constant of capitalist economy, develops a new form of privation within increased survival: the new privation is not far removed from the old penury since it requires most men to participate as wage workers in the endless pursuit of its attainment, and since everyone knows he must submit or die." Nana, who represents the wage-worker, becomes the symbolic manifestation of the "submit or die" mantra.
Also, the scene where "the young man" reads the poem by Edgar Allen Poe, he foreshadows the ending, which relates to primacy of the image over the subject, and the subsequent death of the subject, as a result of its auraticization. The poem describes a man who paints a portrait of his wife. The man becomes so obsessed with the painting of her that he forgets that it’s based on a living person. When he finally finishes the painting, he looks over at his wife, who has died. Nana, who has become a reified image of beauty in the image-based postmodern society, has died just like the woman in the poem.
At its most basic level, the film could be considered postmodern because of Godard's use of the Twelve Tableaux, which break up the narrative into episodes, or chapters. This could be interpreted as fragmentation, which is emblematic of postmodernity.
The film also has many references to popular culture, which is a common motif in postmodern works. Examples of this would be the pop music played on the jukebox, the references to consumer culture throughout the movie, and the large role movies play within the film. Nana constantly voices her desire to "go see a movie," and at one point is shown watching Carl Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, while towards the end of the film, we see a shot of a movie marquee displaying Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim.
An obsession with the photographic image is also a recurring theme in the film, which would be associated with postmodernity. At several points during the film, Nana is either looking at photos of herself or is talking about having photos taken of her. This represents her desire to become an image, which could then become commidified: in the form of her becoming an actress whose image is sold through the cinema. This commodification of the image, however, becomes realized in the form of prostitution. She uses the image of femininity and sexuality to sell herself literally as a human commodity, by having people pay her to fulfill their sexual desire. In the process, she is subjected to capitalist exploitation. The pimp, Raoul, controls her the way a worker would be controlled in a capitalist society. Thus, she is turned into human capital, working within a system, which controls her through politics and police force, as evidenced by the scene in which Raoul explains to her the rules of being a prostitute. These rules have been clearly delineated by laws, which control her working conditions and define where she can and cannot go in the city. Raoul also tells her about how her beauty affects her place within the hierarchy of prostitution. The more attractive girls have a higher price, which translates to more money, while the less attractive ones have a lower price and generally make less money. Because of this, her beauty directly determines her exchange-value as a human commodity.
During the scene where Nana first meets Yvette, she makes a comment, which ultimately sums up the capitalist attitude towards human life, and foreshadows the ending quite well. When Yvette mentions escaping to the tropics, Nana responds by saying that "escape is a pipedream." Later, when Nana tries to leave the life of prostitution, Raoul tries to sell her off to another pimp which ends in Nana's death. This is reminiscent of the "Society of the Spectacle", in which Debord suggests that: "The tendency of use value to fall, this constant of capitalist economy, develops a new form of privation within increased survival: the new privation is not far removed from the old penury since it requires most men to participate as wage workers in the endless pursuit of its attainment, and since everyone knows he must submit or die." Nana, who represents the wage-worker, becomes the symbolic manifestation of the "submit or die" mantra.
Also, the scene where "the young man" reads the poem by Edgar Allen Poe, he foreshadows the ending, which relates to primacy of the image over the subject, and the subsequent death of the subject, as a result of its auraticization. The poem describes a man who paints a portrait of his wife. The man becomes so obsessed with the painting of her that he forgets that it’s based on a living person. When he finally finishes the painting, he looks over at his wife, who has died. Nana, who has become a reified image of beauty in the image-based postmodern society, has died just like the woman in the poem.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)