For the analysis of Postmodernism, I have chosen the trailers of two of my favourite movies: “Adaptation” provided by Mariel and “Magnolia” from one of my favourite films directors, Paul Thomas Anderson.

This is the link for “Magnolia”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwXDHSrNFbQ

Features of Postmodernism present in “Magnolia”:

· Questioning the grand narratives: this film questions the concept of religion as it is an aesthetic movie.
· Lack of distinction between game and reality: The whole story goes around a game show.
· Subjectivity: Stream of consciousness. The director lets us get inside the characters’ minds and hearts with dazzling style.
· Mini narratives and Simultaneity: The film deals with different stories at the same time. It is a Rhizone story as it shows connections between events and people without any causative explanation.

Features of Postmodernism present in “Adaptation”:

· Simultaneity and simulacra: The film mixes the present with not only the past and future, but also with the imaginary. Adaptation is about a script writer's process of adapting a book to film and an author's process of writing a book about a real man and events in his life.
· Multiplicity and incompatibility: Time, place and people are constantly jumbled throughout the story. Lots of things existing at the same time but not forming any kind of pattern or unity (“Pastiche”)
· Subjectivity: Use of stream of consciousness to let the audience get inside the characters’ minds and feelings.
· Self-reflexivity: Characters do learn lessons, grown and change: “the only truth we can offer is the truth that's our own experience of the world" (Adaptation).

Postmodernism

I've chosen "The Final Cut" and "Jokaydia"

Both of them have postmodern characteristics. As regards the first one, the most important aspect is knowledge and the beginnings of technology- "The advent of electronic computer technologies has revolutionized the modes of knowledge production distribution and consumption in our society." In the movie, when a person is born, he /she can have a chip implanted that can record all the moments of his/her life. When this person die, that chip is taken off and cut to make a "memorial video" (something interesting to see) for their families. 

As regards Jokaydia, we can found what Baudrillard calls "simulacra". In this case, it is related to virtual reality- "The page was created to document the educational uses of virtual worlds and games"- and not to copies of originals  This wiki has useful information about virtual worlds, platforms, tools, social networking services and games. 

I believe that in the trailer and in the wiki, knowledge becomes functional because they learn things, not only to know them, but to use that knowledge. 

Words between inverted commas have been taken from Klages and Jokaydia Wiki
   

Postmodern Culture

The videos I’ve chosen are War Games and Educational Uses of Second life.

Both of them have postmodern characteristics. In the case of War Games, which is a 1983 American film of a young hacker who thought he was playing with a computer game but in fact he was declaring a nuclear war by entering the United States military supercomputer, there are some postmodern features. For example, according to Frederic Jameson, capitalism has three stages in which the third one is “a multinational or consumer capitalism associated with nuclear and electronic technologies” and closely connected to postmodernism. The subject of War Games is nuclear and electronic technologies and their manipulation. Another feature is that “in postmodern society there are no originals, only copies” and simulations. “A reality created by simulation” especially in computer games like in this film where the protagonist creates his own reality and thinks to be simulating a war. Moreover, knowledge is another key feature of postmodernism where “the advent of electronic computer technologies (illustrated in the film) has revolutionized the modes of knowledge.” The film shows us how everything is stored in a computer and how an unknown person unwittingly can access to the information and cause chaos.

In the case of Educational Uses of second life, we can also find postmodern characteristics. It is amazing to see how a student can be exposed to different situations like being in a virtual museum and learning about paintings or in a virtual theatre and role play and interact with the characters of any play. The connection between this video and postmodernism is the technological and intellectual development of software that can provide students with knowledge and enjoyment. Moreover, as it is software there is no original, only copies and simulations. 

Words in italics taken from Klages' article.

Post modernism Johanna Vassallo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IxcJsXyWtQ&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HtZ2M4e_AM&feature=player_embedded

 I watched these videos as well as I visited other sites.

 The concept of postmodernism is not widely accepted or even understood today. It is inclusive of a wide variety of disciplines and areas of study including art, architecture, music, film, literature, sociology, etc, that’s why the term postmodernism refers to the idea of multiplicity and incompatibility, because lots of things exist together and may not be directly related one to each other or they may not be grouped under the same category, as a result of different particular processes, events or situations that give place to an interminable amount of changes among different disciplines.

As regards postmodernism in culture, it caused a complete change in productions such as contemporary vanguard film and video - but also a whole new style of commercial or fiction films. These commercial films were focused on every day families and advertised comics and consumer products, as regards fiction films a variety stories were mixed together to produce creative and imaginative films that were a revolution in cinema in those days, but all this wouldn’t have been possible without the invention of the first pictures in motion and animated films with synchronized sound.

Concerning art and education some postmodernism ideas are:

    

1.                           Violent reactions and sentimental world is reflected.
2.                         Moral relativism. People think of values to be based on feelings
3.             Emphasize story and personal discovery
4.                       The knowledge is fragmented. It is distributed and arranged in different ways thanks to modern technology’s inventions such as computers.
5.             The existence of virtual worlds that allows students and teachers to interact in a same virtual environment created by themselves but being each of them in a different physical one.
6.             You learn things not to know them, but to use them. This is called functional knowledge.
7.        Students become active participants in modifying knowledge that is at their hands. 

I believe Postmodernism is controversial reaction to all the things that modernism proposed departing primarily from the technological changes and revolutionary ideas that emerged from a post modern society.

CRITICAL READING AND CREATIVE WRITING - Nice Work

I’ve chosen option 1-C and I’ve used the Hypertextopia tool to do the assignment.  I’ve chosen David Lodge’s Nice Work because it contains plenty of instances of intertextuality and allusions (e.g. to trends in literary criticism). When reading it for the first time it triggered many associations. My intention was to show some of the associations (and research) I performed during the reading process. I divided the original paragraph into three main parts (they have a title) and I added a fragment with the explanation of the new theories at University because they needed a longer text. Then I used three types of links with different colours: blue for expansion (additional information connected to a specific word or phrase), green for the explanation of a specific word and red for personal associations. For example, there is a green link that connects Marxism with a definition of Marxist criticism. In the case of more personal associations (red links), they are pictures, ideas, or phrases I had heard or read before that came into my mind when reading certain words. To conclude, I used a Wordle cloud as the picture of the story.

As regards Hypertextopia, I found it really interesting to work with and very useful for educational purposes (the possibility of a collaborative writing is great!).  This tool allows you to experiment with language and meaning in a new way that is meaningful to students in this high tech society. It took me a short time to learn how to use it as it is quite simple. However, I spent a considerable time trying to discover how to delete a link (I couldn´t find a good tutorial). I’ve also found the “shards” a bit limited as they can only be connected to fragments and cannot be connected to other shards. On the whole, experimenting with Hypertextopia was an enriching experience and I had a great time using it.

This is the link to the story, I couldn´t find an embed code.
http://www.hypertextopia.com/library/stories/2038

POSTMODERNISM

I've chosen The Final Cut and Educational Use of Second Life

The film is a postmodernist one. It is an excelent example in which we can see the advent of computers. The key feature here is knowledge. On one hand, real knowledge is the one that can be stored in a "digitalized" way, in this case in a chip that is implanted in a baby as soon as it is born. When this person dies, the images can be used to make a "memorial" video, which is shown in their wake. On the other, we can also analyse knowledge as functional because we make use of it to produce this video.

The video that explains the educational use of second life was stricking for me. I knew that lectures were given using this platform but I didn't know the fact that you could go to different museums to see the paintings which are there and this is the key element of postmodernism. The reality created by simulation, the virtual reality. This world is not original it's a copy of the real one, we could say is a reproduction of life.

In my opinion, I found these videos appropiate to analyse two key features of postmodernism: knowledge and simulacra.

Postmodernism

I really agree with all the opinions written in the blog. They are all very interesting.
I decided to select the Final Cut and War Games trailer. I´ve found that these two videos are intimately connected with  Klages’ article on Postmodernism. The Final Cut shows how technology is good knowledge. "The advent of electronic computer technologies has revolutionized the modes of kowledge production, distribution and consumption in our society. Computer technology is the domintant force in al aspects of social life." So dominant that anything that is not digitalizable is not knowledge. And even more dominant in that it can even manipulate people´s lives.
In both videos, there is no clear difference between reality and technology, as most of your comments say. In the Final Cut, everything is recorded and cut. Our lives are manipulated by technology.
 In war games Trailer what seems to be a game for some, is realitity for others. And this game for some is "simulacrum": a reality created by simulation, for which there are only copies. In postmodern societies, there are no originals.
 All in all, this confusing mixture between reality and fiction makes us think of the vital role technology is playing in our lives.

Postmodernism

I have chosen  “Educational Uses of Second Life” and “Ohio University Second Life Campus”.

 

Both of these videos show another way of education, a virtual reality in which students are immersed in their own education. Both videos show that universities are now turning into a different learning environment, like a paralell world in which students are the protagonists of video-game-like realities.

 

I could identify in both videos some postmodernist features. One of them could be the fact that postmodernism is associated with electronics and computers as the “means of production” which determines social practices. Knowledge is transformed by our reliance on computer technology. All knowledge must be digitalizable to be preserved: anything that is not digitalized will not be considered “knowledge” and will be excluded from our systems of data collection, organization and preservation.

This is reflected in the way universities are now turning their attention to digital education, as an attempt to include education in this cybernetic era.

 

I could also identify the “simulacra” feature in both videos. A silulacrum creates a passive subject who takes the simulation as the only necessary reality. I think that by creating another reality, the Universities that have chosen to relly on this kind of simulacrum of their campus may be leading their students to take a passive attitude towards reality, the fact that students can actually “walk” and visit different places virtually dont create a need for them to actually interact in their real life situations. 

Features of postmodernism in “Introduction to Pop Art” and “ Warhol and the 20th century.”:

*A break down between high and low cultural forms: the line between fine art and commercial art is blurred. As pop art uses images of mass-product objects and celebrities that everyone could recognize in a second, it seems that everybody could understand art.

*Pop art makes use of repetition of these images. This is consistent with Baudrillard’s idea that in the postmodern world of mass media the original disappears and only copies exist.

*There is a questioning of what Lyotard calls “grand narratives”: pop art takes cheap, everyday objects and transform them into “art”, questioning the traditional conception that art should represent the most valuable ideas in a culture. Pop art introduced new questions about what art is, how it can be made, and who could make art. In Andy Warhol’s words: “The Pop idea, after all, was that anybody could do anything, so naturally we were all trying to do it all…”

Postmodernism: elements

After watching the videos on Ohio University, Virtual Classroom Project and Pop Art, I found several features of postmodernism. In the first two, this movement is shown in the field of architecture and technology, while in the third, in art. In the three of them, emphasis is placed on how visual perception takes place.

I interpret that in Ohio University and Virtual Classroom Project there is an instance of omniscient third person narrator: In this case, the buildings are seen from various perspectives by the viewer, as if they were God, so as to show the premises from various angles.

I think there is reflexivity or self-consciousness about the production of the 3D videos as well as pop art works, as each piece calls viewers' attention to its particular form of production.

I also see spontaneity and discovery in creation, especially in 'Introduction to Pop Art'. These visual works favour the idea of fragmentation and provisionality. The first stage of capitalism is evident in Ohio University as well as Virtual Classroom Project, which include, among other aspects, electronically techological developments to satisfy students' needs by including sophisticated audiovisual aids as a learning resource. And the third phase, multinational capitalism, is also evident, at least in the American college, which beckons students from all over the world to enjoy the premises. What Frederic Jameson states about the bond between postmodernism and technology -specifically computers- is applicable to the 3D videos.

Postmodernism seems to offer alternatives to joining the global culture of comsumption. Pop art integrates other cultures' features like Chinese paintings and British music albums (namely, The Beatles'). That is how we notice the influence of global trends or cultures on American artists. In pop art, there is a predominance of signifier, as there are not many possible signifieds for the images. In my view, there is no great depth in the realm of hyperreality in these artistic creations.

In Ohio University and Virtual Classroom Project, we find what Baudrillard mentions as simulacrum, consisting in the signifier/signified relationship. We can see that the exhibition of the buildings, which are the signifiers, are representations that point out to something outside themselves, having a reality on its own. They are a representation without an original to copy, being a reality in itself. This is also applicable to Introduction to Pop Art.

I feel we can also find inderterminacy. Especially pop art resists or destabilises the Enlightenment mode of thought, knowledge or action, based on reason, rationality and science as well as traditional art forms. The idea that 'knowledge must be digitalisable to be preserved' is related to the use of computers in the university and visual classroom, which enable endless oportunities for discovery.

Postmodern Culture

The videos I have selected to try to identify postmodern features are "War Games" and "Educational Uses of Second Life". 

In the first video chosen there is a computer simulation of nuclear war which threatens to start a real nuclear war. The computer user, who is a young man very much acquainted with computer games, can hardly distinguish whether he is playing a video game or it is real life. Such difficulty to differentiate virtual from real life is distinctive feature of the postmodern culture. 

Regarding the second video selected, "Educational Uses of Second Life",it  presents a new way of learning through virtual reality in which learners are highly involved in their own learning process and in which an instance of functional knowledge is presented. Students not only learn to know, but they also learn to use that knowledge, which turns it into memorable as well as relevant knowledge.

I have chosen these two videos because they have in common the collapse between image and reality characteristic of postmodernism. both videos refer to Baudrillard's idea of simulacrum since while in the former the young man finds it difficult to differentiate reality from game-playing, in the latter the learners are immersed in a virtual real world.