Postmodernism

After trawling through pages upon pages of Internets on the topic of postmodernism, I have discovered it is not limited to a particular era. Unfortunately, in my own head, and as oxford dictionary defines it, Modern is “elating to the present or recent times as opposed to the remote past” or “characterized by or using the most up-to-date techniques, ideas, or equipment”. So you can imagine my frustration in trying to get my head around the fact that modern, in art terms at least, is in the past, and post-modern is the present. Maybe it is my own problem that my mind, so engulfed with the meaning of words and the fact that these meanings are set, will not be more open-minded.

The eras so defined as “post-modern” were the sixties and seventies. Stepping away from the early sixties, where people were celebrating life and experimenting, the later era was a time that looked back at the decades before and laughed at the naivety of them. The post modern era was the conservatives time to shine, taking the culture from the sixties and slamming it together with the self-referential idea of ‘look how silly we all were’. These days, an idea like that is called ‘meta’.

Part popular culture AND part what the...

The seventies was a period of inflation, and women’s rights were taking off so the decade was quite prosperous and gave a lot of people hope and prosperity. From what I can see the era was solely in America, the post war baby boomers had settled and grown up and life in America was getting into full swing. Almost everyone had a television and more people were getting high skill jobs and attending education for longer.

Roy Lichtenstein-a staple in Pop art

Andy Worhol was the artist that defines the PoMo era. Culturally, the art from the postmodernism era was very alike the previous surreal movement and Worhol was no real exception. By taking people perceptions of everyday things and twisting them by changing the colours and view of these things, he was able to get people thinking.

The first time I saw a tin of soup after this, my mind was blown

This is my knowledge of the postmodern era, from what I can tell from this time, people were reveling in the fact that the Vietnam war was over and they were entering into a period of time where the world was richer and new inventions, such as computer games and television were becoming a staple and the art of the time was reflecting this.

Is it art if it is digital?

It has been a sad month for anyone who works with technology. Two of the greats, Dennis Richie and Steve Jobs, have died. Is it ironic, however, that one was celebrated widely and mourned worldwide and another, without whose creations Apple would not exist in its present form, fell into the black hole? Don’t get me wrong, Steve Jobs was an innovator, a thinker, a great public speaker. He changed the way we do almost everything technologically today and when I found out about his death, I worried how Apple was going to change; but Dennis Richie was something else, he co-invented Unix (an OS from which MacOSX derives.) and the programming language C++. Of course it is the celebrated rebel of the technology world that broke rules and bent our perception of technology that was celebrated and not the Harvard Graduate that Neckbeards everywhere cried over. But what is interesting is that Steve Jobs was an artist, maybe not a conventional ‘artist’ by any means and contested by a quite angry New Yorker article (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2011/10/steve-jobs-artist-or-hippie-capitalist.html) but an artist none-the-less. And from all this rises the question: If it is digital (or anyway technological) is it art?

Have you watched a film with CG in it? Listened to a CD? Sat on a sofa? Well the last one is cheating because I can’t be sure if a sofa is art or not. 

I don't know about art but it seems cosy

I’m sure a lot of people will say the director has a ‘great vision’ or a ‘great artist’ makes the music. Well, in modern times (yes, these times) these things are made on computers. When you buy a CD or MP3, the band doesn’t appear the minute you press play, so where is the confusion? 

Like so, except with Jefferson Airplane

You can’t tell me these things are not art. Cartoons and drawings that are made by machines are just as ‘arty’ as the hand drawn and painted art. Heck, even renaissance artists cheated with the Camera Obscura.

...I sincerly hope he is only drawing...

The designer sitting behind a bright monitor with a whirring and hot hard drive is just as much an artist as the painter with a canvas and watercolours. A musician can make music without actually playing an instrument by using samples!

Time has dictated this change; people that argue that digital creations are not art are too scared of change and refuse to accept that the perception of art is evolving. These people don’t realize that creativity could not survive in a stagnant state; ideas will run out, life will become bland. With the opportunities that the digital age has thrown at people it means creativity is no longer limited to the precious few. I know there are many people that would like to keep art selective, like the patroned artists from the renaissance, but the truth is innovation and creativity does not limit itself to money or to whom society dictates. The digital age is well and truly upon us, and the Internet is an audience not limited to creative quarters, sites such as DeviantArt have made the web into a relevant platform for artists everywhere.

If we could do this with a typewriter we'd have it made

So the answer is digital art is just as much art and involves as much thought and creativity than just drawing, if not more.  It is still a relatively new platform for artists but change is part of being creative, the inspirations for artists have changed, so it is imperative that the means in which art is created should change and thrive also. Oh and 42.