Monday 22 April 2013
Thursday 18 April 2013
'Postmodern media manipulate time and space'. To what extent does this definition apply to texts you have studied?
Postmodernism allows media products of a different time and design influence to be manipulated into a successful (or not) present day media. Postmodernism intends to use old media material subtly or by reference to create something new, allowing producers to take ideas from many sources to create a new meaning with a bricolage of depth, or to remove all meaning all together (removing depth).
One example of the manipulation of time and space is found in Christian Nolan's film 'Inception'. Within the plot dream layers are created, dreams within dreams within dreams. As these layers continue to build time in the real world slow downs, for example the first layer (reality) is in 'normal time', but then as a layer is added what we interpret as 'real' time slows down, as time becomes quicker in a dream state so days happen within seconds of the real world. This shows how the film has manipulated time, as in reality whats happens in this space (scene) should only take a few minutes, is stretched to become hours for the audience. The film also describes the issue with not being able to distinguish between what is real and what is a dream linking to the postmodern theory 'Hyper Reality' were the consumer/audience can't determine the difference. The main character describes to a new 'architect' (creator of dream) not to use her existing places, objects etc. as she may loose sight of what is real and what is a dream. This use of Baudrillard's theory occurs again as modern audiences in film media have become accustomed to CGI and digital manipulation of landscapes and other special effects. Christian Nolan tries to limit the use of CGI as much as possible, trying to make everything as 'real' as possible. For example in one scene were two characters fight in a corridor in which gravity is no longer forced the audience are unaware that this has been filmed by using a real rotating room. This shows how audiences are struggling to distinguish between the real-world and the digital. The word 'Inception' refers to the idea of planting a thought into someones head. The film has an intertextual reference to itself, as the film plants the idea of 'What is reality?' into the audiences, making them question what is real, and what is dream. This shows how at both times postmodernism can have depth and meaning and no depth and no meaning at the same time, as the film has depths of layers, in which all describe the previous but at the same time we question whether what we think is reality is reality, which would subsequently equate to that having no meaning.
Within the music industry postmodern material also manipulates the time and space of media. Kirby Ferguson's theory that 'Everything is a remix' is obvious within Swiss Lips music. For example in their song 'In The Water' s sample of the lyric 'Hey' is taken from something similar to 'Hey you the rock steady crew's' song. This shows how something has been developed and transformed from the early 1980's dance genre to fit into an Electric-Pop 21st Century band. Bricolage from their music video's also connote the idea of the manipulation of previous material from different ages and meanings to make something fitting the present audience and genre. Their music video for their 2013 cover of Frank Oceans 'Lost' consists of 1 main video footage taken from a fan video of the original Frank Ocean song with Found Footage from the 80's placed over the top. This video tries to represent an upbeat colourful dance image with lyrical significance to being 'lost', 'out of control' (reasonings for the female artist shots). The original fan video consisted of 3 video's, one of the model Michaela Kocianova at a Vogue magazine shooting, another video of her doing a shoot about a desperate female, and the third video taken from an amateur photographer about a young female in summer weather. This shows how video's taken from different times, with different (original) meanings have been developed and combined to
conform new meanings in a new time.
On a larger scale this manipulation has taken place in music spanning over 50 years. For example Kayne Wests song 'Gold-digger' takes the main structure (tune, chords etc.) from a song by Ray Charles called 'I gotta woman'. This song was heavily influenced from the Gospel song 'It must be Jesus' by The Southern Tones again using a very similar tune to the original which was first released in 1954. This shows how a song that was originally Christian and religious based has been changed to a song about women using men for money. Once again this connotes the idea that postmodern media manipulates time and space as music can be taken from one era and genre and be changed to suit a present mainstream music scene.
Subsequently postmodern media can change previous material from different times and spaces to create new 'modern' products. This could be a positive for the future of media, as audiences can enjoy previous material but within an updated and developed scene. However this does bring up the argument that postmodernism is 'vacuous and trapped in circular references' in the opinion of Jameson as this re-use and development will keep circling and nothing 'new' or 'different' (creative) will be made.
One example of the manipulation of time and space is found in Christian Nolan's film 'Inception'. Within the plot dream layers are created, dreams within dreams within dreams. As these layers continue to build time in the real world slow downs, for example the first layer (reality) is in 'normal time', but then as a layer is added what we interpret as 'real' time slows down, as time becomes quicker in a dream state so days happen within seconds of the real world. This shows how the film has manipulated time, as in reality whats happens in this space (scene) should only take a few minutes, is stretched to become hours for the audience. The film also describes the issue with not being able to distinguish between what is real and what is a dream linking to the postmodern theory 'Hyper Reality' were the consumer/audience can't determine the difference. The main character describes to a new 'architect' (creator of dream) not to use her existing places, objects etc. as she may loose sight of what is real and what is a dream. This use of Baudrillard's theory occurs again as modern audiences in film media have become accustomed to CGI and digital manipulation of landscapes and other special effects. Christian Nolan tries to limit the use of CGI as much as possible, trying to make everything as 'real' as possible. For example in one scene were two characters fight in a corridor in which gravity is no longer forced the audience are unaware that this has been filmed by using a real rotating room. This shows how audiences are struggling to distinguish between the real-world and the digital. The word 'Inception' refers to the idea of planting a thought into someones head. The film has an intertextual reference to itself, as the film plants the idea of 'What is reality?' into the audiences, making them question what is real, and what is dream. This shows how at both times postmodernism can have depth and meaning and no depth and no meaning at the same time, as the film has depths of layers, in which all describe the previous but at the same time we question whether what we think is reality is reality, which would subsequently equate to that having no meaning.
Within the music industry postmodern material also manipulates the time and space of media. Kirby Ferguson's theory that 'Everything is a remix' is obvious within Swiss Lips music. For example in their song 'In The Water' s sample of the lyric 'Hey' is taken from something similar to 'Hey you the rock steady crew's' song. This shows how something has been developed and transformed from the early 1980's dance genre to fit into an Electric-Pop 21st Century band. Bricolage from their music video's also connote the idea of the manipulation of previous material from different ages and meanings to make something fitting the present audience and genre. Their music video for their 2013 cover of Frank Oceans 'Lost' consists of 1 main video footage taken from a fan video of the original Frank Ocean song with Found Footage from the 80's placed over the top. This video tries to represent an upbeat colourful dance image with lyrical significance to being 'lost', 'out of control' (reasonings for the female artist shots). The original fan video consisted of 3 video's, one of the model Michaela Kocianova at a Vogue magazine shooting, another video of her doing a shoot about a desperate female, and the third video taken from an amateur photographer about a young female in summer weather. This shows how video's taken from different times, with different (original) meanings have been developed and combined to
conform new meanings in a new time.
On a larger scale this manipulation has taken place in music spanning over 50 years. For example Kayne Wests song 'Gold-digger' takes the main structure (tune, chords etc.) from a song by Ray Charles called 'I gotta woman'. This song was heavily influenced from the Gospel song 'It must be Jesus' by The Southern Tones again using a very similar tune to the original which was first released in 1954. This shows how a song that was originally Christian and religious based has been changed to a song about women using men for money. Once again this connotes the idea that postmodern media manipulates time and space as music can be taken from one era and genre and be changed to suit a present mainstream music scene.
Subsequently postmodern media can change previous material from different times and spaces to create new 'modern' products. This could be a positive for the future of media, as audiences can enjoy previous material but within an updated and developed scene. However this does bring up the argument that postmodernism is 'vacuous and trapped in circular references' in the opinion of Jameson as this re-use and development will keep circling and nothing 'new' or 'different' (creative) will be made.
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