Cultural Underpinnings of Post-Modernism
It isn’t easy to pinpoint precisely when Post-Modernism took shape in as much as it is equally difficult to define it under one absolute definition. Post-Modernism is a term integrated into a number of visual culture, it is a movement described by sociologist Jürgen Habermas as “simply a phase of modernism.” In her book, Graphic Design Theory, Meredith Davis describes Post-Modernism as a “combination of modernist techniques and styles, with something more sympathetic to the viewer.” Davis attributes these blurred origins to the fact that Late-Modernism and Post-Modernism both arose from Post-Industrialism. Furthermore, Post-Modernism broke from high-culture and universality of modernism, “aesthetics preferred by white, mostly European, progressive intellectuals” (Davis, 190). This brake called into question, what is good taste? Post-Modernism makes no claims to absolute truths or the nature of truth itself. Instead, it calls into question beliefs and foundations of the social institutions that maintain them. These ideas shifted culture around the world, spreading by means of consumer societies, and late or multinational capitalism.
By the 1980s Post-Modernism had been fully realized. Playful and loose this movement shifted a culture once universal in its practices, to acknowledge that we all have our own cultural positions. This acknowledgement spread through technologies aided by aesthetics of advertising in ones’ environment. The result was more control and oppression that artist and designers responded to. Suddenly there was new territory to advance with advertising and a means to push the consumer message to race, gender, and cultures. These groups of people that had once stood outside the media now found themselves a part of it. Intersectionality brought sex, race, culture, class and personal perspectives to an unavoidable mesh point in densely populated cities. The role of the designer was to transcend different cultural experiences. Post-modern culture found its way into all facets of life, bringing a sub-culture to the mainstream. Such as the technology and invention of Apple computer in 1984, which allowed exploration of boundaries and conditions of society.
The ever-savvy media-machine now reached for cultural references to churn advertising into the ever-growing beast of consumerism. Corporations and ad firms employed this technology to push consumerism to a massive scale. What was once a message to the subculture and the non-conformist was now made aware to the masses by corporations. These techniques in advertising are now utilizing the very same mechanics in pushing the post-modernist theme into the consumerist’s hands, making them feel as though the taste that at once seemed out of reach, was now obtainable. As the nature of consumerism changed, goods and services progressed to meet the demands of society. The homogenization of the elements that Post-Modernism sought to repel itself from, blurred the lines between subcultures, creating simply a culture. Similarly as the child seeks to separate and defy the parent, Post-Modernist emancipated itself from the previous generation, despite being borne of its culture. There is always a natural need to rebel and separate from the emulsifying effect of society, which will continue to progress what we maintain as a movement.
