Lebanon Digital Art: April 2013

Monday, April 22, 2013

POST MODERNISM PROJECT

Post Modernism

Post Modernism is categorized by the dissolution of traditional boundaries between art, architecture, popular culture, and (mass) media. Post modern works have been been accomplished by an open-ended process of borrowing ideas, art forms, and representations from the past and the present. (Robert Hirsch, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography)

Post Modernists believe meaning cannot be determined by surface appearances since everything from a photograph to a television program is a text that must be decoded. The act of deciphering the “text” and unveiling the hidden assumptions behind it is what Jacques Derrida calls “deconstruction.” (Robert Hirsch, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography)

The notion that there is not a single truth of experience is at the core of postmodern thinking. That is in direct opposition to the modernist view of trying to discover the “essence” of essential meaning in the world." (Robert Hirsch, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography)

Appropriation

Appropriation is the act of borrowing imagery or forms to create something new. The act of appropriation is usually associated with Post Modern art practices and Roland Barthes' idea of the “death of the author.” Barthes maintains that all ideas or recycled and modified. Every idea is, in fact, a conglomeration of past ideas. Hence a work of art is a collective vision, not a singular one.

Identity Politics

Identity, in an artistic sense, is associated with how one views oneself, how others perceive you, and how a society as a whole defines groups of people. Important to one's identity are ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class, as well as education, childhood, and life experience. For many, being an artist is not just an occupation but also an ethical responsibility. Much art today deals with what it means to be an artist in today's rapidly changing world. (Art 21 Definition)

Semiotics

Semiotics is the relation of language to things not natural but determined by culture. Language is a self contained system of signs made of two components: the signified and the signifier. Signifier = word, signified = mental associations of the word, conscious or unconscious, informed by culture.

Semioticians analyze these mental associations to understand how a society creates meaning and to find hidden meanings. Visual images, such as photographs, can communicate meaning in this way and, thus, can be analyzed as signs.

These Projects are due to the Blog by Thursday.