LADY GAGA - POSTMODERN ARTIST

Lady Gaga - Postmodern Artist

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Using Summer Camp and a band or artist of your choice, explain how some artists can be postermodern.

There is a number of reasons why Summer Camp and Lady Gaga are postmodern, Summer Camp is a 2 person band from London. Their music is very much based on the 80s era, more focused on teenagers on that particular time, this is portrayed through the aesthetics of their videos, blogs and album cover. Lady Gaga on the other hand is very much the queen of postmodernism, she crosses so many boundaries and takes the influences she sees in the world and incorporates into her work to make is appeal to her fans. Postmodernism is not only applied to these two, it is everywhere in the music industry. Artists and groups are always remixing and incorporating past works into theirs,

Postmodernism is a rejection to modernism. Modernism is the belief that we should never look back, we should always look into the future and always create something new. Before modernism, there were such things as the “Grand Narratives”, Science, Religion and Politics coined by Jean Francois Lyotard. It was believed that before modernism everyone fitted or believed in only one thing, you were either, religious, political or scientific. You could not intersect into these worlds because it would counter act your original belief. Like music for example, in the past, if you listened to rock music, that was the genre that you could listen to, you could not like rock and another genre like Hip Hop for example, these two are completely the other end of the scales from one another and it would have been considered as weird or unusual for one to like more than genre of music. Nowadays, everyone is a postmodernist in some aspect, the majority of people with iPods, iPhones or MP3 players have all different genre of music on it. Brian Eno coined the phrase “The Death Of Uncool”, meaning that nothing is uncool anymore, you can have all of these genres in one place and it cannot be considered as uncool in today’s culture as everything is about remixing things together and making something new and unique. To believe in postmodern or to be a postmodernist, you would have to completely go against the idea of a modernist. A postmodernist would acknowledge the past, they would say that without the past, you cannot move into the future because you won’t learn anything from it. It would be like making a mistake over and over again. Postmodernism in today’s culture is very popular; it’s so popular that when we see it, we don’t even recognize it.

There are a number of aspects which makes Summer Camp postmodern, starting off with how they look. By just looking at the aesthetic of their Videos, Blogs and Album covers. You can the impression that they are going to be this cool band who are uncool, which makes them cool. Summer Camp has used hyper-reality to portray who they want to be to the audience through their projected image, but when you actually see a picture of them and watch their videos, you can see that they are a British 2 person group living in London who are obsessed with 80s music, another artist who uses Hyper-reality very heavily is Lady Gaga who has created a character or persona for her music to go along with her music. Lady Gaga the also takes music influences from the past and incorporates it into her work,  an example being that she has taken the influence of the 70s sounds and incorporated it in her second album “The Fame Monster”. Their website is very postmodern, it features a variety of video clips when the user clicks on the links. All of the videos clips are found footage from the 80s, each one of them having a different element to them whether it be humorous, sadness or happiness. The website itself is very postmodern because it’s using footage from the past, and projected through advanced technology we have today. The video for “Round The Moon” was made up of found footage from Swedish film called “Enkarlekshistoria” which came out in the 80s. By using this, they are using Bricolage, because by having young adults doing adult things, like smoking and drinking and kissing. Although at first it seems creepy, but as the song goes with the videos, it makes it sweet and innocent. Summer Camp also follow Kramer’s theory of “is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension”, the extension aspect of SummerCamp is that they use "80s synths and ’80s drum-machine sounds" in their music, the break would be to use the of technology we have in the present such as the GIFs they made their video out of 'Down'.

The foundation behind “Lady Gaga” is postmodernism, she is always remixing and re-working past movements and adapting it into her own to appeal to her fans, this is an example of Kirby Ferguson’s theory of “Everything is a remix”.  When thinking about Gaga, you cannot ignore her predecessor, Madonna. Her music, videos, and image is quite similar to Madonna’s back in the 80s when she became a worldwide superstar, and it is through this which has helped Gaga to become the star that she is today. She has focused her career on being unpredictable and outrageous; she is probably doing everything that Madonna has done but amplifying it three times to gather press and new audiences. A clear example of how similar Gaga’s music is to Madonna is with her first single from her album “Born This Way” which sounds very similar to Madonna’s “Express Yourself”. Lady Gaga is a “populist”, meaning that she is mainstream but she also includes “elitist” aspects into her work like with the use of Opera in “Government Hooker” on her latest album “Born This Way”. Another way in which Gaga is postmodern is that she uses Intertextual References in her work, a clear example would be her music video starring alongside Beyonce “Telephone”. This video was one of Gaga’s most unusual and creative videos, throughout the short film, she makes clear intextual references to Quentin Tarantino’s work. Example are spread throughout the film starting right at thy start with the font chosen for the title and credits, the font chosen is a yellow card with reddish drop shadow, this is a subtle reference to Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. Another reference Gaga makes to Tarantino’s work is with Beyonce’s nickname in the video “Honey Bee”, this being a clear reference to the diner robber in “Pulp Fiction” named “Honey Bunny”. Gaga addresses Beyonce as “Honey Bee” before they pull off their poison murder spree in the diner; this seems like a pretty clear reference to “Honey Bunny,” the nickname given to Yolanda, one of the two robbers in the famous diner scene in Pulp Fiction. The clearest reference to Tarantino’s work in “Telephone” is the “Pussy Wagon” that Gaga and Beyonce drive in the video, the car was featured in “Kill Bill Vol 1” which was used for lead actress Uma Thurman to drive in, in the film she stole the car from the male nurse and used it as she drive to her victim’s house “Copper Head”. The video also shows an intextual reference to Andy Warhol’s idea of “Exploration of mass consumer culture and advertising” through his Campbell’s soup studies, in the video Gaga and the video director Akerlund wanted to challenge gender stereotypes of the “perfect housewife” portrayed heavily in the 1950s pop culture by using popular staple American household products like the “Wonder Bread” and “Miracle Whip” as their artistic devices in the video. By doing this, she also uses Bricolage, because in the “Let’s Make A SandWhich” scene, she uses the role of the 50s housewife and changes its meaning by adding poison to the food she makes which ends up killing all of the people in the diner. Gaga uses Hyper-reality to her advantage, she has consumed this character and this is what helps her music sell. When you think about Gaga, you don’t just think about her music, you think about her overall image and aesthetic. When you think of Gaga, you see all of her theatrics, whether it be the choice of Fashion, hair or makeup, whenever you go to see one of her live shows, you expect a show. Without her hyper-real self, her music would not sell as well. This goes with Baudrillard’s theory of that “our current society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs, and that human experience is of a simulation of reality”, meaning that the manner in which the message is mediated becomes more important than the meaning of the message itself.

In conclusion, both of these artists and bands share similarities in how they are postmodern, but they also differ from each other because one is quite niche and the other one is quite mainstream. Similarities which they both share are Hyper-reality, influences of past music and incorporating it into their work.  Although Gaga has amplified this a thousand times more than Summer Camp, I also think that because of Summer Camp’s particular use of hyper-reality, it can confuse the audience about who they are before they see. Comparing them both, they are very different, in similar in a number of ways.

SUMMERCAMP - JONATHAN KRAMER THEORIES.

1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension - The extension aspect of SummerCamp is that they use "80s synths and ’80s drum-machine sounds" in their music, the break would be to use the of technology we have in the present such as the GIFs they made their video out of 'Down'.

2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic - Through the 1980s research, I have realised that the reason for why SummerCamp is cool, they are 'cool' because they are being ironically 'uncool' therefore making them 'cool' in the present day. The reason for why they are ironically 'cool' is because they are infatuated with the 80s, this particular era was the decade of the teenagers. New movies such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Weird Science focused on teenagers and High School at that particular time, these movies were 'cool' in that particular era, but comparing them to films that are made now they are 'uncool' because when we watch them now, we realise who cheesy and cringey they are, but by acknowledging that they are 'uncool' it makes it 'cool' to like them.

3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present - ?

4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles - Summer Camp write their own songs, so therefore they follow the traditional methods of artists, which makes them High Style. Other artists who are considered 'High Styles' are The Beatles, Adele. Examples of 'Low Style' artists are Justin Bieber, One Direction.

5. hows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity - ?

6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values - Summer Camp are considered 'cool' by some people because they are not in the charts or mainstream, meaning that they are an elitist instead of a populist. But if Summer Camp was to become successful in the charts and mainstream, populists would start liking them and the elitists would go off them.

7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold) - I would say from listening to their songs on YouTube that all of them have the same sound, meaning that their music is one piece instead of 'avoiding totalizing forms' where each song of theirs has a different sound.

8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts - Summer Camp produces music which is very much based on the 80s era in America, the 80s being probably the most famous and heard about, they are following the American culture and social contexts.

9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures - Their songs, videos, image is very much based around American 80s Pop Culture. Although at the start, before I had seen their picture, I had an image in my head of what they would look like from looking at their blog, website and images.

10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music - Summer Camp has incorporated computerized sounds in pop songs from the 80s in their music by using the technology we have today, to replicate the first computerised sounds on songs.

11. embraces contradictions - Their video 'Round The Moon' has been made completely out of uncopyrighted footage from the 1970 Swedish film "En kärlekshistoria", so by doing this they are contradicting their style because they are using an old piece of footage with something that is brand new.

12. distrusts binary oppositions - ?

13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities - by using clips from "En kärlekshistoria", it pays homage as they are using the clips to visualise the context of the song to the audience watching.

14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism - Summer Camp uses a techno sound, similar to those of Vampire Weekend.

15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities - By using clips from different times and putting it with their music. They are presenting multiple meanings and temporalities.

16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers - With people having iPods and MP3 players nowadays, they are not bound to one category of music.

JONATHAN KRAMER - POSTMODERNISM MUSIC THEORY

A very interesting aspect of postmodern music theory. This will help you with your next essay.

Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices."
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":

1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist.

Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.

1980s

The films I watched were Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Teen Wolf and Weird Science. All of these films had the same similarities such as:

• Set in American High School.
• Free and Young.
• Obvious Social Cliques (Nerds, Popular Kids)
• The 'Girl' (In each one of these films, there is a girl who the main character likes and makes her a important character to the film).
• Careless living.
• Having a good time.

Music


The Human League - Fascination

• Classic 80s sounds.
• Men wearing make-up.
• Women wearing strong make-up.
• Wearing All Black.
• No choreography, just dancing along with the music. 

Gary Numan - Cars

• 80s retro sound.
• A new age of music.
• Male singer wearing makeup.
• Use of editing effects.
• Lots of close-ups of the face.
• No choreography, just dancing to the music.
• Quite artistic and creative, through camera work and set design. 

A Flock of Seagulls

• Singer wearing makeup.
• Artistic Ideas.
• Close ups.
• Women wearing a lot of eyeshadow. 

BUT THE BAND LOOK NOTHING LIKE THE BAND

SummerCamp does not look like the band they have portrayed to be through their blogs and videos.

Hyperreality is a means to characterise the way consciousness defines what is actually 'real' in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or experience.

Often, a 'copy' can replace the original.

1.A magazine photo of a model that has been touched up with a computer.

2.Films in which characters and settings are either digitally enhanced or created entirely from CGI (e.g.: 300, where the entire film was shot in front of a blue/green screen, with all settings super-imposed).

3.A well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal).

4.Any massively promoted versions of historical or present "facts" (e.g. "General Ignorance" from QI, where the questions have seemingly obvious answers, which are actually wrong).

5.Professional sports athletes as super, invincible versions of the human beings.

6.Many world cities and places which did not evolve as functional places with some basis in reality, as if they were creatio ex nihilo (literally 'creation out of nothing'): Disney World;Dubai; Celebration, Florida; and Las Vegas.

7.TV and film in general (especially "reality" TV), due to its creation of a world of fantasy and its dependence that the viewer will engage with these fantasy worlds. The current trend is to glamorize the mundane using histrionics.

8.A retail store that looks completely stocked and perfect due to facing, creating a world of endless identical products.

9.A life which cannot be (e.g. the perfect facsimile of a celebrity's invented persona).

10.A high end sex doll used as a simulacrum of a bodily or psychologically unattainable partner.

11.A newly made building or item designed to look old, or to recreate or reproduce an older artifact, by simulating the feel of age or aging.

12.Constructed languages (such as E-Prime) or "reconstructed" extinct dialects.

13.Second Life The distinction becomes blurred when it becomes the platform for RL (Real Life) courses and conferences, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or leads to real world interactions behind the scenes.

14.Weak virtual reality which is greater than any possible simulation of physical reality.

SUMMERCAMP, BRICOLAGE, FOUND FOOTAGE

Bricolage - moving something from one place to another - changing the context.

Fount Footage - not documentary. Already made clips put together, creating a new meaning.

How does Stella and Ella make you feel?

• It made me feel quite relaxed and sad for some reason, unlike some people in the class who thought that it was quite creepy. The reason for why it made me feel kinda sad was because at the start of the video when they said that one of the sisters had died, and it made me feel quite relaxed because the song choice for the video was quite good.

Is it Postmodern?

• Yes, the author/ creator of the video has changed the meaning of the video by changing the original song 'Holy Night' which is something that is thought to be joyful and religious, but by changing the song to Radiohead's 'Street Spirit' it suddenly makes the video creepy, although it does look like the video goes with the song because the movement of the sisters match the song. 

SummerCamp

• Different from Stella & Ella.
• There is a narrative with flows with the song.
• By choosing young kids, it makes it cuter and sweeter. 

DISCUSS WHY SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT CONVINCED BY THE IDEA OF POSTMODERN MEDIA

Postmodernism as a whole is said to be a rejection to modernism. To be able to understand postmodernism, we first must understand modernism and why the postmodernism movement happened.  Modernism was about always looking towards the future and not looking back and that everything was original, the argument that postermodernists have come up with is that how can we move forward, if we don’t acknowledge the past,. Surely if we don’t learn from our mistakes, we would just be repeating it over and over again, therefore we wouldn’t be moving forward, and we would then only staying still. A postmodernist would will also take in the Jean Francois Lyotard’s theories of the Grand Narratives such as Science, Politics and Religion. As we speak, post modernists would take aspects of the grand narratives and put it together to create their own, there are numerous examples of this in our everyday lives, it can happen with Fashion, Music and media.

In order to understand Postmodernism you have to look at the examples of postmodern texts, an example would be where a director of a film has taken influences from other texts, this would be called an 'Homage' as he/she is respectfully taking influences from existing works such as television shows, computer games, music etc. to incorporate into his own. An example of a postmodern text which I have looked at is Dan Black's 'Symphonies' created by following the Levi Strauss's theory of 'Addition, Deletion, Substitution and Transposition'. In this video, Dan Black makes clear intertexual references to other  texts, there are various examples which run through the video but to name a few, he has chosen to include the Universal Studios-like clip at the very start, the use of 'Umbrella' soundtrack during the opening credits, the old hollywood style etc. There are many more which play throughout the video, but the point that I am making is that only a postmodernist would be able to spot these intertextual references because he/she would have already seen the original texts which only then, can they see what Dan Black is doing. But you do not have to be a postmodernist to admire and like the video, for example someone who did not have the knowledge of the intertextual references could easily be as amused while watching it as a postmodernist, he/she would just think that the video was creative through the use of different effects.

An example of a film which is postmodern is 'Hobo With A Shotgun', the reason for this being is because the film was based on a fake trailer, made for a non-existent imaginary film. Directed by Jason Eisener, this film does not have a productive and dynamic storyline. The reason why it was made to be gore to gore sake, the film features scenes showing people getting killed or tortured in the gruesome-ist ways. There is no point to the film and some postmodernists say that the film was too good at being bad.

Another example of a postmodern text is the game 'Desert Bus', this game could possibly the real-est game I have ever played. The reason for this is not because of the graphics, or the story line as such, the game does not even have a story line. All it requires the player to do is to get from point A to point B by driving a bus on a straight line for 8 hours to get to Las Vegas, 8 hours actually being accurate as it would actually take 8 hours to drive there on a bus in real life which makes it such a real life game. The game does have a reward system, when you finish the 8 hours and get to Las Vegas, you receive 1 point and then you have to drive back again. You cannot pause the game and if you slow down or drive of the road, you will have to wait for the amount of time you have played on the game for the bus to be towed back to the start to be able to play it again. 

WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?

Ideas to include in essay.

• Movement of media.
• Rejection of modernism.
• Breaking down boundaries - no more genres, conventions.
• Homage - taking past influences and putting it together. E.g. Kill Bill
• Pastiche - Parody, making fun. E.g. Scary Movie
• Replacing idea of reality with a reality - Exaggeration. 'Hyper-reality'
• Interacting with the text - 'pro-sumers', have to think and question about what you're watching.
• You have to understand the history to understand the context of post modernism.
• Bricolage.
• Grand Narratives - Modernism, religion, science, politics. To make it post modernism, you take aspects of it and combine it.

POSTMODERNISM - wants to see the PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE at the same time. 

BRIAN ENO

No one is interested in one particular genre anymore, people take bits of what they like.

15 random shuffled songs.

Sugababes - Get Sexy
Aerosmith - I Don't Want To Miss A Thing
Coldplay - Major Minus
Cobra Starship - The World Will Never Do
Tinie Tempah - Snap
Usher - Love In This Club
Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Want To Have Fun
Miley Cyrus - Party In the USA
Kylie Minogue - Too Much
Vampire Weekend - Giving Up The Gun
One Direction - Up All Night
The Saturdays - Why Me, Why Now
Mark Ronson & Amy Winehouse - Valerie
JLS - The Club Is Alive

BRICOLAGE

Bricolage - Changing traditional objects and words to give them subversive meanings.

Punk with the safety pin - To rebel, using something that was used to hold a nappy together on a baby, they have changed the meaning by wearing it as a piercing .

Symbolic code - having the opposites next to each other. E.g. Fat Wealthy man and a poor child.

Cool - 'something we like', also depends on the context - meaning how people see it.

Confidence is 'Cool'.

You do not have to be fashionable to be 'cool'.

Michael McIntyre  - 'Lad' - nice man and everyone likes him. - Links to popularity, being popular makes you 'cool'.

Uncool - can be cool. Ironically wearing the geek glasses, which makes them cool.

Being 'Too Cool' can be uncool, like you're trying too hard.

Uncool can be cool.

Peers, Journalists, Celebrities, influential people decide what is cool and the rest follow.

DESERT BUS

Although desert bus is one of the most simple games I have ever played, it does follow some of the computer game conventions.

The first convention that desert bus follows is that it has levels/ mission being that you have to drive the bus from point A to point B, if you were to try and complete this, it would roughly take 8 hours to do it and then it would take another 8 hours to drive back again.

The game is very realistic as when I am playing it, I have to keep my concentration on the screen mnaking sure that the bus does not swerve off the road. The game is usually part of a charity event and it may not appeal to lots of people as their is no great reward or sense of achievement while playing this game.

Other computer game conventions are:

Puzzles/problems

Progressive difficulty

Linear structure

Binary opposites