1. Postmodernism Lesson 2
Modernism & Technology

2. Key Terms
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Modernism
Modernity
Baroque
Romantic
Realism
Agrarianism
Capitalism
Industrialism (mass production)
Rationalization
Secularism
Urbanization
Fordism
Taylorism
Consumers
Feminization
Globalisation

3. Modernism
• Have you heard of the concept of Modernism
before?
• If so Where and Why?
• If something is Modern how can it be out of
date or old?

4. Key Question
• The Modern age was exemplified by a number of key
scientific examples - can you think what these could be?

5. Pre-Modern
• Sense of self and purpose was often expressed via
a faith, be that in a single god or in many gods (religion)
• Pre-modern cultures have not been thought of creating
a sense of distinct individuality
• Religious officials, who often held positions of
power, were the spiritual ‘messengers’ to the common
person. It was only through these ‘messengers’ that the
general masses had access to the divine
• Tradition were sacred; social
order/ceremony/morals are strictly enforced

6. Modernism
• Late 19th century / early 20th century
• move from agrarianism
toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, ratio
nalization
• Wide-scale and far reaching changes
• post-traditional
• post-medieval historical period
• development of modern industrial societies
• rapid growth of cities
• followed by the horror of World War I
• In art, Modernism rejects the ideology of realism
• Modernism also rejects the lingering certainty
of Enlightenment thinking, as well as the idea of a
compassionate, all-powerful Creator

7. Changes during modernism
• Adoption of new technologies into daily life of
ordinary people.
– What kind of technologies do you think?
• Associated with urbanization and changing
social traditions also came smaller families
and changed relationships between parents
and their children.

8. Technologies
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Automobile
Modern Medicine
Telephone
Phonograph
Television
Electricity
Radio
The need to work with these technologies, repair them and
live with them—created social change.

9. Common theme in technologies?
• Altered our perception of time and space
through communication and speed

10. Extra modern examples
Modern Examples
Youtube address
Modern design (chairs)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErBGq6ZA-2U
Bauhaus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8zuGsX_z_Y&feature=PlayList&p=F0E
A633E28C6FC94&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=54
Cubism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkODKN_m_H4&feature=PlayList&p=27
0D2871A940F123&index=3&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL

11. Differences between Modernism and postmodernism
• By the early 1980s the postmodern movement in art and architecture
began to establish its position through various conceptual and multimedia formats.
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• However dates are highly debatable, "one critic's postmodernism is
another critic's modernism“
• Some see them as two aspects of the same movement, and believe that
late Modernism continues
• Postmodernism is essentially a reinterpret the modern.
• Rejection of tradition
• Many modernists believed that by rejecting tradition they could discover
radically new ways of making art.

12. Key Points - Modernism
• Inspired by technology and science
• Applied mathematical and scientific logic to all
human process's
• Sought to make thing efficient and productive
• Profit driven capitalism was the base
"superstructure" behind production
• Mass production and factory labour
• Science and technology seen as essential components
in human evolution
• Design based around need and function
• Efficiency and cost productiveness

13. Frederick W.Taylor (1856-1915) The
Principles of Scientific Management
Managers assume full coordinating
roles
Analysis of production processes lead
to simplification
Time and Motion studies implemented
for streamlined cost cutting

14. To what extent are Taylor's Ideas still prevalent
in today's Postmodern world?
• Sky+
• wireless internet
• Iphone/ipad – smart phones/technological
convergence
• Tills in the workplace

15. Henry Ford (1863-1947)
Inventor and manufacturer of the Ford motor car
Assembly line
manufacturing process
The Standardization of
the product
The use of Specialpurpose tools and/or
equipment via the
assembly line
The Elimination of skilled
labour in direct
production

16. Key Concepts: Fordism and Taylorism
• Perception of time radically changed in
Modernity
• New Technologies of Management such as
Taylorism & Fordism altered the way people
behaved as "Labouring Units"

17. Film as a Modernist Art Form
• To what extent is Film a modernist art form?

18. Snow White (1937)
• The 1930s were a period of immense
upheaval economically
• 1929 Wall Street Crash
• Mass unemployment and homelessness

19. Post-Fordism (in Postmodernity)
• New information
technologies.
• Emphasis on types of
consumers in contrast to
previous emphasis on social
class.
• The rise of the service and the
white-collar worker.
• The feminization of the work
force (shift in gender roles in
work place)
• The globalization of financial
markets

20. Key Modernity Points
• Structure and Order
• Efficiency and productivity
• Science and technology

21. Modernism - Plenary
• What events do you think caused the shift
into Postmodernism between the 30s-50s?
• Why would our trust in science and
technology be questioned?

22. What caused the collapse of
Modernism?
• Stock Market Crash 1929
• World War 2 and the Holocaust
• Cold War and M.A.D
• Collapse in socialist housing programmes
• Warhol's "Marylyn" goes on a European tour

23. Modernist Texts
(challenge established styles and forms)
19th century
Early 20th century
(before WW1)
WW1-WW2
Post WW2
Van Gogh (post
impressionism)
Mondrian (abstract)
Picasso (cubism)
Duchamp (dadism –
anti-art)
Dali & Magritte
(surrealism)
Bauhaus
Pollock (abstract
expressionism)
Texts on modern/postmodern border
-dada
-surreal
-abstract expressionism

24. Pomo: "Style over substance"
Modern
Postmodern

25. Modernism vs Postmodernism
• On the attached sheet complete the column "postmodern"
with the opposite of what is down in the "Modern" Column.

26. Homework (Due tues)
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Complete modern/pomo chart (fill in pomo side)
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A) Fill in the modernism / pomo chart
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A) choose a modernist artist - choose 1 piece of their art and know the context of
this work (and the time period they lived in/what the world was like then) (you will
have to research it obviously!)
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B) choose a pomo piece of work from last 3 years - know how it is postmodern and
again, know the context, (why produced in relation to the current world/what the
world is like now)
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C) write a short essay to COMPARE similarities and differences
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-make sure you explain the work first (5 w's)
-explain the contexts
-compare similarities and differences between them
-remember comparative connectives! (similarly, however, on the other hand etc)