[...] a prominent spectacle ---> go to Devil wears prada movie)

blurring of genres in news programs (Vox news), soap operas (), games ()

decontextualization + spectacle

the duality of ‘appearance =/= essence’ is dead in postmodernity --> cereal strategic decision-making in marketing : ****image = positioning****

-consumer always seeks an essence (in adopting a product)
-consumer of postmodern culture play the game of “surface” (they increasingly acquire the skills of recognizing the images and the positions these images offer)

[*]marketing: institution of simulation, imaginary, hype
(forms of) persuasive communication : transformational propositions ==> simulating potential experiences (=/= true or false discourse)


2- [*]fragmentation: the consumer engages in a series of independent, separate, unconnected acts --each--> require a different product
+ fleeting moments of exciting scenes and images

(postmodern) transcendence of the (modernist) necessity to *understand connections*

***artists of all kinds are increasingly assuming the role of marketing institutions***

the consumers (of postmodernity) are encouraged to play the game of *image-switching* (caring mother, efficient manager, elegant partner, gourmet homemaker --each--> require a different style {labeled as consumer liberation}) =/= central character
[---> go to Deleuze and Guattari's schizophrenia of late capitalism]

disconnected from authentic self ==> (enormous potential for) creativity in manufactured representations
~~--> market becomes a pastiche

postsuburban transformation
complex interaction of high-technology production + socio-spatial configuration + spectacular shopping environment = ubiquitous shopping malls (--acquired--> postmodern theatrical character, fragmented experience of all cultures)

unrestricted ability to use signifiers [?pushed back by some emerging sensibilities of cultural appropriation, political correctness, gender policing, religious, etc.]
--> marketing competition rests on the creation of images (meanings) removed from any history, context, origin =/= excellence and sophistication in form and technique
[---> go to contemporary artists anti-excellence attitude and the celebration of failure and failing]
--> **each instance of communication becomes a spectacle**

purposefully decontextualized + rendered free floating ==> marketable product
(surrealist artists made use of this --now--> shop window designer)
Duchamp, Rauschenberg, Warhol (ready-made)

***themes of postmodern culture:
irreverence
nonconformity
noncommitment
detachment
difference
fragmentation

(paradoxically) what seems to be difference at the level of symbolic culture stems from an underlying uniformity <-- ***heterogeneity has its origins in homogeneity*** : cultures where market and marketing are less developed exhibit greater variance in both the quality and kinds of life patterns

literacy:
•in modernity --> to read + discover connections among seemingly unrelated objects ==> understanding
•in postmodernity --> watching : recognizing images (exposing oneself to innumerable images and recognize what they stand for ~ attach meaning to them) <-- this is what i did in my telegram bestiary text!

literacy in consumption culture ~/=? established nortons of education


3- [*]reversal of production and'>& consumption
•modernist: value is created in production (meaningful) and destroyed in consumption (profane)
•postmodern: production continues during the moment of consumption, value is created during consumption: a process through which individuals define themselves, status, image (=/= common) --> a social act, symbolic meaning ==> an individual with certain tastes, mentality, values (a type of humanity)

production and'>& consumption prove to be different moments of the same cycle

•during production: producers are human beings, products are commodities
•during consumption: producers are images, products are human beings


4- [*]decentering subject
•modernist: the subject is in the pursuit of its goals, constituted in the separation of body and mind, to graduate from the *state of being* (existential) to the *state of knowing* (cognitive) : distance oneself from a pure existence of being (its context and condition) in order to develop a cognitive understanding
•postmodern: the subject is not in control, role of the human is to allow products perform their functions

marketing orientation
•positioning of the products (in the market)
•positioning of the consumer (in the social market)

(today's) body culture: self-objectification (==> to be consumed)
distancing of one's own gaze from one's own body to view one's self and scrutinize one's own images
--> ***fashion becomes the metaphor for culture***


5- [*]juxtaposition of anything with anything (its name?)
•opposing emotions: love and'>& hate, contempt and'>& annotation
•opposing cognitions: belief and'>& doubt, reverence and'>& ridicule
--> in advertisement a product is simultaneously made fun of and prompted, or making credibility by discrediting advertising
*high art and mundane consumption*
}<== growing acceptance of *doublethink* (~=? double bond) : the metagame of playing along as if the rules are what they seem on the surface while having the knowledge the rules of the game played are quite different from what that appear to be
•in advertisement: the consumer thinks while other people are persuaded, they themselves are not
•in politics: the consumers (voters) listen as if the politicians are espousing genuinely personal views
•in media: stating the role of the polls + reflecting the politicians view with utmost seriousness
•ethnic restaurants --> delicious life styles of which food is just a manifestation --> **simulated adventure in a theatrical society**
•
}--> the postmodern consumer does not judge the experience from a foundational perspective
*it recognizes only difference*, only fragments (=/= inequality, conflict)

anything is at once acceptable and suspect ( مجاز majaz)

*juxtaposition of opposites ==> total irony + ambiguity --> pastiche*

marketing --> *incorporation: pulling the contradictory (country cultural) movements into market economy : emptying expressions (music, fashion) of rebellion (for example punk) of their content ==> commodities them

society historical process is affairs through politics and social relations --✕--> market mediates social conflicts (for example the content and the looks of news program in VOX news)

*marketization (of politics): the possibility of representing them through electronically manipulated images (for example USA's 1991 gulf war was run more as a marketing campaign)
~=> *management of consent*

“authentic” traditional cultures in order to survive have to become marketable --> touristic attractions

•marketing taking the center stage in most western institutions
•market = locus (dominant mediator) of legitimation


marketing: a cultural process representing the post-


transnational (corporation) : postmodern cultural change agent


in traditional world of commerce ‘commercial space and'>& time =/= programming space and'>& time’

modernist vacuum created by obsolete notions of what is good or bad (sacred or profane) --> filled by marketing (enters --into--> culture)


fragmentation ==require==> use of many different styles and forms

(ideas and movements which already have made) sensational impact --> spectacle --> commodities


(marketing helped in entrenching) artist selebrity setting new trends and values <-- a postmodern phenomena with its roots in 1960s “anti-” movements
•not challenging or endorsing or committing to any one style, but rebelling by doing “one's own thing” (Madonna's rebellion 1991 --> she will continue to find large audiences as long as she represents and combines the postmodern aspects of critique of the metanarrative and the marketable commercial sensationalism of the fragmented spectacle)

paradoxical nature of postmodern culture <-- fragmentation and discontinuity of their experience
not owning a TV (conscious re[...]