“A postmodern artist or writer is in the position of a philosopher: the text he writes, the work he produces are not in principle governed by preestablished rules, and they cannot be judged according to a determining Judgment, by applying familiar categories to the text or to the work. Those rules and categories are what the work itself is looking for. The artist and the writer, then, are working without rules in order to formulate the rules of what will have been done.”
In this quote Lyotard provides an enlightening interpretation of what postmodernism truly means. Based on the quote above, my understanding of postmodernism is that it is an era, or “aura”, of creating without adhering to any rules whatsoever. The work itself is blindly searching for the rules that will apply to the era that follows it. Thus postmodernism is an aura of exploration, of pushing boundaries in all directions until finally you hit something and can not budge any further. Once this occurs, new rules and boundaries for artists and writers to come will be formed and fleshed out.
This explanation of postmodernism makes so much sense to me because it relates so well to all of the postmodern music and architecture that I have ever come across. Postmodern art gives you the sense that there is no need for sense, only expression and experimentation.
The lack of rules when it comes to postmodern art makes it difficult, if not impossible, to judge because the rules with which we would typically judge art do not apply to postmodern work. It is this exact issue that makes many people so critical of postmodernism; it is difficult to be understood because it is so free and explorative.
This phenomena of an era that does not yet have the tools with which to be judged can be related to generational studies. Each generation is given a label and an in-depth analysis, but it is impossible to completely analyze and understand a generation until the generation is developed. For example, there isn’t much analysis on Generation Z because we are still developing. Once the next generation is born, there will be an in-depth understanding of Generation Z and our generational struggles. Similarly, postmodernism is an aura that will eventually lead to another era that likely has clearly understood rules and boundaries.
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