Sunday, April 3, 2016

Postmodernism and Our Sense of Reality



Facts, according to Postmodernism: Social and Cultural Ideals, are not absolute but something to be interpreted. Our sense of reality has changed as we can manufacture our identities in order to present to the world what we want others to see, though personality tests purportedly allow us to find out who we really are. Attaching meaning to things is impossible as there are no absolutes. One image that floated by during the video caught my eye. It was of art installation outside Marfa, Texas which I visited on a road trip a couple years ago. Along a desolate highway in the middle of the desert there is a Prada “store”.
 If somebody that wasn’t expecting to see this they would question reality and whether or not the “store” was real. It is immaculately kept with shoes displayed in the windows so it seems plausible that you could actually shop there. It is, in fact, just an obscure art installation. Others ways in which reality can be distorted is through technology. Instagram and other social media sites allow users to create a personality for themselves which may or may not represent reality. Photo filters have the ability to make a somewhat sunny day seems brighter than it is. Setting up the perfectly cropped shot also distorts reality as, Chompoo Baritone, shows in her The Truth Behind Instagram Series.

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