Lyotard argues against a historical reading of the ‘post’ in

‘postmodern’. For him, the postmodern does not follow the modern in
time. Rather, modernity has always contained its ‘postmodern’
moments.
We had to recognise the contingency and uncertainty of human
knowledge.
Different groups each have their own narratives which help them to
make sense of the world and themselves, but each of these ‘mini-
narratives’ is valid in its own right for each particular group and
cannot be criticised or evaluated from the point of view of another,
because no one narrative is more true than any other.

Gives example of architecture

Modernists attempted to deconstruct buildings, to make everything
new. In some sense, this failed as it disconnected people from a way
of comfortable living. He believed in protecting diversity and local
differences- Postmodernism does not focus on Universalisation.

Postmodern architecture has changed small spaces and considered how

people occupy the space.
There is no longer any close linkage between the architectural project
and socio-historic progress in the realization of human emancipation
on a larger scale.

Postmodern architecture is a style of building design that emerged in the late

20th century as a reaction against the dogmas and ideals of modernism and
the international style. It is a movement characterized by an often irreverent
and eclectic mishmash of classic and modern styles to create singular works
of architecture that aspire to look like nothing that has come before.
Postmodern architecture is an eclectic, colourful style of architecture and the
decorative arts that appeared from the late 1970s and continues in some form
today in 2024. It emerged as a reaction to Modernism and the Modern
Movement and the dogmas associated with it.

Postmodern architecture emerged in the late 1950s as a reaction against the

austerity, formality, and lack of variety of modern architecture,

bricolage as theorized in 1962 by the French anthropologist

Claude Lévi-Strauss and examine its presence and utility in the
art and architectural history of the twentieth century. While Lévi-
Strauss was the first theorist to present bricolage as an analogy
for the creation of mythical thought among indigenous cultures,
the concept has seen a wide range of conceptual, methodological
and practical applications across different fields, including design,
visual arts, urban planning and the built environment.
Bricolage: Something constructed from a diverse range of things.
Bricolage is the skill of using whatever is at hand and recombining them
to create something new. The use of the bits and pieces of older artifacts to
produce a new, if not "original," work of art, a work which blurs the
traditional distinctions between the old and the new even as it blurs those
between high and low art.

Psychoanalysis
Past can be used in the present like in Freud’s Interpretation of
Dreams. Patients use past experiences to interpret new ones.
Progress
There has been a deterioration in progress for the last two centuries.
Enterprises, discoveries and institutions are valid only if they support
our liberation.
Giving examples of Auschwitz – destruction. We are moving towards
destruction.
Criticising technology: Techno sciences has become a means of
increasing diseases not fighting it.
The big movement of avant gardism is over:)( any artist, movement,
or artwork that breaks with precedent and is regarded as innovative
and boundaries-pushing.)
Lyotard famously defines the postmodern as ‘incredulity towards
metanarratives,’ where metanarratives are understood as totalising
stories about history and the goals of the human race that ground and
legitimise knowledges and cultural practises. The two metanarratives
that Lyotard sees as having been most important in the past are (1)
history as progressing towards social enlightenment and
emancipation, and (2) knowledge as progressing towards totalisation.
Modernity is defined as the age of metanarrative legitimation, and
postmodernity as the age in which metanarratives have become
bankrupt. Through his theory of the end of metanarratives, Lyotard
develops his own version of what tends to be a consensus among
theorists of the postmodern – postmodernity as an age of
fragmentation and pluralism. He says that postmodernity marks the
end of metanarratives or ‘grand narratives’—like Christianity, or
Marxism, or the Enlightenment—which attempt to provide a
framework for everything. Such narratives follow a teleological
movement towards a time of equality and justice: after the last
judgement, the revolution, or the scientific conquest of nature,
injustice unreason and evil will end. Lyotard argues that the
contemporary world-view, by contrast, is characterized by ‘micro
narratives’. Contemporary Western discourse is characteristically
unstable, fragmented, dispersed—not a world-view at all. Little
narratives or micro narratives present local explanations of individual
events or phenomena but do not claim to explain everything. Little
narratives are fragmentary, non-totalizing and non-teleological.
Lyotard claims that in the West grand narratives have all but lost their
efficacy, that their legitimacy and powers of legitimation have been
dispersed. Legitimation is now plural, local and contingent.

Truman Show
As the premise of the film entails the story of a man’s life being
broadcast to the world, everyone who is a part of the ordeal is
characterized to believe in a specific ideology that is carried
throughout the film, thus these actions effectively demonstrate the
technological world’s progressive dominance over the real world in
our modern day. In the movie’s first scene, the audience is
introduced to the show’s three integral characters who carry the
greatest responsibility of establishing Truman’s fabricated life.
Christof, the creator of the show, states that “While the world he
inhabits is in some respects counterfeit, there’s nothing fake about
Truman himself”
The prolific use of advertisements in the film’s dialogue and actions
further encapsulates how exploitative the technological world is to
society, due to the economic order of consumerism. This is
apparent in the scenes when Truman is in a vulnerable state of
mind, as others around him consistently carries a consumeristic
intent. In the second act of the film, Truman is characterized to be
erratic as he slowly realizes that the whole town is on a continuous
loop that centers around his actions, likewise to a crew on a
television set. When he gets home and deconstructs this idea to his
wife, she is portrayed as someone who does not follow along. This
is simply because Meryl is a fictional character in Truman’s world.
As the movie progresses, the audience can see many instances of
Truman’s sky not performing properly since his environment is a
humongous television set, hence the symbolism of Truman’s
unconventional sky eloquently emphasizes the struggle of pursuing
an authentic life in a technological world. The sky is one of the most
realistic things in our world. To a certain extent it is sacred, as
humanity has made the sky related to concepts that are holy and
beyond our control. This is evident through the religious symbols
that the sky upholds, such as heaven or God. Within the first few
minutes of the film, the audience becomes aware of the
inauthenticity of Truman’s world as a set light plummets to the
ground, thus setting the ambiguous tone of the entire movie. When
Truman goes to the beach to reflect on his growing suspicion that
he may be living in a fabricated world, the sky malfunctions once
again as a stream of rain begins to pour only on the area that
Truman is situated in. The repetition of the sky’s inability to act
properly demonstrates how the technological world will never be
able to replace the authenticity of the real world. When the two
worlds are in juxtaposition with each other the technological world
will always falter, as it cannot compete nor replicate the sacredness
of the world’s actual reality. Towards the end of the film, Truman
experiences one last interaction with this artificial sky before he
leaves. As Truman rides his boat to the horizon, with the intent to
finally leave the island, he crashes into the sky which is revealed to
be a wall. In this instance, the sky begins to malfunction due to
Truman’s passion for escaping the constricting means of his
technological world. Therefore, this scene symbolizes the idea that
the only way for a person to experience true freedom from an
inauthentic world is if they revolt from their tragic condition. It is only
when Truman acknowledges that everything in his existence is
counterfeit that he is able to break through the fraudulent
replications of the technological world metaphorically and
physically.
Furthermore, the film can be read as a parody or pastiche, as it
borrows from various genres and styles of filmmaking. The Truman
Show is a satire of reality television and the entertainment industry. It
also draws on elements of science fiction and dystopian literature. By
blending these genres, the film creates a unique and disturbing vision
of the future in which technology and entertainment have become
inseparable.
Critique of linearity and history.

Characteristics of Postmodernism:
There is no absolute truth~ At the end of the film the director of the
show finally speaks with Truman about the outside world and the
world he has created. He describes the outside world as being just as
untruthful if not more than the world he has created for Truman. This
scene perfectly depicts the notion that there is no absolute truth. In
response Truman leaves in search of the ‘truth’ when there is none
that’s attainable.

Postmodernism in films: Patsiche, Hyperreality, distortion of time

Hyperreality: the postmodern condition where it is difficult or
impossible to distinguish between reality and representations of
reality.