'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there'.
This quote means that the future is going to constantly have things being done differently, in other words a song from the past can be remixed and listened to differently to give it a completely different meaning e.g. Where is my mind by Pixies which has been used in the movie Fight Club and on a Thompson holiday advert and has been put across to the audeinces very differently in the two.
'If you look to the future and keep one eye on the past you are blind in one eye. If you keep both eyes on the future and no eyes on the past you are blind in both eyes and god have mercy on you'.
This quote means that the things used today and in the future are influenced, referenced or copied from the past as we have many songs which sample existing songs and also movies which have many of their elements influenced by existing movies.
George
ReplyDeleteYou've got your explanations mixed up. In the past (i.e. pre 20th century) we were pretty much incapable of making identical things, skills were key and something possessed by a talented minority.
Then with mechanisation in the 20th century we all suddenly could own the 'same' thing or at least something which 'looked' like the real thing. Design and art became obsessed with the 'new' and thought that progress meant ignoring the past (look at the Bauhaus and art deco buildings) and utilising new skills and materials.
Postmodernism rejected this idea and saw the value in melding and mixing together elements from different historical periods, this then grew into mixing things from different genres, styles and cultures. Think of the Pixies songs, a grung rock song has suddenly become easy listening piano music.
Everything is influenced by something, what Postmodernists seek to do is take their influences from the 'wrong' place.