POSTMODERNISM  is a general term applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, music, fiction and cultural and literary criticism. It derived out of the modernist era and its beliefs and it puts itself in just opposition to them all. It is a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, all objective, efforts to explain reality. It recognized that reality is not simply reflected in the human understanding of it, but, on the contrary it is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. This is why postmodernism is definitely full of explanations which claim validity among all culture traditions or any form of grouping. It focuses instead on the relative truth of truths of each person.

Interpretation is fundamental and indispensable: reality is activated only through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. The post-modern artists assume that our language is too imprecise and our senses are too limited to be able to describe  a reality correctly.

Postmodernism relies on concrete experiences over abstract principles, taking however into account that the result of one's experience will be relative and fallible, rather than certain and universally acceptable.

At the same time, if everything is relative and not universally true, it goes without saying that also the post modernist principles are relative and not absolute, so questionable. So postmodernism denies the existence of any ultimate principles, lacking the optimism of existence of a scientific, philosophical or religious truth which will explain everything for everybody the basics of which the previous modern era founded itself on.

Venturini Chiara

Indri Valentina