OUGD601 / Context Of Practice / Further Writing / The Postmodern Meaning Of Style

The commodification of subcultural signs

Fashion as visual communication

The rise of technology has allowed the opposite to the idea Muggleton refers to here above, can a new subculture exist in the contemporary technological age, with its decontextualized appropriation of signs and the commodification weakening subcultural signs. Can technology create new margins in which subcultures can exist, a recent example could be the rise of the cybergoth, a subculture predominantly online based through social media platforms, this culture replaced the record shops and gigs that Punks used to congregate and subsequently survive the culture, for online spaces such as Tumblr and Myspace.

The information age and mass media dilute the original, the secluded and original, a child who has experienced mass media, globalization and void of the idea of local no longer relates to their peers, geography no longer dictates ideology as it once did.  The decline of subcultures is noticeably in a contemporary society, the access to the internet transcends all geography and influence. No longer do places such as King’s Road resemble cultural hubs, hubs originated in the earliest print workshops as mentioned previously. Using King’s Road as a metaphor to reflect the transition into the contemporary summarises the influence of technology. King’s Road, once the mecca for Mods and Punks, the home to SEX, several independent record labels and the dwellings of many of the well known subcultural idols such as Sid Vicious, Vivienne Westwood and Billy Idol has been gentrified. Reflecting the ‘death of subculture’, the commodification of ideology and consumer capitalism, this transition of Kings Road reflects the contemporary state of subculture, not to be submitting to technological determinism but the influence of technologies effect upon this change is evident.

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“Young people don’t just buy passively or uncritically. They always transform the meaning of bought goods, appropriating and recontextualizing mass markets styles…Most young people combine elements of clothing to create new meanings… and sometimes reject the normative definitions and catergories of ‘fashion’ promoted by the clothing industry’”. Willlis, 1990, p85 cited in (Muggleton, 2000, p41)

“As commodity production, exchange, and creative appropriation intensify, signs become free-floating, travelling towards the point at which they become irrevocably divorced from their original cultural contexts” (Muggleton, 2000, p43)

“Culture as a commodity, the biggest growth business of the lot: the proliferation of television, vide, computers and information” (Savage, 1989, p171 in Muggleton, 2000, p43)

 “Individuals obtaining ideas about what to wear may neither be aware of, nor necessarily care about the ideology to which style have originally referred. Hence PLO headscarves become trendy on the streets of New York City, skulls and crossbones become insignia on children’s clothing, and Rastarfarian dreadlocks are preempted by runaway fashion models and rock (not necessarily reggae) musicians.” (Kaiser et al. 1991 p176 in Muggleton, 2000, p43)

Reffering to Jameson (1984), Muggleton “If post-punk revivals are examples of pstiche, then, as Jameson would have it, they can say nothing new, represent nothing more than our ‘pop images’ and ‘cultural stereotypes’ of the past, for the peculiarity of postmodern time has now and for evermore precluded any possibility of subcultural ‘originality’. The concept of ‘authenticity’ must likewise be expunged from the postmodern vocabulary. The all-encompassing power of the contemporary mass media has ensured that there can no long be a sanctuary for the original ‘pure’, creative moment of subcultural innovation that preceded the onset of the contaminating processes of commercialization, commodification and diffusion” p45

“To start with, I’ll tell you what Punk isn’t – it isn’t a fashion, a certain style of dress … it is an idea that guides and motivates your life. The Punk community that exists, exists to support and realize that idea through music, art, fanzines and other expressions of personal creativity. And what is this idea? Think for yourself, be yourself, don’t just take what society gives you, create your own rules, live your own life.” (Anderson, 1985, cited in O’Hara 1995 p22) Muggleton, 1999, p59)[KW1] 

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 [KW1]PUNK is an ideology that has been commoditized. Yes it had created its own visual language, a language derived from necessity, available resources and technologies but the aesthetic, the fashion was never considered primarily. Is the common idea of PUNK a reflection of the aesthetic first, the signs consumed by the outsider mute the signified, the signified being individuality, hedonistic and self. Also mention the reference to expressions of personal creativity being music, art, fanzines. These were all platforms.