Featherstone – City cultures and postmodern lifestyles
Cities have always had cultures, as they produced cultural products, artifacts, buildings and
distinctive ways of life. A switch from an economical and functional emphasis, to a cultural focus; the
switch from modern to postmodern. Culture can be seen as the way of life (anthropology) and
culture in the arts (high culture). Boundaries between these two have become more blurred:
everything is nowadays of cultural interest. Also lifestyle is no longer fixed (bounded to
neighborhoods or classes), but more actively formed through playful exploration (postmodernism).
Cultures of cities and lifestyles have become thematized in a number of ways.
1. There is the assumption that some cities are cultural centers, containing artifacts and
heritage. These represent the source of cultural capital, in which the city is regarded as work
of art (Olsen). But cities can also be cultural centers through housing leisure and
entertainment industries (both art and mass culture industries). These sources may convert
back into economic value for a city.
2. This does not only lead to an enlarged market for cultural goods, but also points to the ways
in which purchase and consumption are nowadays mediated by diffuse cultural images, in
which the consumption of signs become the major source of the satisfaction. The emphasis is
placed on consumption of experiences and pleasure. An emphasis on the spectacular,
popular and the immediately accessible.
3. The wide range of available cultural and leisure pursuits has affected quality. Some groups
take a more active stance towards lifestyle (young, highly educated sectors of the middle
class), in which they are the artist of their life. The taking over of lifestyles refers to a process
of cultural differentiation, in which everybody tries to distinguish from others.
Postmodernism characteristics:
- An antifoundational stance in philosophy and social and cultural theory. Western modernity
claims a universality in science, humanism, socialism, etc. Critique on this shows we should
focus less on modes of knowledge, and be more sensitive towards local differences.
- Privileging of the local and vernacular is translated into a democratic and populist collapsing
of symbolic hierarchies, in which the distinction between high and popular culture is tested.
- An emphasis upon visual images over words, ego over secondary, and immersion rather than
distanced appreciation of the detached spectator.
- This is all together “postmodern depthless culture”.
The Western world has entered a phase of cultural de-classification, in which is a high competition
between a wide variety of cultures and a reduced ability to impose a value-hierarchy. It has led to a
loss of a sense of concrete reality, the so called simulational culture. Consumer-television culture
adds up to this. It is a floating mass of signs and images. Culture is everywhere, actively mediating
and aestheticizing the social fabric and social relationships. This is called hyperreality: a world in
which the piling up of signs, images and simulations through consumerism and television results in a
destabilized, aestheticized hallucination of reality.
Postmodern city marks a return to culture, style and decoration, but within the confines of ‘no place-
space’ in which traditional senses of culture are decontextualized, simulated and continually
renewed and restyled. It is more image and culturally self-conscious: It is both a center of cultural
consumption and general consumption (which is related to cultural signs and imagery). Today’s
lifestyles are influenced by the postmodern simulational tendencies. This postmodernity is reflected
in buildings (more decoration), lifestyles (the imaginary side of life, such as fashion) etc. Especially in
the youth, but more and more seen by adults.
Cities have always had cultures, as they produced cultural products, artifacts, buildings and
distinctive ways of life. A switch from an economical and functional emphasis, to a cultural focus; the
switch from modern to postmodern. Culture can be seen as the way of life (anthropology) and
culture in the arts (high culture). Boundaries between these two have become more blurred:
everything is nowadays of cultural interest. Also lifestyle is no longer fixed (bounded to
neighborhoods or classes), but more actively formed through playful exploration (postmodernism).
Cultures of cities and lifestyles have become thematized in a number of ways.
1. There is the assumption that some cities are cultural centers, containing artifacts and
heritage. These represent the source of cultural capital, in which the city is regarded as work
of art (Olsen). But cities can also be cultural centers through housing leisure and
entertainment industries (both art and mass culture industries). These sources may convert
back into economic value for a city.
2. This does not only lead to an enlarged market for cultural goods, but also points to the ways
in which purchase and consumption are nowadays mediated by diffuse cultural images, in
which the consumption of signs become the major source of the satisfaction. The emphasis is
placed on consumption of experiences and pleasure. An emphasis on the spectacular,
popular and the immediately accessible.
3. The wide range of available cultural and leisure pursuits has affected quality. Some groups
take a more active stance towards lifestyle (young, highly educated sectors of the middle
class), in which they are the artist of their life. The taking over of lifestyles refers to a process
of cultural differentiation, in which everybody tries to distinguish from others.
Postmodernism characteristics:
- An antifoundational stance in philosophy and social and cultural theory. Western modernity
claims a universality in science, humanism, socialism, etc. Critique on this shows we should
focus less on modes of knowledge, and be more sensitive towards local differences.
- Privileging of the local and vernacular is translated into a democratic and populist collapsing
of symbolic hierarchies, in which the distinction between high and popular culture is tested.
- An emphasis upon visual images over words, ego over secondary, and immersion rather than
distanced appreciation of the detached spectator.
- This is all together “postmodern depthless culture”.
The Western world has entered a phase of cultural de-classification, in which is a high competition
between a wide variety of cultures and a reduced ability to impose a value-hierarchy. It has led to a
loss of a sense of concrete reality, the so called simulational culture. Consumer-television culture
adds up to this. It is a floating mass of signs and images. Culture is everywhere, actively mediating
and aestheticizing the social fabric and social relationships. This is called hyperreality: a world in
which the piling up of signs, images and simulations through consumerism and television results in a
destabilized, aestheticized hallucination of reality.
Postmodern city marks a return to culture, style and decoration, but within the confines of ‘no place-
space’ in which traditional senses of culture are decontextualized, simulated and continually
renewed and restyled. It is more image and culturally self-conscious: It is both a center of cultural
consumption and general consumption (which is related to cultural signs and imagery). Today’s
lifestyles are influenced by the postmodern simulational tendencies. This postmodernity is reflected
in buildings (more decoration), lifestyles (the imaginary side of life, such as fashion) etc. Especially in
the youth, but more and more seen by adults.
