I woke up this morning and, for no particular reason, felt like I should writing about textuality.
Maybe because I’ve been running through Tokyo streets that feel just a little off, a little unpolished — and somehow, that made me feeling oddly at ease.
In postmodernism, one of the key ideas is exactly that — textuality.
Everything we’ve been taught, every book, every piece of advice, starts to feel like a kind of text.
Take Blade Runner, for example. (a film that has always always forever inspired me.)
A film by Ridley Scott, released back in 1982 — even before I was born.
It’s one of those works that always comes to mind when talking about postmodernism. The idea that even identity can be constructed, performed… even artificial.
Then there’s the question of the subject. The self.
There was a time when the self felt singular, stable, almost absolute.
Postmodernism is where that starts to fall apart.
What used to be a clear, rational subject begins to fragment.
And after modernist movements like minimalism or land art, the focus shifts — from the thinking mind back to the body.
But that body, too, isn’t singular.
It carries multiple identities.
The moment you realise that, the idea of a fixed, rational self starts to dissolve.
And that’s when you can’t help but look at everything as text.
If we bring in Jean Baudrillard, things get more interesting.
His ideas around simulacra and simulation — they’re everywhere once you start noticing them.
Simulation, simply put, is when representation doesn’t just reflect reality but replaces it.
Think of those サンプル (plastic food) displays in Japan — the perfectly crafted fake tonkatsu sitting in a glass showcase. It’s not the real thing, and it’s not supposed to be.
It stands in for it.
A simulacrum isn’t identical to reality.
It can’t be. That gap is what makes it a simulacrum.
Baudrillard uses Disneyland as an example.
He suggests that Disneyland acts as a kind of simulation of America — a constructed version that stands in for the real thing.
But does it actually represent America? Not really.
If anything, it masks the fact that America itself isn’t the idealised multicultural space it claims to be. The simulation hides that.
He also talks about codes. And honestly, this part feels very real.
Think about the famous Korean advertising.
Why is a figure like Jun Ji-hyun associated with something like a Kimchi refrigerator?
It’s not about the appliance itself. It’s about attaching a fantasy to it.
For a moment, the product borrows her image, her aura — and sells that instead.
That’s the code.
Objects stop functioning as objects.
They enter a system of meaning exchange.
The actual function of the kimchi fridge becomes secondary, almost irrelevant.
What’s being sold is a feeling, an image.
A slim figure in a white blouse saying “This tastes right” — that image is doing all the work. It’s a perfect little unit of simulacra. You don’t question it, you just absorb it.
And it doesn’t stop at objects. Even the body becomes a sign.
Baudrillard points out how the body, which should be understood through its function, turns into an image — “perfect face,” “perfect body,” trends like “no-pants looks.”
The signifier (the image) floats around, detached from any stable meaning.
The signified never quite matches.
What gets hidden in all of this is the actual body. The real one. Instead, what circulates is a coded version of it.
That’s part of the condition of postmodernity.
And when you start comparing this to earlier ideas of purity in art — the obsession with originality, authenticity — it feels like a direct challenge.
So what do you do with that?
Critical postmodernism leans into post-structuralism.
Think Roland Barthes. For him, a text isn’t a single, fixed meaning. It’s a space — layered, multidimensional, made up of fragments.
If you translate that into visual art, it’s the same idea.
A canvas becomes a place where different elements collide, overlap, get rearranged. A kind of collage. Something new, but made from existing pieces.
Textuality pushes back against the idea of originality. It almost laughs at it. “Was originality ever real?” it asks. Concepts like authenticity, origin, authority — all of them get questioned, taken apart.
Then there’s Jacques Derrida. His way of crossing out “truth” — not to erase it, but to show that it can’t stand on its own as a single, fixed idea. Truth isn’t one thing. It never was.
In the end, like Barthes said,
There’s nothing entirely new under the sun.
... Written with the lecture of Lee Ji-eun, President of Western Art History, in mind.