However, its chief general characteristics are often thought to include an emphasis on "radical aesthetics, technical experimentation, spatial or rhythmic, rather than chronological form, [and] self-conscious reflexiveness"[3] as well as the search for authenticity in human relations, abstraction in art, and utopian striving.
Postmodernism arose after World War II as a reaction to the perceived failings of modernism, whose radical artistic projects had come to be associated with totalitarianism[4] or had been assimilated into mainstream culture.
Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,[7] a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a "grand narrative" of Western culture,[8] a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what "the real" constitutes)[9] and a "waning of affect"[10] on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.
However, a common theme of current attempts to define post-postmodernism is emerging as one where faith, trust, dialogue, performance, and sincerity can work to transcend postmodern irony.
[13] Turner criticizes the postmodern credo of "anything goes" and suggests that "the built environment professions are witnessing the gradual dawn of a post-Postmodernism that seeks to temper reason with faith.
As examples of its triteness he cites reality TV, interactive news programs, "the drivel found ... on some Wikipedia pages", docu-soaps, and the essayistic cinema of Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock.