INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURAL RESEARCH

Francisca FOORTAI

Pushkin Leningrad State University, St. Petersburg, Russia
Doctor of Arts, Professor

«Look who's gone!» Chester Bennington as a media hero of our time.

The article is devoted to the memory of the outstanding American rock musician, singer, poet, charity man, front man of Linkin Park – Chester Charles Bennington. The text is the first attempt to consider the phenomenon of creativity and personality of Bennington as a media hero on a global scale, aesthetically, mentally and ethically influenced on the mental health of several generations in the first two decades of the new century. Using the fragments from the huge stream of comments in the Network for the musician's departure, the author analyzes some semantic blocks of these messages, revealing in them functional and typological coincidences with the heroes from traditional myths. In particular, the analysis of some semantic blocks of intertext on the death of Chester Bennington, suggests that similar to the heroes of traditional myths, Chester as a media hero performed paternalistic and soteriological functions, acted as an object of adoration (idol), was a role model, his departure marked for millions of fans keen sense of the passage of time.
Also in the article, an attempt was made to identify the specific features of the media hero, which are due to the special sphere of its existence, namely, media reality.
Short, full of incredible turns, hard work, harmful tragic passions, love and compassion, the fate of Chester Bennington during his life began to acquire legendary features. In the world media environment there are awards, which are called «iconic» like the awards of three Olympic winners of antiquity, which are perceived as an inimitable image, that is, in the mass consciousness, this award performs the function of fixing perfection, ideal-is, in fact, «canonization» of the image of the media Hero. Such icon («rock sound icon») of modern media reality at the end of life's journey appeared Chester Charles Bennington.

Key words: Chester Bennington, a Media Hero, Myth, Hero, Media Reality, Function of Adoration, Soteriological Function, Similar Function, Quasicult, Rock-Culture, Ascendes /Discendes Hero, Intertext, Media Mass, People's Religiosity.

References

Elena ALYMOVA

Saint Petersburg State University, Russia
Institute of Philosophy, Department of History of Philosophy
Ph.D. in Philosophy, Associate Professor

Socrates as Hero of Philosophical Drama

The paper is dedicated to an iconic figure of the European philosophy – to Socrates, who is considered as a dramatic character and protagonist of Plato’s philosophical dramaturgy, which combines the traits of tragedy as well as those of comedy. Our theoretical background is the ideas proposed by a Russian philologist and cultural student – O.M. Freidenberg. According to her, the phenomenon of comic and the comedy represent a counterpart of philosophy. Socrates is treated traditionally as a tragic figure: a person condemned to death, a philosopher who was expelled not only from his native city, but moreover from the life itself. But through the optics of Olga Freidenberg Plato’s Socrates, who represents the philosopher par excellence, is seen as a figure both tragic and comic. This interpretation allows to reconsider the philosophy of Plato and at the same time to put a question about the nature of the philosophical position as such.

Key words: Socrates, Cultural Hero, Ancient Philosophy, O.M. Freidenberg, Comic, Parody, Comedy, Tragedy.

References

Irina MOCHALOVA

Saint Petersburg State University, Russia
Institute of Philosophy, Department of History of Philosophy
Associate Professor, Ph.D. in Philosophy

Socrates as a Phenomenon of Russian Culture: from the Ancient Greek Morality Teacher to the "Russian Socrates"

Socrates has a special place in the spiritual history of mankind: the name of this ancient Greek thinker served as an indicator of the spiritual state of society. However, the Russian socratica has yet to be explored and comprehended. The focus of this article, one of the initial pages, the period of second half XVIII – first third XIX century the article deals with the first manual on the history of philosophy in Russian language. In particular, the article analyzes and compares the abbreviated translation of the history of philosophy by J. Brooker, made by Kolokolnikov (1785), "the experience of leadership to the history of philosophy "(1818). Davydov and "history of philosophy "of Archimandrite Gabriel (Part 1, 1837). The formation of the image of Socrates as a cultural hero is revealed. In the final part of the article it is shown that the search in the 30s of the XIX century of the national Russian philosophy leads to the formation of the image of "Russian Socrates". Russian folk philosopher Skovoroda, represented by the" Russian Socrates", allows us to see the Russian original philosophy as the true heir of the Greek wisdom.

Key words: Socrates, Cultural Hero, History of Philosophy, Russian Philosophy, Skovoroda, "Russian Socrates".

References

Marina RYABOVA

Kemerovo State University, Russia
Department of Translation and Linguistics, Professor, Doctor of Sciences in Philology

Hero as a Cultural Type and a Model

The article deals with the cultural concept ‘герой /hero/ héros’ as a cultural type determined by Russian, English or French cultures. The etymology of the given concepts is analyzed based on the language material of Russian, English and French, that goes back to the Latin word ‘heros’ (meaning demigod, a noble man). The semantics of the concepts is studied based on the definitions in the language dictionaries, that demonstrate the common nature of their nominative-conceptual features, such as: a person admired for bravery, the main character of a story, play, or movie, a person of superhuman qualities and semi-divine origin, an object of extreme admiration and devotion: idol. Is it assumed that the notion of a hero is cultural and historic, and it develops in time. The author describes the functions of the concept in the modern Russian language culture of media discourse, which illustrate the meaning of the term ‘герой’ in everyday life communication. The process of stereotypization of the characters of ‘hero’ within the context of modern communication allows to state the cultural type as a model possessing a certain number of culturally determined features. The article observes the model characters of a ‘hero’ in the English (British) language culture, which correlate with the concept of ‘a typical Englishman’, the most distinctive character of the latter is a feeling of his own exclusiveness. Finally, the article contains the analysis of some English proverbs and citations the semantics of which encodes the cognitive characters of a hero and its evaluation, enabling to conclude about the meaning of the British cultural type of a hero.

Key words: Cultural Concept, Cultural Type, Model, Hero, Language Culture, Media Discourse, Communication, Cognitive Character.

References

Nataliya SHMELEVA

Kozma Minin Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences
Ph.D. in Philology

Heroization of the everyday life in the context of cultural fears of the present

The present epoch can be called the most “heroical” in the history of culture, because the variety of heroes is connected with a growing sense of fear, which is actively replicated and pumped by culture. In this article author analyses features of the hero of everyday life, not so much related to traditions and values, but to the ability of a person to overcome all kinds of fears. Everyday heroes are in a single cultural space, represented by the Trinity "man-fear-hero". Modern culture is full of different phobias. And there is a special character to overcome each of them. Since the leading human activity is to maintain comfort, an important function of the hero is to fight the enemy, which is all that violates comfort. The hero of everyday life increasingly draws attention to the fact that heroism requires some attributes or some things that become a startup of everyday heroism. The changing culture focuses on the image of a changing hero who doesn’t always meet traditional values, and sometimes goes beyond moral and cultural norms.The hero of everyday life had to" touch " the boundaries of culture to preserve its integrity. The development of visual practices increasingly makes these boundaries visible, because attention is paid not so much to the spiritual world of the hero, as his external embodiment. Since the absence of the hero of the cultural past this abilities gives the viewer the opportunity for better identification with the heroic event. And it makes the image of fear more conscious.

Key words: the Hero of Everyday Life, the Hero of Advertising, the Movie Hero, Heroism, Fear, Phobia, Visual Culture, Reality, Mass Culture.

References

Francisca FOORTAI

Pushkin Leningrad State University, St. Petersburg, Russia
Doctor of Arts, Professor

The Mad Hero of Cinema: Scientist as a Mirror of Existential Fears

This article is devoted to one of the archetypal images in cinema, which present in this art from the first years of its appearance. The author considers the image of a mentally inadequate scientist not only from the point of view of his dual goal-setting (the search for personal immortality and the desire for total power), but, for the first time, his different semantic content is associated with a stable visual embodiment, reproduced in films over the past hundred years.
The author argues that despite the «external» (historical-political) and «internal» (figurative-stylistic and technical) conditions, this type of media-hero preserved its semantic functions and visual characteristics. According to the author, this is an objective phenomenon, because the image of a mad scientist is an archetypal image and acts as a reflection of collective fears that reflect the drama of human existence, namely, the insoluble contradiction between his desire for immortality and at the same time, the fear of losing all that is the essence of man.

Key words: Media-Hero, Mad Scientist, the Archetypal Characters in the Film, Existential Fears, a Leading Art, Immortality, World Domination, the Collective Unconscious, Artistic Anthropology.

References

Olga DZHUMAYLO

Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia
Institute of Philology, Journalism and Intercultural Communication, Head of the Department of World Literature and Criticism
Doctor of Sciences in Philology, Associate Professor

Genius Scientist as Hero of His Time in Artistic Discourse of 1980-2010

This paper addresses a brand-new scientist representation as a hero of his time in artistic discourse of 1980–2010. Unlike preceding tendency of primarily politicized image of a scientist meant to be an embodiment of the progressive ideas and often a glorified sacrificial figure (A. Elena), this new ‘postmodern’ turn is connected to both: a widely spread interest to theory of chaos and theory of complexity (Gleick, Hawking, Mandelbrot); and its popular forms, leading towards genius’s exceptionalism to be ‘explained’ in popular terms, and a certain commercial appropriation of science hero by celebrity culture. In such a way popular plot about ‘mad genius’ (e.g. a documentary about genius mathematicians-suicides Dangerous Knowledge, 2007; plays: Whitemore H. Breaking the Code (1986), Morton-Smith T. Oppenheimer (2015), Stoppard T. The Hard Problem (2015), Frayn M. Copenhagen (1998); novels: Banville J. Doctor Copernicus (1976), Kepler (1981), Mosley N. Hopeful Monsters (1990), Lightman A. Einstein’s Dreams (1993), Belton N. A Game with Sharpened Knives (2005), A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines (2007); films: Wittgenstein (1993), Pi (1998), A Beautiful Mind (2002), The Theory of Everything (2014), etc.) is developed along three narratives: a story of a mad / eccentric / outcast scientist, meant to be an emblem of one of his genius theories (Gödel's incompleteness theorems, or Turing’s machines, etc.), and marks his unapproachability as total Other; a confession traumatic plot, appealing to signs of human vulnerability in genius; and a coming of celebrity story. Apart from that, a chosen figure is put in line with other prominent scientists of different epochs whose names in popular history are already legitimized.

Aleksey SMIRNOV

Saint-Petersburg State University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Institute of Philosophy, Department of Cultural Studies, Philosophy of Culture and Aesthetics
Doctor of Sciences in Philosophy, Associate Professor

Irina KAZAKOVA

Saint-Petersburg State University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Institute of Philosophy, Department of Cultural Studies, Philosophy of Culture and Aesthetics
Master Student

The Construction of the Figures of the Political Discourse in the Soviet Cinema of 1920's.

The formation processes of figures of political discourse in the silent Soviet cinema of the 1920's are researched in this article. Those processes have had much influence over the formation of the canonical images of revolution and socialistic development of the first years after October Revolution, they also influenced the formation of the images used in socialist realism cinema. During the research process we paid much attention to the nonfiction films of the era which are comparatively unexamined by the Russian scientific community. There is a special structure in the early Soviet cinema which is quite close to the structure of the myth and which defines old-regime and revolutionary sides of conflict through functional and ethical differentiating. The formation of this binary opposition is achieved through the use of two major instruments: generalization for nomination the sides of conflicts and prescription of motives to them and contrasting cut technique for emphasizing of the important characteristic elements of the counteracting sides and the demonstration of their contrast to one another. The narrative structure of the films serves the same purpose by contrasting images of the old and the new societies. The examined films are also lacking motives and images accentuating the influence of communist party and Soviet leaders in the fight for the new lifestyle, the characters personalizing the leadership of the party in the creation of the new revolutionary lifestyle are also lacking which is in stark contrast to the much later socialist realism canon.

Key words: Soviet Cinema, 1920's, Cinema Discourse, Cinema Language, Revolution, Documentary Films, Nonfiction Films, Soviet Canon, Agitational Cinema, Images of USSR.

References

Evgeny TSUKHANOV

Saint Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design, Saint Petersburg, Russia
High School of Printing Arts and Media Technologies
Associate Professor, Ph.D. in Philology

The Hero of Our Time as the Coded Medium Massage: from "Brother" to the Big Brother

The work is devoted to one of the most iconic feature films of modern Russia, directed by A. Balabanov, "Brother" in the context of the theory of the collective unconscious. The blockbuster appears as an encrypted media text, in which a large number of messages are concentrated, which laid the foundations of the political discourse of the country for a decade and a half ahead. In this regard, special importance is attached to the image of the main character as a media hero, which is based on the mythological archetype of Trikster, not only in the aspect of its destructive, but also cultural function. Theoretically, the research was conducted in the coordinates of the conditional fraction, in the numerator of which are rational and clear in its content and purpose of thought, accessible to the mass audience, while in the denominator - vague, unconscious intentions and forebodings that affect the audience in the background. The author believes that the director A. Balabanov skillfully operated with this symbolic tool, both at the creative and political-technological levels. The professionally constructed image of Danila as a Hero of our time has accumulated the political expectations of millions of Russians who dreamed of a deliverer in the conditions of Yeltsin's hard times.

Key words: Media, Media Hero, Trickster, Cultural Hero, Message, Noir, Megative Attitude, Gnosticism, Communication, Visual Image, Archetype, Mass Consciousness, Collective Unconscious.

References

Andrey CHUKUROV

Herzen State Pedagogical University, St.Petersburg, Russia
Associate Professor, Ph.D. in Culturology

The Hero's Phenomenon in the Virtual Reality Context: the Interrelation and Social Interaction in the MMORPG

This article discusses the digital body functioning in a virtual reality. The focus of the analysis - the practice of socialization, identity and social communication in the digital space. The main focus of the study is made on the interaction of a virtual hero and the digital body, because it is a completely new type of interaction. Examining the specifics of the virtual hero's impact on the recipient and the features of the interaction in the virtual space, we analyze in detail the phenomenon of multiplayer online games (MMORPG), because they combine both of these factors. For the first time in the history of culture, the interaction between the art hero and the recipient is immediate because of the transformation of bodility’ morphology and the formation of a digital body immersed in virtual space.

Key words: Digital Body, Virtual Space, Bodility, MMORPG, Communication, Self-Identification.

References

Svetlana KARDINSKAYA

Saint-Petersburg State University of Industrial Technology and Design, Saint Petersburg, Russia
High School of Printing Arts and Media Technologies, Institute of Media Technologies, Department of Advertising
Professor, Doctor of Sciences in Philosophy

The Hero of the Advertising Message as the Place of Customer Design

The article deals with the problem of the hero of the advertising message. In her article, the author Identifies the place of the advertising hero in the discourse of Russian television. For the analysis of commercials, the "method of structuring" (R. Bart) was used. R. Bart applied it to literary works. "The method of structuring" allows "to see how the text explodes and dissipates in the intertext space." With some additions, this method is used by the author to research television commercials. For the purpose of clarifying the mechanisms for the formation of the meanings of advertising messages, examples of advertising of MTS and Tinkoff Bank are given in the text of the article. The choice of advertising messages is determined by the ratings of 2017, published in the media. The hero of the advertising message is comprehended by the author as the "nodal point" of the advertising discourse. In the "nodal point" symbolic layers of the advertising message converge. The name of the hero is a space for representing the cultural values of the country and the era. At "the point" of the advertising hero is an articulation of sociocultural values occurs. They are broadcast by advertising and acquire everyday meaning in the language of consumers.

Key words: Advertising Hero, Text, Advertising Discourse, Media, Brand, Branding, Structuring Method, Intertextual Analysis.

References

Karolina-Dzhoanna GOMES

Ural Federal University n.a. the first President of Russia B.N.Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg, Russia
Ph.D. Student

Anti-Hero as the Cognitive Concept of Art

In the art theory and practice of the last two decades has occurred an "ethical turn" and one of the most important facets of the new ethical discourse of art is the problem of meeting with morally provocative art. In this article, I am referring to one of the elements of morally provocative art - an immoral hero or anti-hero and his possible influence on the morally motivated actions of the audience. Through a critical description of a number of modern Western philosophical concepts, which focus on the moral, ethical and aesthetic problems of art (including "ethicism" (B. Gaut), "moderate autonomism" (J. Anderson, J. Dean), "moderate moralism "(N. Carroll), moral criticism (D. Jacobson) and "cognitive triviality" (J. Stolnitz)), I suggest to consider the anti-hero as a cognitive concept of art. The article also highlights the value of empathy with an immoral hero for moral cognition, as well as the great potential of empirical research on the impact of anti-heroes on the audience. Since the phenomenon of immoral art heroes is not only the problem of literary criticism or art history but also of social practices, the article uses the results of various studies in the field of cognitive psychology and sociology.

Key words: Anti-Hero, Immoral Hero, Empathy, Ethicism, Moderate Autonomism, Moderate Moralism, Cognitive Triviality, Ethics of Art, Moral Understanding, Moral Understanding, Cinempathy.

References

Ekaterina SUROVA

The S. M. Budjonny Military Academy of the Signal Corps, Saint Petersburg
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Doctor of Sciences in Philosophy, Professor

Natalya BUTONOVA

Independent Researcher, Russia

The Strategies of Identification Practices and Post-Work Ideology

The article is devoted to identification practices in the context of the emerging new ideology of work and leisure. Identification of an individual in the modern world acquires a set of characteristics preventing unambiguous of conclusions in the conduct of research. These are such characteristics as flexibility, mobility, virtuality, etc. Such feature of identification practice influences character of any kinds of human activity, including changes characteristics of work. Expansion of work to life space of the individual results in need of revaluation of a ratio of work and leisure, revealing the creative potential of leisure practices and elaboration of new identification strategies. But the question of the relationship between the very practices of "work" and "leisure" has no a clearly marked border. Hence the question also arises of a "world without work" as a specific space of human activity. "The world without work" at the moment is more likely a problem than solving the accumulated problems. Nevertheless, it provides more opportunities and opens new prospects for the order of self-identification than the existing work paradigm.

Key words: Identification, Leisure Practices, Mobility, Creativity, Compensation Strategies, Life Project, Lifestyle, “World Without Work”, Post-Work.

References

Mikhail STEPANOV

Saint-Petersburg State University of Industrial Technology and Design, Russia
Head of the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the Institute of Business Communications
D.S.Likhachev Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage, Russia
Senior Researcher of the Center for Fundamental Research of Culture
Ph.D. in Philosophy

Digital Aesthetics in the Cinema, or What do the "things" themselves say?

The article is devoted to the analysis of digital aesthetics elements in modern cinema. "Digital aesthetics" - marks the processes of mastering digital technologies in contemporary culture. In a narrow sense, digital aesthetics refers to the achievement of aesthetic effects (emotional and affective experience) by digital media. The aim of the study is to identify the relationship between special visual effects in cinema and their semantic significance. The author of the article asks the question, what is the phenomenality of special effects? As digital aesthetics transforms our experience? The main results of the research: the specificity of digital aesthetics in cinema is revealed; it is shown how the key elements of digital special effects – pixel, morphing, and glitch - acquire semantic significance, filling the cinema with new content; it is found that a common feature of the introduction and development of digital technologies of work with the image in the movie was the transformation of the latter – the movie went beyond the moving picture and became something more, as a way to expand our experience.

Key words: Digital Aesthetics, Media, Cinema, Digital Cinema, Morphing, Glitch, Media Theory, New Media.

References

Konstantin OCHERETYANY

Saint Petersburg State University, Russia
Institute of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy of Science and Technology
Senior Lecturer, Ph.D. in Philosophy

Speculation in Digital: Eugene Trubetskoy Iconosophy in the Coordinates of the Media Reality

In this article makes attempt to reactivize the philosophy of the icon proposed by Eugeny Trubetskoy for the analyst of modern mediareality. In the global media discourse, an appeal to the past has long been scheduled in a situation of contemporary crises, incl. appeal to the study of the sacred image, but even such an authoritative media theorist as Hans Belting, working with the material of the Byzantine icon (In: Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, University of Chicago Press, 1994) misses the phenomenon of the Russian icon, noting that this is a separate and complex topic. A no less complicated topic is the Russian philosophy of the icon, a conceptual resource that still requires distinct consideration and careful incorporation into media philosophy. The main problem of the article is the knowledge of media reality. A distinctive feature of the theme is focusing on the fact that in order to improve the apparatus of cognition of media realism, a conceptual resource of Russian philosophy can be used. The purpose of this study is to help increase the resolving power of the conceptual apparatus of media philosophy, by drawing attention to the tools and methods that Eugeny Trubetskoy uses in his iconosophy and which can help meet the challenges of high-tech modernity today. Eugene Trubetskoy appeals to the mystical analyst of the image in a situation of crisis of European intellectual culture (the humanitarian catastrophe of 1914-1918), revealing all its impotence before the new technologically organized reality. In modern times (2018) we find ourselves in the same situation since media reality has radically changed our experience of the world, and with it our ways of relating to reality, but the principles of its organization have yet to be understood. Reflections of Trubetskoy on the image of a different beginning of thinking, a different beginning of life, or the beginning of technology, responded to the challenge of their time, but they have the potential, the conceptual resource that allows us to outline the problems of modern media reality, and put precise questions, their resolution. The result of the study is the conclusion about a new model of rationality in the media, where understanding is carried out not in a dismissal, but in involvement and concern. Since the media reality is not focused on rational understanding, but on affect and recognition, on engaging through empathy, on management of attention and gaining interest, the analyst of the creation of images and understanding living in them proposed by Eugene Trubetskoi acquires new strength and importance in the coordinates of media reality.

Key words: Mediareality, Corporeality, Icon, Technology, Technical Image, Sophia, Imagination, Duration, Theophany, Production of Presence.

References

Dimitri SPIVAK

D.S.Likhachev Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage, Russia
Head of Center for Basic Studies in the Sphere of Culture
Human Brain Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St.Petersburg, Russia
Principal Research Fellow, Doctor of Sciences in Philology

Nelli SAMUS

Federal Budgetary Health-Care Institution ‘St.Petersburg Boarding House of Veterans of Science of the Russian Academy of Sciences’, St.Petersburg, Russia
Head
Ph.D. in Medical Sciences

Andrey ZAKHARCHUK

S.M.Kirov Military Medical Academy, St.Petersburg, Russia
Lecturer, Ph.D. in Medical Sciences
St.Petersburg State Institution of Healthcare – Hospice No.1

Irina SPIVAK

Institute of Cytology, Russian Academy of Sciences, St.Petersburg, Russia, Senior Research Fellow
St.Petersburg State University, Faculty of Biology, Associate Professor
St.Petersburg State Polytechnical University, Chair of Medical Physics, Associate Professor, Ph.D. in Biology

Psychological Effects of Perception of Traditional Music by Elderly Persons and their Brain Correlates

Article 1. Psychological Effects

Psychological dynamics of a group of 19 Russian-speaking aged urban dwellers (aged 84±7), which occurred as a result of passing a two-week course of light classical music, was studied, as part of systematic inquiry into fundamental mechanisms of cultural inheritance, conducted as part of the works of Heritage Institute, in collaboration with researchers of Human Brain Institute, and a number of other academic institutions of Russia. Control group was formed by 20 young normal subjects (aged 22±4), which were observed in strictly the same conditions. Psychological inventory consisted of four tests, which provided an assessment of cognitive competence by M. Folstein et al., levels of anxiety and depression by A.Zigmont et al., levels of psychological activation, tension, comfort, interest, and emotional activation by N.Kurgansky et al., and personal assessment of life quality and satisfaction by J. Endicott et al. Each of the four tests was conducted before the beginning of the music course, and right after it. Parallel registration of brain activity in the short-wave and ultraslow bandpasses was conducted, as well as registration of relevant biographic and anamnestic information. Most positive trends in the psychological dynamics of both the main (older) group and the control (younger) one, as a result of passing a two-week course of music which belonged to the realm of their cultural heritage, were demonstrated. Statistically significant shifts of two psychological indices were demonstrated in the case of the aged group, namely, the index of cognitive performance, and that of the personal assessment of life quality and satisfaction. Basing on data of factor analysis, these two basic trends were demonstrated to be most probably independent of each other. Index of personal assessment of life quality proved to be related primarily to psychological activation, comfort, interest, and emotional arousal, measured by the Kurgansky scale, both prior to passing the music course, and right after it. It tended to correlate also with the level of depression, measured by Zigmond-Snaith depression scale, so that high scores on the life quality scale tended to correspond to high scores on the scales of the psychological activation, psychological comfort, interest, and emotional arousal, as well as to low scores on depression scale, and vice versa. No stable connection of this kind were demonstrated for cognitive performance.

Key words: Perception of Music, Cultural Inheritance, Psychology of Ageing, Psychological Activation, Life Quality, Cognitive Performance, Anxiety, Depression.

References

Olga AVERYANOVA

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia
Chief of Department of Photographic Art
Ph.D. in Art History

Man Ray. Still Life Composition with Chess Set, Plaster Cast, Chess and "Observation Time – The Lovers". Comments to the Topic

The article is devoted to the problems of the artistic value of the artwork created on the principle of seriality and replication. This practice reflected a huge shift in the evaluation of the values of originality and authorship in the first half of the twentieth century. The work of Man Ray, the French artist and photographer, the protagonist of Dadaism and Surrealism in art, can be considered as a precursor to the development of Pop Art. On the example of several well-known works, the author analyzes the methods and ways of creating a stable construction MAN RAY, as a means of involving the audience in comprehension of the aesthetic concept of the artist, functioning in the paradigm of the emerging consumer's society.

Key words: Man Ray, Dadaism, Surrealism, Edition, Seriality, Replica, Copy, Photography, Object, Author.

References

Anna SUVOROVA

Perm State University, Perm, Russia
The Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology
Associate Professor of the Department of Culture Studies and Social and Humanitarian Technologies, Ph.D. in Art History

Surrealism and Outsider Art

The article investigates the influence of the theory and practice of Surrealism and the discourse of Outsider Art. The analysis it is determined that the avant-garde art becomes an important instance for various phenomena of outsider creativity: the creativity of the mentally ill, socially marginalized persons and visionary artists. The author comes to the conclusion that the transformation of traditional art and the loosening up of the canon of classical aesthetics stimulated the inclusion of marginal and, therefore, unobserved phenomena in the art metanarrative, namely the creativity of the mentally ill and social outsiders. Surrealists mixed surrealistic, visionary art, drawings of mediums and the mentally ill, the art of social outsiders. Starting with the first surrealist texts and practices, André Breton, Paul Eluard, Robert Desnos and other appealed to the idea of insanity, alogism and strangeness of the forms and meanings of the future phenomenon of outsider art. Surrealists led to a final transformation of the discourse of the mentally ill, the final transition from the stigmatization of mental illness to the sublime idealization of psychiatric experience.

Key words: Surrealism, Outsider Art, Art of Insane, Art Brut, Discourse, André Breton, Paul Eluard, Robert Desnos, Salvador Dali, Antonin Artaud.

References

Alina VENKOVA

Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St. Petersburg, Russia
Associate Professor, Ph.D. in Culturology
D.S.Likhachev Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage, Moscow Center for Fundamental Research of Culture, Principal Research Fellow

Environments in Modern and Contemporary Art

The article shows the place of spatial environment in modern and contemporary art. The text reveals the genealogy of the formation of this art form, provides examples of environmental media from the history of classical art, traces the isolation of immersive media from other types of synesthesia or total art, and gives examples of environmental thinking in painting, architecture, museum and exhibition business. Digital environments are specifically considered as a specific intermedial form of contemporary art. The theoretical issues of environmental thinking in the art are analyzed, among them the dematerialization of the object, specific objects, the total installation, environmental sculpture, site-specificity, participation, situationism, and atmosphere. The properties of reception are highlighted, on which the environmental approach in artistic practice is directed, the types and forms of environmental media in the art are proposed.

Key words: Environments, Space, Immersion, Modern and Contemporary Art, Total Installation, Site-Specific Art.

References