Surovtsev Valery Aleksandrovich REALITY OF LINGUISTIC MEANING AND LANGUAGE GAMES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 3 (33). P. 135-144

The article contains some considerations on Vsevolod A. Ladov’s reconstruction of the theory of semantics of Gottlob Frege and of the late Ludwig Wittgenstein. The author analyzes some problems of such reconstruction and demonstrates that problems exist. Katz’s new resolve does not eliminate them. Problems remain problems.

Keywords: Frege, Wittgenstein, Katz, sense, meaning, language, semantics, sentence, skepticism

Markov Alexander Viktorovich ICONOLOGY OF THE PICTORIAL ELEMENTS OF POEMS BY PRINCE VLADIMIR PALEY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 2 (32). P. 68-87

The collection Poems (1916) by Prince Vladimir Paley does not have a common plot and composition, it presents scattered lyrical impressions. The composition of the collection is organized by extra-textual pictorial elements: headpieces and vignettes. Responding to the collector’s taste of the poet, these elements force one to read his lyrics differently: not as a transfer of personal impressions, but as a complex construction of his own identity based on various cultural languages. The use of the iconological method and appeal to the resources of visual semiotics allow showing how, thanks to the order of illustrations, certain motifs of romantic and modernist poetry cease to be self-sufficient, becoming only moments in the acquisition of a more holistic lyrical position. Such design elements of the book as cartouches with the titles of poems, headpieces with images of landscape and genre scenes, and scattered vignettes were analyzed; the entire volume of the book’s illustrative accompaniment was covered. The article shows that despite the fact that the design of this book is fundamentally restrained, which corresponded to the new settings of the taste of wartime, each type of artistic accompaniment builds its own program for reading these poems, not allowing the content of individual poems to be reduced to the reproduction of romantic, neo-romantic or symbolist motifs. The article demonstrates how cartouches with the titles of the poems allowed educated readers to thematize the relationship between nature and history by de-automating the perception of the title as an indication only of a subject topic. The decor of these elements indicates both the interpenetration of the natural world and the world of culture, and the inadequacy of individual languages or semiotic formations to convey the idea of a person’s metaphysical destiny. Three poems with the cartouches build an independent plot of the presence in nature of not only fatal forces, but also metaphysical insights. Illustrations-headpieces demanded a special interpretation based on knowledge of the realities and conceptual meanings of certain painting genres. The article proves that poems with the headpieces convey the general plot of the independence of an intimate mental life from ready-made patterns of history perception. In these poems, the idea dominates of intimizing history as the only way to comprehend the meaning of historical catastrophes. Finally, individual vignettes allow reading the entire array of the poems in this book as supporting the main idea of accepting natural necessity in order to overcome private ideas about fate, with the necessary Christian reinterpretation of forebodings and individual symbolic indications. Thus, the illustrative mode of the book corresponds to the principles of multilingualism and polystylistics of Russian modern style. The study allows clarifying both the landmarks of the official Russian culture of the pre-revolutionary period and the specificity of the poetic works of Vladimir Paley as one of the most striking cases of supporting the original poetics with the visual semiotics of natural and cultural objects.

Keywords: Prince Vladimir Paley, lyrical position, lyrical hero, polystylistics, iconology, book illustration, emblem

Letyagin Lev. Nikolaevich VISUAL PLURALITY OF ST. PETERSBURG: OBVIOUS AND UNOBVIOUS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 4 (38). P. 119-142

St. Petersburg is one of the recognized UNESCO World Heritage sites. It arose and was historically organized as a meeting place for world cultures. The maximum approximation of the capital to the borders of the state initially predetermined its ethnic and confessional multiformity, which was the potential for active creative interaction. The subject of consideration in this publication is the dialogue of recognized world architects, whose professional task was the formation of the planning structure of the historical center of the capital. For a modern city dweller involved in the sphere of domestic relations, the historical landscape undergoes semantic reduction. The figurative system of ensembles and monumental monuments comes to be only an impersonal background of everyday life, while the scale of architectural projects and urban planning ideas is leveled and simplified. However, the cultural heritage is turned to the probabilistic logic of reproduction, which can be done with the help of reading, interpretation and verification programs. Based on the comparison and comprehensive assessment of historical sources, statistical data and memoir documents, attribution and disclosure of new semantic oppositions of the urban structure are proposed. The examples selected for the analysis implied the use of hermeneutic approaches in the attribution of historical material with its binding to a system of topological projections. An important place in the knowledge of St. Petersburg belongs to the languages of the non-obvious, the disclosure of the unmanifested aspects of its value structure. The specificity of the translation of visual images into everyday language becomes the primary subject of consideration. The city as a semiotic space is included in the system of text-generating mechanisms that combine the planning principle of building and the conditionality of everyday scenarios by the place of action into a single whole. A certain unity of behavioral models can act as a criterion for characterizing the urban space, which actualizes the position of the urban observer. Thanks to this, “la promenade de l’Empereur” – the route of Emperor Alexander I’s daily walks – is specified, and a commentary is offered on the political scenario for the opening of the monument in his honor. The fact of the installation of the Alexander Column is assessed not only as a memory of the merits of the emperor, but also as an event that determined the legitimacy of the power of his successor, Emperor Nicholas I. The modern city acts as a historically defined visual diversity. The semiotic analysis of urban phenomena is focused on the integration of this unique content. The inevitable changes in the value structure of the city are replaced by the production of new spatial connections. The meaning-generating mission of St. Petersburg is the experience of constant discovery and acquisition, the production of the value presence of man.

Keywords: memorial policy, social myth, event script, value topography of city, visual thinking, meta-landscape, Saint Petersburg

Dydrov Artur Alexandrovich, Neveleva Vera Sergeevna, Tikhonova Sophia Vladimirovna, Trufanova Elena Olegovna A PERSON IN THE DIGITAL AGE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 4 (34). P. 102-122

In the context of economic, political, technological, cultural challenges and rapidly changing realities, one of the significant tasks of philosophy is to form a conceptual position about a person and, more broadly, to achieve a certain level of understanding of a person in a transforming world. Meanwhile, philosophers and specialists in the field of social and human sciences dealing with anthropological problems widely believe that all human projects have exhausted their resources. A radical variation of this opinion is expressed by the thesis “a person is dead”. The digital age, characterized by the intensification of the development of information electronic technologies and the introduction of the Internet into all spheres of society, is a fertile ground for the formation of a different, “posthuman” formation. The radical nature of these beliefs encourages the formation of a humanitarian alternative that takes into account modern technological trends and challenges of the time. The article consistently considers various aspects of the stated topic. The first section of the article discusses the digital human environment. The authors indicate a significant transition in the development of the Internet from anonymity to total control. The Internet has turned from a “magical” space (a pioneering technology) into an everyday means of political, economic and other practices. Communication now is subject to total economic and moral control. The second section, “A digital person: From transhumanism to Homo telematicus and beyond”, discusses a directly anthropological aspect. The position of a person is ensured by a frequently unconscious transfer of cognitive functions to the machine. A person predominantly seeks and copies information (consumer orientation), rather than produces it. Among modern practices of handling information, situational, one-time reproduction of text from the screen is popular. At the same time, the speed of access to content is conceived as an unconditional value. The authors give two options for interpreting the digital person, relying on the philosophical concept of Homo telematicus by Jean Baudrillard and on the discourse of transhumanism. The latter constructs images of a technologically transformed being that ultimately overcomes any “limitations” of human nature. The section “Digital Age: An individual in the space of publicity” examines the pattern catalyzed by the quarantine conditions of 2020. The public digital space has invaded the private environment. This trend has ambiguous consequences: on the one hand, the growth of the public sphere and the emergence of a wide range of political and professional roles narrow the private and actually make it a social mode; on the other hand, the private turns into the secret, which must be hidden, protected. The final section, “The time of the “significant-selves”: To the anthropology of the new world”, discusses the problem of personal identity in the digital age. The authors argue that the Internet at the present stage stimulates the activity of an individual and creativity. At the philosophical level, the authors conceptualized this phenomenon as the actualization of “self-significance”.

Keywords: digital age, digital technologies, digital humans, Internet, virtual, anthropological frontier, transhumanism, Homo telematicus, privacy, pandemic, identity, individuality

Dorofeev Daniil Yurievich A PERSON AS A VISUAL MESSAGE: SEMIOTICS AND AESTHETICS OF THE HUMAH IMAGE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 1 (35). P. 48-77

In modern socio-humanitarian science and everyday reality, the problem of visual semiotics is a key one, given the process of total visualization of the modern world, which requires a serious critical reflection of this phenomenon. The author of this article wants to reveal this problem in the fundamental context of philosophical and visual anthropology, presenting an original project of semiotics and aesthetics of the human image, for which he uses and rethinks the main approaches of modern philosophy in this area. The article is dedicated to the development of the main problems of semiotics in the space of a holistic aesthetic image of a person, presented as a visual message. The author seeks to reveal and substantiate the sovereign, independent and central significance of the visual image of a person in modern semiotic, visual-anthropological, philosophical-anthropological and aesthetic studies. The article explores the mechanisms and levels of perception and understanding of a person, presented as a certain visual message, in everyday life. Critically using and developing the approaches of Roland Barthes in relation to text and image analysis, the author analyses in detail the levels of visual communication encountered in the modern world. He draws special attention to the importance of modern digital technologies in the process of visualizing the everyday existence of a person and their image. Thus, the semiotic and visual-anthropological analysis of modern visual advertising and media, the nature of the use of the image of a person in them and the specifics of modeling its specific meaning are presented in detail. The author considers a person’s image in a more fundamental visual-anthropological and philosophical-anthropological key, and presents it as a spontaneous manifestation of human existence in a phenomenal aesthetic form implemented mainly at the pre-reflexive level. The author of the article uses Barthes’ selection of three levels of meanings (linguistic; having an iconic or denotative code; not having an iconic or connotative code) to study a holistic visual human image, whose formation is somehow influenced by all person’s components (personal name, speech, clothing style, etc.). The author dwells in particular detail on the meaning of language as a manifestation, a way of forming and perceiving a visual human image, the correlations of the denotative and connotative levels in it, and reveals the specific features of visual self-presentation, communication and intersubjectivity in the modern world.

Keywords: semiotics of human image, visual anthropology, aesthetics of image, Roland Barthes, visual message, levels of meanings, language and image

Fereński Piotr Jakub, Soboń Grzegorz A FEW REMARKS ON VALUES AND SIGNS ON CITY WALLS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 1 (31). P. 41-53

The article contains a theoretical and methodological proposal on how to research and understand the visual aspects of urban space. First of all, the authors present the concept of linking signs and values. This idea was created and developed in the 1970s and 1980s on the ground of Polish cultural studies. Researchers propose to use it to describe the graphic phenomena on city walls. What is commonly considered to be manifestations of vandalism or irrelevant images, inscriptions, and scribbles are, in fact, strategies for the transmission of values that are important for social communities (norms, beliefs, ideas, worldviews etc.). The further part of the text presents a few examples from field studies conducted in several housing estates in Wrocław (Poland). The research was qualitative, and the material was recorded with photo and video cameras. The material was collected in the years 2020 and 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, which influenced its content.

Keywords: values, signs, symbols, culture, city, block housing estate

Ladov Vsevolod A. ON A SEMANTIC THEORY OF ORDINARY LANGUAGE (RESPONSE TO OPPONENTS) // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 3 (33). P. 145-152

This article is the final remark in the discussion on issues related to the construction of a semantic theory of ordinary language. Is a semantic theory of ordinary language possible? What form should this theory take? Is it possible to revive Gottlob Frege’s semantics in modern analytic philosophy? Can Jerrold Katz’s linguistic Platonism claim the status of a semantic theory of ordinary language? Is the concept “meaning as use” of the later Ludwig Wittgenstein a semantic theory? The participants of the discussion tried to answer these questions. The author of this article gives a brief summary of the positions presented in the discussion and draws general conclusions.

Keywords: Frege, Wittgenstein, Katz, analytic philosophy, language, semantics, sense, meaning

Mainicheva Anna Yurievna THE ENIGMA OF THE CHURCH OF KIRENSK: TRADITIONALITY VS EXCLUSIVITY. THE IMAGE AND SYMBOL STRUCTURE IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF ORTHODOX CHURCHES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 1 (31). P. 153-170

The essay reports how the solution to the problem of the traditionality and exclusivity of the image and symbol structure of the Orthodox church architecture is shown using the example of a church in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker of the Holy Trinity Monastery of Irkutsk Eparchy, built in Kirensk in the 18th century. Jérôme Baschet’s methodological technique of searching for the traditional and the exceptional, which he applied to the analysis of medieval art, was used. For the first time, a relational approach is proposed in the study of architecture, implying the identification of the typological class of a building, the search for analogs or sources of the image of its structure. Attention is focused on issues of localization, prevalence, concretization of the embodiment of the building’s features. It has been established that the church can be characterized as a wooden tiered three-part gate monastery church, but there is no direct analogue of the church. The architecture of the Kirensk church has some features inherent in wooden three-part, three-part tiered, and gate monastery churches; it has an original volumetric planning solution. The semantics of the church is associated with its belonging to gate monastery temples, which are the border between the consecrated space of the monastery and the profane neighborhood. In its tiered forms, one sees an analogy to Heavenly Jerusalem, and the altar dedicated to St. Nicholas has a protective symbolism in a broad sense. The appearance of the church is similar to defensive structures, such as the towers of the Siberian fortresses and European castles. Several signs allow admitting the similarity of the forms of the church with Ukrainian baroque architecture, Petrine baroque, Gothic architecture of Russia and the Carpathian region. The traditional features of the church include the fulfillment of liturgical requirements – three parts; semantics, including the symbolism of the consecration of the altar, the protective function, the embodiment of the image of Heavenly Jerusalem, an appeal to the historical past; use of well-known materials, designs, and shapes. Traditionality in church architecture is associated with the sacred sphere and basic building techniques, and exclusivity with the visual component of architecture (proportions, metrology, interpretation of forms and structures). It is concluded that the criterion for the traditionality of church architecture is the prevalence of forms, symbols, images of temples in any territory in a certain era due to the preference for choosing combinations of structures and semantics. Exclusivity is provided by the variability of forms, which allows creating an original image system. The very possibility of variations, the use of new and individual techniques, the author’s reading of the building’s features, which fits into the framework of the regulations noted in the sacred books where the boundaries of the canon were not strictly delineated, can be attributed to the important features of the traditionality of Russian Orthodox architecture. The architecture of the Kirensk church combines the features of traditionality and exclusivity; it is a rare example of Orthodox church architecture, its figurative structure was not supported in the further development of Siberian architecture.

Keywords: image and symbol structure, semantics of architecture, Orthodox churches, traditionality, exclusivity, three-part churches, tiered churches, gate monastic churches, St. Nicholas Church, Kirensk, Siberia

Panciuchin Joanna WHEN UNIVERSITY GOES INTO THE CITY. RESEARCH ON THE NEEDS OF THE ROMANI LIVING IN WROCŁAW // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 3 (25). P. 87-98

In 2018, the House of Peace Foundation, commissioned by the Municipality of Wrocław, invited employees of the University of Wrocław, PhD students, experts, specialists in the field of cultural and sociological studies of the city, education, and cultural animation to carry out research on cultural and educational needs of the Romani people who had been living in Wrocław since the 1990s. The Romani (also known as the Roma) are economic migrants who do not know Polish and usually have no literacy skills. Moreover, they often show no understanding of the rules that govern modern capitalist society. In Romania and other European countries, policy towards the Romani minority encountered various problems. Resettlements combined with attempts to transform traditional culture neutralize the role of language or impose lifestyle changes on the Romani did not bring the expected results. Paradoxically, actions aimed at increasing the productivity of the Roma and engaging them in the development of the country or community resulted in the intensification of such negative phenomena as social marginalization, unemployment, and poverty. The research was triggered by the liquidation of the Romani encampment in Wrocław. Soon the case became political. The decision was justified on the grounds that the city needed to protect its positive image of a modern metropolis which offers no room for “wild” encampments and spatial conflicts among neighbors. At the same time, we need to remember that the city creates opportunities for establishing a dialogue that does not have to necessarily refer to the common good of the residents. It also leaves room for forming an opposition against national, ethnic, racial, or religious concepts. The city may thus be perceived as a laboratory and school of democracy. Currently, the Romani of Wrocław live in a dozen locations throughout the city and are treated as individual families. Such a situation means a significant change in the structure, hierarchy, and social awareness of the community. The article is focused on the research conducted by the university representatives. One of the researchers’ tasks in the project was to create recommendations regarding social policy, social work, cultural animation, and education in the area of identity and integration of the Romanian Roma community in Wrocław. This means that the researchers commissioned by the Municipality of Wrocław were expected to propose solutions that could be implemented to improve the situation of the Romani community.

Keywords: Romani, Roma, city, education, ethnic minority, emancipation, democracy

Miroshnichenko Alexander Gennadievich, Smyslyaeva Larisa Germanovna, Soshenko Inessa Igorevna, Podkladova Tatiana Dmitrievna, Okorokov Alexander Olegovych SHAPING CHANGES IN THE SYSTEM OF HIGHER MEDICAL EDUCATION: PEDAGOGICAL FOCAL POINTS AND CONTEXTS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 4 (34). P. 142-165

The article contains materials of interdisciplinary scientific and design developments of the authors’ research team of two universities in Tomsk – Siberian State Medical University (SSMU) and Tomsk State Pedagogical University (TSPU) within the framework of the Transformation of Medical and Pharmaceutical Education strategic project from the Siberian State Medical University Development Program for 2021–2030 (Priority–2030). The data of an empirical study are presented, showing the relevance of such a change both at the level of management of universities implementing programs of higher medical education and at the level of updating of the agenda of scientific and pedagogical research in this field of education. The methods used in writing the article are: theoretical analysis, structural analysis, expert method, survey, focus group, and pedagogical design with modeling elements. The conception of the empirical study was based on three ideas. The first one was the statement of the need to make an “anthropological turn“ in the field of modern Russian pedagogical theories (Aleksandr Asmolov). Since it is bioethics that is implementing this “turn” in healthcare practice, the second idea was the semiotic diagnostics of sociocultural transformations, which established the identity of the spectrum of communicative formats doctor–patient and teacher–student (Irina Melik-Gaykazyan). This gave rise to the third idea – pedagogical bioethics (in the interpretation of Nina Pervushina) – the introduction of the pragmatics of training future doctors into the syntax of the curriculum of future teachers. Thus, the concept of our empirical research is similar to the ideological “boomerang“ of the semiotic essence of pedagogical bioethics – the design of changes in the semantics of training courses in the domestic system of higher medical education. The article aims to provide a reasonable idea of the directions, nature, and content of changes in Russia’s current system of higher medical education in relation to its pedagogical contexts. The reasons for the emergence of new semantic focal points determining the changes in the pedagogical features of the domestic system of higher medical education are discussed. As a source of enrichment of ideas about the meaning and the ways of transformation of pedagogical aspects of the future doctors training, the results of an analysis of Russian and international practices of medical education related to the identification of the repertoire of roles of a modern doctor are presented. New accents of teachers’ professional activity, related to adaptation to changes in education, in higher medical education in Russia are also pointed out. The actual contexts of changes in professional activity and in professional development of a lecturer in higher medical education as a source of enrichment for the modern agenda (new subject matter) of scientific and pedagogical research are indicated. The viewpoint of considering modern medical higher education in the pedagogical presentation of humanistic values, including aspects of pedagogical bioethics, is presented.

Keywords: setting for changes in medical education, values, pedagogical contexts of professional medical education, spectrum of role repertoire of doctor, teachers of higher medical education in Russia

Igna Olga Nikolaevna, Chervonnyy Mikhail Aleksandrovich, Ualikhanova Bayan Saparbekovna “MIRAGES” AND THE “REALITY” OF VISUALIZATION IN THE CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL PROCESS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 3 (37). P. 9-36

The study is dedicated to visualization considered as a current trend, a phenomenon of contemporary education. It is known that visualization reflects the current visual turn and a new transformation of the educational sphere. A scientific study of the contemporary stage of visualization of education is important and topical because theorists have not yet fully comprehended all the processes and results of this trend, its “mirages” as something impressive, amazing, but illusory, and its “reality” as something real, but not always joyful and in line with expectations. We need to anticipate both the positive and negative educational effects of visualization during and after the bursts of the visual turn in education that is happening before our eyes. The effects are caused mainly by technical and technological breakthroughs, the state educational policy, which can be traced, for example, in the latest Education national project. The aim of the study is to identify and generalize the obvious (objective) and non-obvious (supposed) advantages, risks, disadvantages (negative influence) of visualization in the contemporary educational process. In accordance with the aim of the study, its objectives were formulated, aimed at clarifying the key terms that constitute the core of the terminological fields “visual turn” and “visualization of the contemporary educational process”; determining the current state of education visualization; comparing arguments and counterarguments in assessing the positive impact of visualization on the contemporary educational process; identifying and generalizing obvious (objective) and supposed advantages, as well as the negative impact of visualization (its risks and disadvantages) in the contemporary educational process; studying the possibilities of visualization for the individualization of the educational process and the development of students’ initiative. Research methods included an analysis of scientific literature on the research problem, reflection of our own educational activities and experience in the pedagogical design of educational resources, a study of the scientific and pedagogical experience of teachers, the method of binary positions, generalization and concretization. As a result of the study, we summarized the most common and objective arguments and counterarguments regarding the positive impact of visualization on the modern educational process, which reflect and confirm the lack of “transparency”, evidence and persuasiveness of the advantages of visualization. The authors compared the most obvious “mirages” and “reality” of visualization at the levels of subjects of the educational process (teachers and students) and visualization aids and techniques, which is the key scientific implication of the study. As expected, “mirages” are present at all levels under consideration, but to a greater extent they are manifested at the level of visualization aids and techniques. A significant potential of visualization is predicted for the individualization of the educational process, for the development of students’ initiatives.

Keywords: visualization in education, principle of visualization in education, visual turn, “mirages” of visualization in contemporary education, advantages of visualization in contemporary educational process, disadvantages of visualization in contemporary educational process

Dumnova Elnara Mikhaylovna VISUALIZATION OF TRADITIONAL AESTHETIC PRINCIPLES IN MODERN ARCHITECTURE OF JAPAN // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 4 (34). P. 82-101

The article analyzes the problem of the correlation of traditions and innovations in modern architecture in Japan. The problem of preserving architectural identity has become especially relevant in the context of globalization. The uniqueness of modern Japanese architecture consists in the effective explication of traditional aesthetic principles in visual art, whose development is inevitably determined by the socio-historical context. The traditional aesthetic principles which were formed in the Middle Ages and have preserved their significance and influence on the modern socio-cultural space of the Land of the Rising Sun are considered. Among them are the principles of mono-no avare, yugen, wabi, sabi. These principles reflect the traditional Japanese worldview and peculiarities of thinking, since they go back to the traditional religious and philosophical teachings that have spread in Japan. Their visualization by means of architectural techniques is especially significant because it allows us to maintain socio-cultural continuity and the connection of times. They are the elements of the modern aesthetic paradigm on the basis of which architecture develops, they determine the formation of codes of architectural space. The most important is the aesthetics of wabi-sabi, which has combined two principles. It defines moral qualities as well as their visualization in material culture, particularly in architecture. It underlies the simplicity and incompleteness of forms close to emptiness, proximity to nature, appeal to the inner essence of things that are inconspicuous externally, the value of damages reflecting the course of time and events in the past. Japanese minimalism originates in the aesthetics of wabi-sabi. Taken together, these aesthetic principles form the quintessence of the Japanese worldview, which is notable by contemplation and positioning of nature and man as a unity. Visualization of this aesthetics in architecture has proved to be achievable through the use of natural materials (wood, bamboo, rice paper) and planning of residential space. New trends have been developed in modern Japanese architecture, including minimalism and metabolism. Despite the influence of Western architectural patterns, representatives of the trends managed to preserve architectural identity by forming new architectural styles. This turned out to be feasible due to the flexible balancing between traditions and innovations, and their effective synthesis. The main architectural techniques that are the conductors of tradition in modern architecture are considered: (a) positioning of architecture as a continuation of nature, which is the reason for special shaping; (b) embodiment of traditional aesthetic principles through elements of architectural space – emptiness–gap–shadow; (c) combination of traditional and modern materials. The article presents a semiotic analysis of several architectural objects: the Museum of Modern Art, Hiroshima, architect Kisho Kurokawa; Global Loop, EXPO 2005, Aichi, architect Kiyonori Kikutake; Church of the Light, Ibaraki, architect Tadao Ando; the Water Temple, Awaji, architect Tadao Ando. The analysis demonstrates some spatial codes that reveal the deep iconic and symbolic wholeness of architectural objects, reflecting the amalgamation of traditional and modern consciousness of the Japanese.

Keywords: Japanese aesthetics, Japanese modern architecture, metabolism, minimalism, wabi-sabi

Krutkin Viktor Leonidovich HOMO PICTOR IN THE SPACE OF THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 4 (34). P. 123-141

Depicting and viewing images are closely related to imagination, a fundamental characteristic of human intelligence. Imagination relies on all the sensuality of a person, but the visual component plays a special role. The progress of digital technology today makes it possible to produce images, but it turns out that one still needs some experience of traditional drawing/painting and also a philosophical understanding of the circumstances leading to the figure of the Homo pictor. There is a double connection between landscape and drawing. A depicted landscape is often regarded as an aesthetic event; it becomes the subject of art studies. However, one can pay attention to the fact that drawing/painting unfolds inside the landscape, and the resulting image is already an artifact, an ontological event related to the level of being. Research of the Homo pictor is not a narrow field of aesthetic experience and artistic education, it is a problem of philosophical anthropology. The latter, relatively speaking, investigates the nature of human beings, their historical development in practice, cognition, communication. The common Latin expressions specify different projections of the species Homo – sapiens, faber, ludence, symbolicus, etc. Homo pictor in this series means a “person drawing/painting”. Under what circumstances and for what tasks did this ability develop? To clarify the general problem, consideration of a number of subordinate questions can help: What aspects of human bodily incarnation are the parameters of the landscape surrounding people associated with? How is Homo pictor (a drawing/painting person) and Homo loquens (a speaking person) related? What changes does drawing/painting make in the landscape space? Depicting continues the Homo faber line; however, the final product is not a material result, but new media, whose meaning is to be an intermediary between a person and his/her world. An image is not a goal, it is a medium. It is not enough to open one’s eyes to see an image, one needs to have a depicted image that will act as an eye-opening in a new way. The idea of intentionality is the most important for understanding imagination, hence the importance of the methods of phenomenology that reveal the dialectic of the connection between the experience of creating and viewing an image. The article discusses the ideas of the phenomenologist Hans Jonas, whose works are not well known in Russia. Homo pictor is driven by not only cognitive, but also affective motives, hence the importance of research on emotions and feelings. The work of the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio shows the role of maps, neural network schemes, patterns underlying bodily movements and gestures that act as the basis of emotions and feelings. Schemes or patterns outside of an image remain at the level of the nervous tissue. But patterns can be objectified in movements, gestures, traces of lines and spots on some surface. An image is an externally rendered pattern of perception that can serve as a medium, a basis of emotions and feelings. The problem of drawing/painting in philosophy confronts both ancient problems of the relation of eidos and reality, and new problems concerning the connection of the cognitive and the affective in the experience of physicality, the connection of the presentative and the representational in the experience of vision. Homo pictor’s research concerns a number of positions that prompt questioning of the main dichotomies of modernity; these studies open up new horizons in understanding human creativity.

Keywords: body, vision, movement, gesture, image, media, representation, eidos and reality, emotions and feelings, Hans Jonas

Gladyshev Vladimir Ivanovich, Milyaeva Ekaterina Galimullovna, Penner Regina Vladimirovna A PERSON ON THE WEB: LONELINESS AND COMMUNICATION // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 4 (34). P. 63-81

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the problem of human loneliness in the modern world is more relevant than ever. Restrictions on movement and quarantines have become an obstacle to direct communication. The threat of infection has become a factor in the spread of the “loneliness pandemic”. Communication between people through high-speed communication technologies has become the most appropriate way to maintain working and other relations. The status of online communication has changed. Online communication has become a complementary one. Through the development of high-speed communications, a person has created virtual reality, which has become an alternative to a natural one. Online communication is virtual communication, not surreal. Online communication allows a person to compensate for the negative consequences of their loneliness in conditions of limitation or impossibility of offline communications. The authors of the article analyze the possibilities of compensatory communication in the online format. The essence of compensatory communication lies in the fact that it allows a person to overcome loneliness, form new social skills, and realize opportunities for self-development. The philosophical view of communication is revealed based on the antinomic approach. The antinomic approach presents communication as unity and separation at the same time. The authors argue that communication is a prerequisite for a full-fledged human being. Online communications allow communication to overcome various restrictions, such as border closures, isolation, quarantine. An important type of online communication is the communication of gamers in the virtual universes of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). EVE Online is an example of such a game. Gamers engage in real interaction in the virtual world of the game. The virtual worlds of games become proving grounds for the development and preservation of social skills. EVE Online’s audience is people who came to the virtual world for real communication. Joint gaming activities compensate for the communication gap between gamers. They have a joint existential experience, so communication of interests transforms into overcompensation. Establishing trusting relationships contributes to gamers’ de-anonymization. Partnerships and friendships that started online go beyond the virtual world of the game into the real world. The authors of the article conclude that loneliness can be overcome to a large extent with the help of online communications, provided that such communications are authentic.

Keywords: Internet, online communications, compensatory communication, latent loneliness, gamer, digital reality, personal identity, massively multiplayer online game (MMO), EVE Online

Knyazeva Helena Nikolaevna LANDSCAPES OF THE WORLDS OF LIVING BEINGS: AN ECOSEMIOTIC APPROACH // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 3 (37). P. 122-141

The article considers the meaning and content of the concept of ecological landscape. The author shows that the ecological landscapes of plant and animal organisms, fungi and microorganisms are built and modified through the processes of semiosis, signification of environmental elements and mutual recognition of signs. Landscapes are complex networks of interactions between organisms and with different types of environmental factors. The author argues that, for understanding the network interactions and communications of living organisms, the approaches from the network science and systems science are useful. Consideration of ecological landscapes from the perspective of complex systems opens up additional aspects of a possible analysis: spatial and temporal configurations of landscapes, elements of symmetry and asymmetry, order and chaos in them, their possible scale invariance, and the fractality of their structural organization. The concept of ecological landscape is correlated with the concept of ecological niche, a place occupied by a species in specific environmental conditions. When describing the coexistence of various organisms in a biocenosis in terms of niches, the author uses the concept of a fitness landscape or an adaptive landscape. She also analyzes the subtle nuances of meanings of the concepts “ecological landscape”, “ecological niche”, “habitat, “umwelt” and “eco-field, and “ecosemiosphere”, and the question of what determines the structure and diversity of the umwelts of living beings. Umwelt is the subjective world of perception and action of living beings belonging to the same species. Particular features of each individual are superimposed on the species-specific features of umwelts. Umwelt is built thanks to the active connection of a living organism and its environment, which it masters and turns into its own environment. Since environmental conditions are constantly changing, the umwelt of a living organism is partly rebuilt under the changing environmental conditions. A diachronically living organism lives in a plurality, a historical chain of states of its umwelt. There are several meanings in understanding the spatio-temporal properties of ecological landscapes and the interconnection of umwelts, the construction of landscape designs of nature. Curious features of the configuration of landscapes are short-range and long-range orders, the imposition of large and small scales, the division of ecological niches, cooperation and mutual assistance, and the synergy of living organisms. In the light of evolutionary holism, all types of umwelts (umwelts of plants, animals, human beings as social and cultural creatures) can be united and combined into a hierarchical ladder. An integral view entails an understanding of the need to promote global environmental ethics as a concern for the preservation of biological, social and cultural diversity, life and health of all parts and the whole of ecological landscape. By taking care of the whole, we take care of ourselves. By paying attention to and preserving the small in biological diversity, we support the sustainable development of large and global ecological entities and structures.

Keywords: biocomplexity, sign system, multiverse, systems biology, umwelt, ecological landscape, ecosemiotics

Sidorova Tatyana Alexandrovna DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AS A SEMANTIC SWITCH IN MEDICINE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 1 (35). P. 113-129

The article raises questions about how language, symptomatology, pathology description systems, and doctor-patient relationship will change in connection with the digital transformation of medicine. The effects of digitalization are analyzed using hermeneutic and semiotic approaches, the “signifying” and “understanding” methods are used to create an alternative view instead of the logic and language of information technology that prevails today. Digitalization begins with electronic medical records, transfers monitoring and control of the patient’s condition to personal medical assistants, and forms databases, which are the basis for the creation of neural networks and medical decision support systems. Telemedicine changes communication formats and transforms the subjectivity of the patient and the doctor. The introduction of digital algorithms changes the narratives of patients, the reading of the signs of the disease. The doctor-patient communication tends to have the patient describe their suffering through answers to test questions. The formalization of the language of medical description and patient narrative turns the “text” of the disease into medical data. There is a risk of translating medicine into a language that will largely be created by IT specialists, and the doctor will become the operator of intelligent systems for collecting and analyzing medical data. The digital transformation of medicine is a deep, qualitative transformation of the entire sphere of human health care, both at the individual and the social and institutional levels. Digital transformation occurs when people begin to think and act according to other codes, medicine becomes visually different. Semantic digital switching is reflected in the ethos of medicine. There is an inversion of subjectivity up to the disclaimer of responsibility, which is transferred to digital systems. The semiosis of medicine is reoriented from moral to economic goals. Digitalization generates new types of relationships between the doctor and the patient, strengthens their autonomy, but can also create conditions for a solidarity relationship of care in medicine. In assessing the risks of digitalization in medicine, a point of divergence is fixed: a deepening of a reductionist, digitally mediated view of the symptoms of live suffering humans and further distancing between the doctor and the patient may occur. Also, geneticized and digital personalization will allow taking into account a multilayer system of individual and culture-specific designations, introducing their interpretation into the world of scientific medicine, reformatting the solidary ties between the subjects of medicine through the responsible disposal of information.

Keywords: digital transformation of medicine, personalized medicine, bioethics, medical semiotics, hermeneutic approach, medical data, medical decision support systems, personal medical assistant, doctor-patient interaction

Gorbuleva Maria Sergeyevna THE GOOD, BAD GREEN COLOUR // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 1 (35). P. 140-162

The author explores the symbolism of the green colour. Biologists, chemists, botanists, florists, zoologists, artists, and other scientists have standardized, created catalogs, descriptions of colours and shades to eliminate possible errors and facilitate work. Scientists in various fields of knowledge have been interested in this topic for a very long time and comprehensively, ranging from how and in what order people recognized and named colours to assumptions about how a particular colour can affect a person or large groups of people in different circumstances and contexts. The article discusses the various meanings of colour concepts and analyses the language games associated with the visual perception of colour in the variable parameters of the living space. The history (social, cultural, symbolic) of the green colour is multi-layered and contradictory in different periods. The author made an attempt to systematize the symbolism and designate “asymmetry” in the interpretation of the green colour, to draw a conclusion about the prerequisites and consequences of this phenomenon. In Europe, at different times, it could mean luxury, prosperity, or misfortune, deceit. The green colour meant not just different meanings, but opposites: youth, love, life, and decay, poison, illness. In modern times, the green colour has a strong connection with life and prosperity. A person quite often expresses their feelings through the use of colour in one way or another. The analysis of the perception and influence of different colours on human behaviour and emotions is of great importance in psychology and related disciplines. At the moment, the basic principles of the impact of colour in marketing, advertising, positioning and brand policy are quite well studied, formulated and used. Green, like other colours, has an important place in communication and the transfer of meanings at various levels of modern culture. At the moment, there are a large number of studies and various sources of information regarding the origin, classification, history and meaning of colour, which confirms the relevance and interest in the research topic. However, blind spots, ambiguity and inconsistency in some of the findings indicate good opportunities for further work.

Keywords: colour, green colour, colour symbolism, colour psychology, colour of pain

Chernyavskaya Valeria Evgenievna TYPOGRAPHY AS SOCIAL INDEX: SOVIET LANDSCAPE IN THE MODERN RUSSIAN DISCOURSE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 2 (36). P. 50-73

This paper suggests a focus on the typography and the typographic design of the text. Typography is considered as a semiotic resource with a meaning-making potential. It may act as social index proving links to contexts and social environments in which these links become crucial for social actors. The paper argues that typographic forms reveal ideological ascriptions. These can be discussed as graphic ideologies or ideologies of graphics, which means a set of beliefs about the socially significant meaning of graphic variants. The theoretical and methodological foundations of the analysis are found in the modern investigations in social semiotics, multimodality, social indexicality, and thus are in line with explanatory approaches in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, discourse analysis, typographic linguistics. The sociolinguistic theory and typographic linguistics provide a social meaning of visual signs or, in a more narrow sense, typographic meaning. This is a kind of pragmatic meaning, arising from the indexical links of the visual sign to the social context of its use. In this framework, the explanatory charge of the concept of landscape is revealed, which attracted many scholars to denote a multimodal, socially and discursively shaped space, both in the sense of a cultivated environment and also as ideological sites. The notion of landscape involves signs, situation, social actors and ideologies. Therefore, the concepts of semiotic landscape, visual landscape, typographic landscape, which are identified in modern researches, are discussed. The paper shows that typographic landscapes as semiotic products with a social meaning are framed and evaluated in a dynamic way. Typographic meaning is an interpretive phenomenon that derives from the communicative knowledge of interlocutors and is a result of an interactive ascription within a socially embedded practice. The research question is related to the study of how typography becomes, in Agha’s terms, a social emblem. It is investigated in connection with the Soviet landscape in the modern Russian urban context. The term “Soviet landscape” refers to a multimodal space in which various semiotic resources, verbal and visual signs, texts, visual images, symbols refer to the sociocultural practices and (self)identification of a person in the former Soviet society. The main object of the suggested analysis within this framework is the Soviet type, characteristic for the Soviet newspapers and framed as such by social actors in the modern context. The analysis is based on multimodal texts used in modern Russian socio-cultural practice when creating advertising, social, and commercial messages. Dealing with landscapes reveals how Soviet nostalgia and the relevance of Soviet meanings give rise to the social indexicality of the sign and to the typographic meaning as a special social index. The analysis shows that typography has a precedent nature, acts as one of the semiotic tools for meaning making in socio-cultural practice.

Keywords: landscape, multimodality, sociolinguistics, social meaning, Soviet landscape, typographic meaning, typographic linguistics

Agatova Olga Aleksandrovna, Chervonnyy Mikhail Aleksandrovich, Yermolina Kseniya Andreevna CYBERSEMIOTICS OF DATA ANALYSIS IN DIGITAL EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 4 (34). P. 9-27

The article deals with the problem of cybersemiotics of the analysis of educational data and human development data in digital educational environments. In the context of the formation of anthropological ideas about the learner as a subject of activity and the implementation of project-oriented education, the cybernetics of digital educational platforms remains in the logic of “didactics of object learning” and does not sufficiently contribute to the logic of “didactics of the development of the subject of cognition and activity”. The cybernetics of digital educational environments determines the cybersemiotics of educational data analysis: the pedagogical meaning and pedagogical tasks of development are often constructed in distorted optics in relation to a developing person. In the conditions of digital educational platforms and data analytics in digital environments as special cybersemiotic systems, a request is being formed for conceptual approaches that allow social research, technological programming, and pedagogical design of developing, learning environments. The aim of the research presented in the article is to study the semiosis of the analysis of educational data and data on human development in digital educational environments. The research was carried out in two aspects: the technological aspect – the study of digital artificial intelligence (AI) services on educational platforms of Russian education; the pedagogical aspect – the study of data competencies of teachers in working with the semiotics of data analysis in education. The article reveals how cybersemiotic AI systems of digital educational platforms (these systems are based on the concept of the pragmatic function in visual semiotics semiotics) become the object of management, the object of pedagogical analysis, the object of technological development in the design of digital artificial intelligence services of digital educational platforms, and the object of procurement for the development of digital educational environments. The study is significant for the development of the theory and practice of digital didactics and the methodology of cybersemiotics of digital educational environments. The prospects of the research are the development of a conceptual adjustment of cybersemiotic systems of AI services for data analysis in the context of the National Data Management System development.

Keywords: educational data analysis, digital educational platforms, digital educational environments, artificial intelligence (AI) services for educational data analysis, semiotic data analysis of human development and quality of education

Karpenko Ivan Aleksandrovich VIRTUAL AND “REAL” WORLDS: THE PROBLEM OF CORRELATION AND PERCEPTION // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 3 (37). P. 142-158

The most common definitions of virtual reality state it as created artificially (by technical means) and open for interactions with the subject (the one who perceives it) with the help of the sensory organs. That is, this artificially created reality acts for the subject as a certain sign, which is visually accessible and somehow interpreted — it has meaning and value for the subject. Thus, the key to understanding virtual reality is the aspect of its artificially created and interactive nature, which differs from ordinary, “real” reality. But this reality is non-authentic, artificial. What does “non-authentic” mean? Does this mean that it is false or illusory? That it does not “actually” exist? Reality is often understood as something external to the subject, which they perceive and where exist as a part at the same time. Thus, the real is the perceived. Further, the real can be material and abstract, created by nature or people (by itself in both cases). Fundamental reality is understood as some primary physical scene of actions, phenomena, and processes, which was not created by man and itself serves as a condition for the creation of everything else, including man. Virtual reality stands up to this primary reality. It is secondary, created artificially on the basis of the primary one (and, as they say, with the help of technical means). What does “artificially created with the help of technical means” mean? Obviously, it stands for commonly called cultural objects created by people as opposed to those created by nature itself. The question is what part of culture to separate from “real” reality and place in the realm of the virtual one. Based on the analysis of the many-worlds interpretation hypotheses and the simulation hypothesis, the article shows that any virtual (in the sense of possible) reality is real and even necessary. Furthermore, without resorting to such strong hypotheses, the universe as a space of information (as bits and logical operations on them) allows us to consider both potential and actual realities equally. In digital code, the whole possible reality (in this respect, it is virtual) is potentially presented to us, and, thus, it has already been realized (the same applies to the wave function). The interpreter— the one who gives meaning to signs and their sequences (both for oneself) – shares the final opinion of what is considered real . But some different realities talk is not relevant here — all are dual concerning each other.

Keywords: virtual reality, reality, simulation, universe, information, many-worlds interpretation

Makarenko Andrey Nikolaevich, Melik-Gaykazyan Irina Vigenovna, Smyslyaeva Larisa Germanovna EDUCATION DIGITALIZATION ASTIGMATISM: PROBLEM SETTING FOR SEMIOTIC DIAGNOSTICS OF CONSEQUENCES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 3 (37). P. 90-110

The specificity of the task — diagnostics — makes it justified to resort to medical terminology. At the same time, the semiotic nature of this diagnostics justifies an appeal to the etymology of some medical terms, which goes back to ancient myths. Astigmatism is a diagnosis of such a deviation from the norm of vision, one of the symptoms of which is the perception of a circle as an oval. The reason for this deviation from the norm is the syndrome of the defective crystalline lens of the eye, leading to focusing features. Here, a chain of associations may arise, caused by the plots of the myth. In the ancient Greek version, Hestia was the keeper of the hearth, and the hearth was the pivot of the fire which, in the Roman version, was called “focus”. Hestia is present by her name and purpose in yet another medical term: the gestational period. This term denotes (formerly more often, now rarer) the state of pregnancy. This chain of associations serves to set the problem: to find a way to diagnose the consequences of the forced digitalization of teacher education during the pandemic. In other words, the search for an answer to the question: does the stay of a future teacher in the “belly” of a pedagogical university during the gestational period, passing with “complications”, require measures to replenish the norm of a specialist “born” by the university? Or, does digitalization burden the anamnesis of a future teacher? The procedures of the diagnostics themselves are based on the symptom/semantics, syndrome/syntactics, anamnesis/pragmatics correspondence. The listed correspondence is included in the operationalization of the basic concepts of the questionnaires. Two groups are selected for the pilot survey of students. The first group (I) includes the students for whom the period of total digitalization included the entire last year at high school and the first semester at the university. The second group of students (II) consists of those for whom total digitalization occurred during the third and fourth years of the university program. This selection fixes the extreme positions (I and II) in the distribution of digitalization by significant stages in the curriculum. In full-time mode, a survey of lecturers and teachers working with contingents of student groups (I and II) has been conducted on specially formulated points to find out the pros and cons of the digitalization of education; confirmation or refutation of the hypothesis of the authors of the article about the norm deformation. The pilot survey involves 60 students and 12 of their teachers. The article gives a general description of the survey tools. The questionnaire for surveying students combines verbal and visual methods of diagnostics. Teachers record the transformation of the norm, associated with only two aspects: a decrease in the quality of education and student-teacher communication. The relevance of the procedures of the semiotic diagnostics to the search for answers to the research question posed is confirmed by the revealed circumstance which was eluding under the use of different optics when the effects of education digitalization were discussed in the scientific literature. For the first time, the identified defect in the digitalization of education is the gap in student-student communication. This defect has consequences also established on the basis of the application of semiotic diagnostics procedures. Among these consequences, there is the lack of understanding of the essence of teamwork, leadership, professional competition and ethical principles of subject-subject communication. Such an effect of “educating Robinson Crusoe” does not correspond well to the competencies of a teacher. In whose “eye” is there the lens with a distorting defect? Students? Teachers? Operators of digitalization in education? We have found that digitalization in education implemented during the pandemic is subject to astigmatism. The fact that this situation belongs to the past requires two measures. First, the correction of “vision” among graduates. Secondly, the introduction of precise compensatory actions in the environment of distance education.

Keywords: norm, student-student communication deformation, completion of norm

Volodenkov Sergey Vladimirovich, Fedorchenko Sergey Nikolaevich, Belov Sergey Igorevich, Karlyavina Ekaterina Viktorovna The Russian political elite and power image constructing peculiarities in contemporary video games (on the Metro Exodus materials) // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024. Issue 2 (40). P. 57-78

This article studies the phenomenon of video games as instruments of constructing ideas about historical and political reality in the mass consciousness. In the modern world, video games became one of the most popular forms of entertainment along with other types of visual content – cinema, animation, online and print publications, etc. However, due to the specific technical tools, video games represent a fundamentally new means of constructing meanings because they create the effect of the player’s immersion and presence in a virtual reality. Such interactivity makes it possible for video games to be especially effective in broadcasting certain values and patterns of behavior to players, forming a specific socio-cultural reality around them. All the mentioned makes video games not only a kind of entertainment but a serious “soft power” tool for modern states. In the study, the authors make an attempt to find out the images and tools that allow modern video games form a certain reality in the mass consciousness. For this purpose, the authors use the case-study as a method of descriptive analysis, B. F. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning, Tajfel and Turner’s social identity theory, and the method of expert interviewing. The authors resort not only to the theoretical understanding of the essence of video games based on foreign and domestic research in the sphere of game studies, but also to a practical analysis of the mechanisms used by the creators of video games to form a specific world view for gamers on the example of the Russian game Metro Exodus. The game action takes place in a post-apocalyptic world – an alternative Russia of the future, where people are forced to survive after a technogenic disaster. The game contains a lot of images of the Russian political elite, among which are a member of a secret service, controlling the media and oppressed population – the personification of the Russian government; a priest, deceiving his flock and connected with the criminal – the personification of the Russian Orthodox Church; the military and employees of the Ministry of Defence, literally “devouring” the population – the personification of militarism and the state of military structures in modern Russia; an oppressive southern autocrat, controlling the oil reserves and oppressing a local population – probably an allusion to the raw materials economy of Russia and related problems. The game’s creators use various visual problems, referring to the modern Russia, for instance, modified emblems with double-headed eagles, architecture which is typical to Russian cities, Russian military uniforms. The game plot is based on the victory of players over negative characters representing the Russian government– according to that, the authors of the article conclude that this video game forms similar patterns of behavior in the minds of players, whose ultimate goal is to overthrow the current state system in Russia. Along with that, the authors conclude that it is quite difficult now to evaluate the degree of emotional perception of these patterns among gamers. This will be possible only if an active protest movement in Russia arises.

Keywords: programming visualization, mass consciousness, political image, historical perceptions, entertainment

Shaygozova Zhanerke Nauryzbaevna, Naurzbayeva Almira Beketovna, Nekhvyadovich Larisa Ivanovna TRADITIONAL KAZAKH ARTISTIC AND SYMBOLIC BASIS OF THE CONCEPT “HOME” IN THE ASPECT OF VISUAL SEMIOTICS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 2 (36). P. 30-49

As we know, “home” is among the basic archetypes of culture, interpreted as a sign of mastered space and time, as well as the symbolically signified centre of human existence. Therefore, in this aspect, “home” has an infinite potential as an object of research. Thus, studies of «home» in traditional culture in any of its material incarnations – wooden, stone, or felt – concur in the view that it represents one of the symbolically complex elements of culture, conceptually filled with a mythologically universal meaning. This article is dedicated to the study of “home” in the traditional culture of the Kazakhs, the peculiarity of which is a stable legacy of a nomadic civilization. The idea of Tengri as the all-encompassing supreme heavenly god and the nomadic way of life substantiated the specificity of the traditional Kazakh mentality, characterized by a peculiar worldview – the awareness of one’s self in unity with the Universe. The Kazakhs perceived their dwelling with the family as a certain conventional point in unity with the infinity of the universe, accentuated the sacralised in a three-part vertical spatial projection. Therefore, the research focuses on the object-visual elements of “home” – the dwelling of a person in its three ontologically significant and symbolically signified manifestations: cradle – yurt - burial place. Thus, from birth to death a person stays in the “home” as a spiritual-mental structure, where the first earthly abode is a child’s cradle – besik, then the dwelling house – kiiz ui (yurt), and the last abode is the mausoleum (mazar). Symbolically, these “homes” are seen as parts of a single chain of the human lifeworld. Hence the choice of spatial semiotics approaches with access to the techniques of visual semiotics is conditioned. The hypothesis of the present study is the assumption that the conditional symbolic triad, cradle – dwelling house – burial place, in the traditional Kazakh culture is a system of interconnected visual signs. The first element belongs to the sphere of Heaven; the second to the Middle World, the world of the “living”; and the third to the Lower World, which is emphasised by design features and ways of decorating the interiors of Kazakh mausoleums. This hypothesis defined the aim and objectives of this research, which are to study the features of visual signs of the Kazakh cradle – besik, kiiz ui (yurt), and mausoleum (burial place) as semiotic subsystems of the single concept “home”.

Keywords: visual signs, cradle, yurt, mausoleum, Kazakhs, work of art, visual semiotics, communication

Rozhkova Tamara Valentinovna VERBS IN MEDICAL DISCOURSE AS A MEANS FOR QUANTIFYING SPECIAL PROCESSES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 1 (35). P. 91-112

The complex process of examining and perceiving of the world by a person cannot occur without measuring of the objects which surround a human being or events and processes they observe or experience. The findings of these investigations are reflected in the language by various means. Measurements and their results are of particular importance in medicine. The article studies the semantics and linguistic means of representing quantification incorporated in verbs which function in medical discourse. These quantitative measurements are considered the representatives of the category of quantity. About 825 verbs nominating special medical processes and conditions were investigated. A complex of methods including definitional, etymological, interpretative and statistical analyses used in the survey helped to reveal and describe the category of quantity in the verbs at the level of its cognitive, semantic, and linguistic representation. The category of quantity can be studied as a complex category consisting at least of two subcategories. On the one hand, it represents the numerical manifestation of the process (the number of repeated actions, the number of stages for the process performance, the quantitative characteristics of the result of the action) and the correlation between the “part” and the “whole” during the process implementation. On the other hand, it demonstrates the intensity of the process. A set of separated or interrelated concepts, each combining verbs with similar semantic features, forms each subcategory. The sets include the concepts like definite and indefinite quantity, the whole and the part, loss of something, upward or downward change of the amount, increase or decrease of intensity, equalizing of the amount, the measurement of the quantity. Derivational affixes, mostly prefixes, verbalizing these concepts are also studied in the article. They are believed to contribute to the visualization of the semantics of the verbs because they are highly productive and allow deciphering the meaning of the verb. However, some of them demand a medical specialist to have some background knowledge. The category is not a confined one, it interacts with those of time, space, consequence. Thus, the performed investigation shows that this category is widely represented by verbs denoting special medical processes and conditions, reflects cognition and its results in the field of medicine.

Keywords: verb, medical discourse, quantity, intensity, category, concept, semantics, seme, English

Nekhaeva Iraida Nikolaevna IMAGE-DEPICTION AND LIVELY-DEPICTION AS TWO CONCEPTS OF VISION // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 4 (34). P. 166-181

This article analyzes a real situation that once happened with the famous artist and art theorist Johannes Itten and his students at one of the classes of his preparatory course (Vorkurs) at the Bauhaus, a school of design, architecture, and applied arts that operated in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The situation reveals the optical duality of the visual field of the still life. The aim of the study is to clarify the nature of two different concepts of vision – image-depiction and lively-depiction. The methodological basis of the research is set by the philosophy of language, the analytics of visual practices, the philosophy of action, practical philosophy with elements of Kantian aesthetics. The study shows that the image as a schematizing way of representation plays the role of a tool for seeing possible rather than real objects. On the contrary, in the lively-depiction experience, actions themselves become the source of vision. In the field of visual practices, it shifts the analytical priority from linguistic structures (as a universal way of ordering image elements) to the world of direct practical actions of artists, allowing them to go beyond the usual contemplative ways of representation. As a result of the study, the author revealed the characteristics and differences between the image-depiction and lively-depiction concepts as two different visual modes of modern artistic optics. Conclusions are formulated about the role of a practical resource in the reconstruction of vision as “what is”, and not “what may be”. In the field of visual practices, the concepts’ fluidity becomes an important object of study; its nature shows in various lively-depiction aspects, such as plasticity, variability, action, reaction, intention, state, as opposed to purely image-depiction aspects, such as contemplation, scheme, technique and observation. The process of lively-depiction vision is directly related to the mobility of the environment through which our eyes pass; therefore, the quality of the movement itself acquires special significance here, taking on the role of a sign of the changes taking place in the environment. Accordingly, lively-depiction is pure intention, or action itself, while image-depiction is rather a ready-made tool or a scheme for which the technique and accuracy of execution are of the greatest value. The emotional structuring of the visual field of a still life is not reduced to simple mechanical actions of agents (as was shown in the drawings of Itten’s students) but manifests itself as a heterogeneous dynamic set of their living reactions that can form tendencies of artists’ sensuality rather than strict rules for representing still life objects. The emphasis on the practical component of visuality provides interesting material for interdisciplinary research, helping to focus on the very process of formation of various types and forms of visibility.

Keywords: lively-depiction, image-depiction, tendencies, rules, visual practice

Joussellin Charles, Mailenova Farida Gabdelkhakovna UNE ALGOLOGIE NARRATIVE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 1 (35). P. 78-90

L'approche du traitement de la douleur décrite dans cet article est appelée «algologie narrative» (la narration est une mise en récit du vécu ou de l'histoire, l'algologie est la discipline de la médecine qui étudie la gestion de la douleur). La combinaison de soins médicaux, de psychothérapie et de techniques d'hypnose est complétée par l’accueil et un travail sur l'histoire personnelle unique du patient. La réflexion philosophique des auteurs sur l'approche de l'expérience pratique montre avec quelle efficacité il est possible d'écouter attentivement une personne qui souffre non pas de la douleur, mais de ses conséquences sociales. Si la douleur dure longtemps et reste inexpliquée par la biotechnologie médicale, celle-ci devient suspecte et conflictuelle au sein d’une société humaine qui marginalise la personne douloureuse. Dans cette situation, la narration, essentielle à la condition humaine, propose un chemin de possibles apaisements avec une réinsertion sociale. Cependant, la complexité de cette méthode narrative, malgré son apparente simplicité, réside dans le fait que la douleur est non seulement difficile à exprimer et à décrire à une autre personne. Nous sommes obligés soit de décrire la douleur par métaphore, en essayant de la «capturer» d'une façon ou d'une autre. Parfois, lorsqu'elle est insupportable, la douleur s’exprimera par des cris, des gémissements - des sons qui rappellent notre nature animale. Cette régression linguistique inhérente aux patients gravement malades oblige les thérapeutes à imaginer des moyens de les comprendre. Ainsi, la réalité subjective inconditionnelle de la douleur, inobjectivable sinon de façon très réductrice, nécessite d’être racontée pour mieux la comprendre et la soigner. Comment alors évaluer, comprendre et soigner une personne douloureuse ? En se tournant vers elle et ce qu’elle exprime. Non pas seulement sa parole articulée mais tous les phénomènes d’expression de l’homme, lesquels s’éprouvent réciproquement lorsque les hommes se rencontrent et racontent leur souci d’eux-mêmes et d’autrui ainsi que leurs préoccupations communes. C’est une situation anthropologique normale alors qu’une personne se plaint de douleur à une autre personne, où un « Je » dénonce une douleur et revendique une aide auprès d’un autre «Je». La narration tient une place primordiale car elle est constitutive de la nature humaine, elle est importante parce que raconter son vécu à autrui permet d’en rechercher le sens. Le récit de la douleur est donc une percée à travers l'incompréhension, d'un être individuel à un autre. Ainsi, prendre en charge la douleur représente l’alliance de la bio-technologie à une préalable rencontre intersubjective guidée par la narration et le souci d’autrui afin que la personne douloureuse s’apaise et retrouve sa place dans la cité.

Keywords: algologie, image de la douleur, médecine narrative, bioéthique, maladie, santé, subjectivité, douleur, souffrance, psychotechnologie, métaphores thérapeutiques, communication humaniste

Storozhuk Anna Yur'yevna THE GOLDEN RATIO IN ARCHITECTURE AS A SIGN OF CULTURAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 3 (37). P. 111-121

The sign structure of architectural proportions is investigated. The article aims to analyze the relationship between worldview attitudes and architectural proportions, and to show the dependence of the architectural image on the value and worldview attitudes. An art object determines the configuration of physical space, has the characteristics of a visual sign, and therefore is subject to semiotic interpretation in semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic aspects. Semiotic interpretations of a visual architectural sign are contrasted in semantic and pragmatic aspects. The latter are insufficient for the determination of a number of parameters of architectural forms. The article shows that the definition of a number of parameters of an architectural sign is associated with the ideality of the object of communication; the proportions of an architectural work were chosen in accordance with the proportions of an ideal human body (the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci). The magical model of the universe became the basis for the planning scheme of ancient cities (the hierarchical organization of urban space serves as a metaphor for “city-space”). The result of the study is the opposition of the pragmatic and semiotic aspects of communication, expressed in the proportionality, form, and structure of architecture, while pragmatism is built on the functional reproduction of a simplified sample of the block structure, with the help of which the mass building of modern cities is carried out. “Praxeme” as a communicative sign, the presence of certain structures for translating the human message of non-human essence is fixed, that is, the practical actualization of linguistic meanings is rebuilt and obeys the conceivable subject and the mental image (praxeme of consciousness). Traditional architecture (primarily sacral) visually expresses a certain specific type of culture, representing itself through these forms and proportions. The “anti-humanity” of such buildings, the crushing sensations of the “stone jungle”, the general adverse effect on the psyche are noted. A conclusion is made about the opposition of the pragmatism and sacredness of architecture, expressed in the dispute “beauty versus function”. The need to find compromise solutions is indicated.

Keywords: golden ratio in architecture, anthropomorphism, architectural proportion as language

Joussellin Charles THE PERSON IN PAIN (translated by F. G. Mailenova) // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 1 (35). P. 130-139

A person confronted with pain is transformed. Their ability to perceive and listen, also their capacity to act, are all changed and impaired. These changes must be taken into account in order to support and reduce the suffering of the person in pain. The phenomenology of pain to which this translated article is dedicated allows for a larger and more humane approach to the person in pain, who is often in total isolation, left alone with his or her pain. Is it possible to understand the pain of others the way they experience it, when pain tears one’s body and soul, gradually changes one’s personality? What is a person in pain? Does one remain the same person as one was before the disease, or transform as the illness progresses? The article asserts that one’s personality is radically transformed by pain, and that we should be able to take this transformation into account both in medical care and in our everyday conversations with the patient. The transformation of personality can be so profound and at times irreversible, that it is hard to believe that this is the person we knew before. The multi-year patient monitoring of the author working in palliative care and his reflection on these experiences of observation and empathy lead to the philosophical question “Can we understand another person’s pain?” by examining the elements of visualising suffering and setting the optics of the empathetic look.

Keywords: pain, presence, action, modification

Zhukov Leonid Borisovich HOW SCIENCE WORKS: VISUAL ORIENTATION IN SEMIOTIC SPACE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 2 (36). P. 103-114

Science is a specific and even unbelievable, I would say paradoxical, kind of human activity, just like any functional system in modern society. It is accepted that science establishes truth, but this truth is not true, as evidenced by Popper’s criterion of falsifiability. Another problem is the distinction between science as a social system and cognitive activity, so that much of modern scientific work may have nothing to do with cognition at all, but only with the self-reproduction of the social system. Finally, modern science also essentially differs from everything from which its genesis is usually deduced: firstly from primitive mythological not even cognition, but consciousness; then from primary philosophical views with attempts of objective descriptions sewn into them; then from theories verified by scholasticism; and, finally, from classic science, which actually underlies all sciences, forming in the Enlightenment era the concept of object and method of scientific experiment. Science as cognition is a process. Science as a social system is also a process. In these processes we fix from time to time reference points that allow us to describe them in terms of a certain universal position, which different philosophical orientations define differently. Among other things, I believe, the notion of orientation in the environment fits the role of such a position. Cognition and its accompanying science then appear as a system of a more and more complex orientation, the complexity of which at one end rests on uncertainty, which can be represented in the real concept of complexity or, metaphorically, in the image of quantum metaphor as quantum entanglement, and, at the other, in the unreal concept of absolute abstraction, which perhaps could be imagined – if it were possible! – as a sign cleared of content. Such a form is best characterized by the paradoxical word/notion of “nothingness.” Just as we do not have complexity and its physical representative, entanglement, although we really deal with its derivatives – collapsed forms of things (like the electron in the double-slit experiment), so even less do we have absolute abstractions (like, say, the already mentioned “truth”), although we work with unreal concepts, of which, on occasion, only a sign remains. Thus, a point can be a real point placed with chalk on the blackboard in the classroom, or it can be an unreal “mathematical point,” which a handful of chalk on the blackboard only symbolizes. Orientation ultimately collapses into four reference points, which form a fractal tuple that unfolds in any subject in which we wish to orient ourselves, including the individual consciousness or system of science. These orientations are given, schemata, positions, and “nothingness” (beyond the horizon of these orientations there remain indeterminacy and absolute abstraction). The pattern of classical science, which defines the typology of science in general, relies on three reference points: the researcher observes from a certain position the data of the world and describes them through theories (schemata), which are verified through scientific experiment. Briefly, it looks like this: position => schemas => data. In essence, this is the type/pattern of natural sciences. A new type of sciences – the humanities – is characterized by the exact opposite vector in the same pattern: position = schemata = data. In this case, in fact, with the emergence of the humanities it became possible to speak of a scientific and cognitive typology at all, since the beginning of the formation of the notion of the observer (as opposed to the natural science subject) was laid here, thanks to which real reference points were transformed into conditional, typologically relative ones. Thus, the humanitarian observer observes/describes positions as given – thus the pattern of classical (natural) science is realized, but science itself becomes different – it has another subject of research and another view (position) from which it proceeds. These two points – the position of observation and the subject of research – determine the type of science. In this case, the hierarchical picture of the world created by the natural (classical, enlightened) sciences becomes networked. Now, by combining the reference points in different combinations, we get an orientation in the types of modern science and cognition, including the non-classical and post-non-classical sciences described by Vyacheslav Stepin. The non-classical includes the theoretical sciences (natural and humanitarian). An example of natural theoretical sciences is theoretical physics or biosemiotics; an example of humanities theoretical sciences is theoretical sociology and psychotherapy theory. The post-non-classical includes general theories (also natural theories and humanities). An example of natural general theories is general systems theory and synergetics; an example of humanitarian general theories is hermeneutics and semiotics.

Keywords: science, cognition, orientation, fractal, sign, form, typology, complexity, “nothingness”, social system

Strugovshchikova Ulyana Sergeevna SEMIOTIC WORLDS. PLANTS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 3 (37). P. 159-181

The ecological conception of a new dialogue between man and nature is ripening. This concept is biosemiotics. According to the concept, nature is perceived as an equal actor of the coevolution of humankind and the living creatures on our planet. The idea of the research is to use biosemiotics – a pre-linguistic level of semiotics, semantic processes which happened in the living sphere – as a tool or conceptual framework for describing biological phenomena at all levels of life organization. The relevance of the concept can be driven by the unstable relationship between culture and nature, and can be used to initiate safe cultural forms and practices between the different worlds of living. Biosemiotics understands life as the existence and interaction of living communities, where signs are created, interpreted in different ways and have meaning. Basic semiotics covers almost all living forms on the tree of life. Meaningful behavior has been documented even in unicellular organisms. We cannot but view plants from the same perspective, as there have been a lot of discoveries in plant biology. The author takes plants interaction and communication as of individual organisms, as they construct their own ontological worlds. New data of plant signaling and behavior have revealed that plants have their own sensory-motor apparatus: higher plants with a vascular system have the functional cycle, i.e. a sensory-motor loop mediated by electrical impulses; and plant studies of their cognitive skills and behavior have found that plants not only passively adapt to the environment, but also actively transform and construct it, i.e. create an umwelt. Thus, the author sets a question of the existence of semiosis between plants. Through the lens of a biosemiotic approach, she describes an example of a symbiotic interaction of American polyculture: maze, pumpkin, and beans. This approach is supplemented by the concept of 4E (embedded, extended, enactive, and embodied) cognition, with the addition of the fifth E – ecological, which reveals plants’ affordances, namely, entanglement of affordances of the environment with the morphological affordances of any plant and the possibility to use these affordances for their own needs. The author made an attempt to integrate the concept of enlogue (by Segei Chebanov) into the phytosemiotic approach. Enlogue is a tool for communication with another. It is a link between living organisms, as well as between a living organism and a non-living thing. This link or connection is always reversed. Enlogues (two or more) are involved in the formation of a sign. Mutual links, or enlogues, create an umwelt. The research highlights the importance of a further development of the biosemiotic approach as well as the need for the development of a new descriptional language. As an additional issue for further examinations is a question: How can we properly describe non-human phenomena in human language? And what is “properly” in that case?

Keywords: biosemiotics, phytosemiotics, umwelt, function circle, affordance, sign, enlogue, semiotic fitting, ontological worlds, biological need, enactivism, 4E-cognition

Ardashkin Igor Borisovich, Netesova Maria Vitalievna TERMINOLOGICAL PLANNING IN THE CONTEXT OF SMART EDUCATION: THE ROLE OF THE CONCEPT AS A WAY OF KNOWLEDGE VISUALIZATION // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 4 (34). P. 28-62

The article deals with the problem of defining a term in the theories of terminological planning and the influence of the identified approaches on the organization of a student’s terminological work in the context of smart education. The aim of the article is to determine, in the context of smart education, the ways of a student’s terminological work depending on the interpretation of the term in the considered theories of terminological planning (General Theory of Terminology (GTT), Communication Theory of Terminology (CTT), Sociocognitive Theory of Terminology (STT), Frame-Based Terminology (FBT)). The article contains three sections: “Smart education: On the concept”, “Theories of terminological planning: The factor of the concept”, “The concept of the term, visualization and smart education”, expressing the authors’ sequence of consideration of the questions posed. The first section analyzes smart education as a concept. The latter is considered as a format of education whose key characteristic, according to the authors, is the maximum degree of the student’s independence in the development of knowledge and modern information technology. The knowledge acquisition system is interpreted through terminological work and terminology designation problems. The authors have established that the concept plays a key role in the definition of the term, since its status determines the status of the term. In the considered theories, there is no single way of understanding the concept and the term, and, consequently, the way of designating the term. The second section characterizes the main theories of terminological planning and features of term understanding and terminological work in them. In GTT, the concept is characterized as a specialized concept, in the context of which the meaning of the term is determined (according to the rule, one concept for one term). CTT uses the term “terminological unit”, which consists of three components: a unit of knowledge (concept), a unit of language (term), a unit of communication (situation). STT uses the concept “unit of understanding”, which can take the form of a category (repeated meanings of concepts) and the form of a concept (unique value). In FBT, the meaning of a term and concept is defined through a frame and its structure, represented by a conceptual component (nouns are used to express the static meanings of the term) and a predicative component (verbs are used to express the dynamic meanings of the term). The third section discusses the role of the concept “term” as a means of visualization, through which the student is able to understand the degree of comprehension of the term when learning. For smart education, it is important that, in the context of GTT, the student should only learn the special meanings of terms and does not take part in their formation; in the context of CTT, STT, FBT (differently in each), the student plays a decisive role in the formation of the meanings of concepts and terms. The key role in terminology designation is played by the mechanisms of visualization and conceptualization, presented as processes of a multi-level alternating change of the considered operations when working with concepts and terms towards greater abstraction of the latter.

Keywords: smart education, term, concept, meaning, terminological planning theories, visualization, conceptualization

Arshinov Vladimir Ivanovich SCIENCE AS A COGNITIVE-SEMIOTIC PROCESS IN THE OPTICS OF THE THINKING-TOGETHER-WITH-COMPLEXITY PARADIGM // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 2 (36). P. 81-94

The article is an attempt to constructively comprehend what is meant by (or, what is hidden under) the umbrella term “science” (or scientificity) in the multiperspective optics of thinking-together-with-complexity. This way of thinking is understood as the search for coherence – an inner unity in the flow of the emerging chaotic variety of interactions between man and his natural and technogenic environment in the epoch of the Anthropocene and the emerging artificial intelligence. Not giving a strict definition of complexity, the article refers to a recently published Russian translation of the book by the French thinker Edgar Morin with an afterword by the translator (Yakov Svirsky) and the editor of this book (Vladimir Arshinov). In this connection, the following explanation is provided: thinking-together-with-complexity (the hyphen here is very important as a linking sign) is inter-disciplinary (and transdisciplinary) thinking that focuses exactly on the prefix inter, which has a fundamental meaning. It is recursive-procedural mediating thinking in the middle. The article emphasizes that this way of thinking – together-with-complexity (the complexity paradigm in Moren’s terminology) – is opposed to the simplicity paradigm not as a denial of the necessity (and inevitability) of simplification procedures, but as a thought-activating, linguo- semiotically mediated and conscious strategy of reducing complexity (as interpreted by Niklas Luhmann). It also implies a certain virtue ethics in the sense of Aristotle’s doctrine of middleness and the doctrine of choosing the middle path of Tao. The discussion goes back to Simondon’s understanding of the genesis of technicality as a phase shift in the primordial magical worldview, as applied to the co-evolutionary understanding of science and scientificity as a semiotic entanglement of linguistic-technological-scientificity; as a process of techno-mediated, recursive contact-bonding of man as an organ-like, bodily embodied universe with his reanimated complex environment of biospheric and, ultimately, cosmic habitat, which has generated him and is generated by him; and, of course, as the coevolutionary intertwining of natural-science and humanitarian knowledge and modes of cognition, eco-cognitive semiotic practices.

Keywords: recursion, complexity, entanglement, coevolution, process, semiotic practices, complexity observer

Gorbuleva Maria Sergeyevna, Melik-Gaykazyan Irina Vigenovna VISUALIZATION OF THE SPECIFICITY OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORLDVIEW: DETECTION OF SEMIOTIC OPTIMUM IN THE SELECTION OF ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL FOR AN OPEN LECTURE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024. Issue 1 (39). P. 143-166

An explanation of two circumstances precedes the presentation of the main content of this article. The first relates to the fact that, with this article, the journal opens a new “Open Lecture” section. The second reveals both the meaning of the words in the section title and the primary purpose of the research, the first results of which are presented in this article. The phrase “open lecture” is the name of one of the procedures (established in the practice of domestic higher education), which is part of the preliminary selection of educators participating in the competition for a lecturer role. This procedure’s name defines the lecture as open to professional criticism: discussion of the content and its structure, the manner of communication between the lecturer and the audience and the likelihood of students achieving educational goals. The originality of the presented research lies in the fact that, firstly, all these components of the discussion are understood from the standpoint of semiotics, respectively, as semantic, syntactic and pragmatic translations. Secondly, these translations are understood as the interconnection of specific stages of the information process. It opens up the possibility of modelling the structure of the lecture content based on the characteristics of information (value, quantity, effectiveness). Thirdly, the stages of the information process are understood as mechanisms of self-organization, which makes it possible to interpret learning results from the standpoint of stimulating a transition (or lack thereof) of the students from simple reception to acceptance. Fourthly, the very formulation of the research problem is the problem of discovering the semiotic optimum in organizing the learning space. One can emphasize that, in this formulation, the problem within the pedagogical theory and practice framework is posed for the first time since the semiotic essence of education remains unnoticed in pedagogical science. The circumstance for implementing the semiotic optimum, assuming that this optimum is discovered, is the educator’s clear understanding of the student’s goals (spectrum and hierarchy of goals) in the classroom rather than the goals of the educator’s activity. Therefore, the subject of the study was chosen to be the first lecture on a subject that is extremely rarely taught at school in domestic education. Thereby, it is a lecture for which the audience may have minimal prejudice. More precisely, there can only be a premonition of the complexity of the subject, the isolation of its content from real life, which reduces the initial goals of students only to mastering ways to overcome this ‘disaster’ in their curriculum. It states the following need for the educator: (a) to have empathy; (b) maintain a balance between complexity of content and simplicity of explanation. Both necessities boil down to finding a measure, an optimal measure. The article justifies that illustrative material for a lecture should (1) serve not as proof but only as an explanation of the lecture statements. The choice of material should (2) be made from various visualizations that are events in intellectual history and also visually express the multi-layered context of known metaphors. In the case of our research, these are illustrations of works by artists from the Bruegel family; this intends (in addition to the mentioned) to demonstrate the metamorphoses of ideas within one philosophical school or tradition. Illustrations must (3) meet the requirement of end-to-end examples throughout the entire course of lectures. The material we have chosen illustrates the following. The contemplation of the world by a genius leads to the extraction of an essential detail unnoticed by others; expressing this detail in abstract form initiates a dialogue; expressing this detail in a relevant form creates grounds for interpretation among many people, which ultimately shapes the worldview of those people. The fact that there is a known case of erasing details from a painting and that the demonstrated artworks received different titles over time illustrates the change in topical emphases. The number of illustrations should (4) meet the condition: no more than one visual demonstration in a fifteen-minute lecture time interval. The article presents results obtained as of now only empirically. Experience shows that compliance with the above conditions ensures the stability of impressions among students and contributes to their understanding (and not just memorization) of the main messages of the lecture.

Keywords: Peter Bruegel the Elder, information processes, effectiveness, education subjects’s goals

Boldachev Alexander Vladimirovich FROM POETRY TO SCIENCE OR FROM RULES TO THEORY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 2 (36). P. 95-102

Cognition is an activity that ensures adaptation and better orientation of a person in the world. The result of cognitive activity is not a specific consumer product or service, but behavioral scenarios (usually recorded in the form of texts) that generally increase human survivability in the world. Cognitive activities are primarily distinguished by their subjects: aesthetic perception (art), unified forms of thinking (philosophy), universal values (religion), explicit structural unity (mathematics), and implicit unity of the world (mysticism). The subject of scientific cognition should be recognized not just as abstract reality, but as unequivocally reproducible phenomena, regardless of their ontological status. And this decision undoubtedly corresponds to the general scientific representations of the reproducibility of experiments and the possibility of recording the regularities revealed in them in the form of rational sign systems (formulas and theories). The main contribution of philosophy to the development of science lies not in “word creation”, not in introducing new concepts (being, cosmos, nature, infinity, logos, etc.), but in using these new concepts to construct complex, internally consistent structures that, when recorded in text, are called theories. Science as an independent cognitive activity formed when it had combined two linguistic practices, two text forms of knowledge representation: (1) empirical statements about uniquely reproducible phenomena and (2) theoretical statements, logically derived within a sign system that describes those phenomena in scientific terms. It is essential to note that neither empirical statements, such as experimentally obtained ones, nor theory conclusions are scientific in and of themselves. They only become scientific when the results of observations match the logical/mathematical conclusions of the theory. Science is a cognitive activity whose subject is uniquely reproducible phenomena and whose result is theories whose logical conclusions must be confirmed by empirical data. Disciplines such as religion, art, philosophy, mysticism are not sciences because their subjects are not reproducible. Mathematics as a whole cannot be considered a science because its subject, although reproducible, is inseparable from the discipline itself, that is, there is no clear separation of theoretical and empirical statements in it.

Keywords: science, cognition, knowledge, language, philosophy

Ismailov Kamolitdin Saidakhmadovich, Markov Alexander Viktorovich ACTING PERFORMANCES IN UZBEK DOCUMENTARY FILMS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 3 (37). P. 54-72

Soviet cinema established a specific genre of film portrait, which was supported both by the visual norms of Soviet film production and by the genre specification common to literature and cinematography, aimed at streamlining large arrays of works intended to educate Soviet people. Maxim Gorky and Dziga Vertov played a key role in establishing this genre and legitimizing it as an educational artistic program with its sometimes quite provocative features. throughout the history of Soviet cinema, this genre showed great resilience, which can be explained both by the Soviet viewer’s general conception of progress and its visual representations, and by the canonical nature of the techniques of documentary film portraits. At the same time, the general image of the representation of modernity as the performance of progress prevailed over the narrative, which therefore did not need additional narratives or effects. Acting performances in documentary films were thus either condemned or tolerated as ornamental. The article delineates two types of documentaries, ethnographic and biographical, and shows how the screen principles of Soviet cinema limited the introduction of acting inserts. The collapse of the Soviet film production system significantly changed the audience. First of all, the literature-centrism of Soviet culture, in which narratives about the past and present were generated by literature, disappeared; now the cinema began to develop them independently. Next, audiences themselves began to differentiate their expectations from cinema, projecting onto it the experience of watching television and the experience of encountering Hollywood performing films. Finally, a new generation of filmmakers began to make greater use of acting inserts along with special effects to build a narrative that complemented the national historical narrative and thereby attracted more viewers. At the same time, viewers were not fully accustomed to narratives of things, perceiving them exclusively as documentary evidence. Therefore, the use of acting inserts often undermined the credibility of the film’s historical accuracy and the credibility of new documentary filmmaking in general. Such were the underlying reactions of the audience, which, although not explicitly expressed, were noted by the most perceptive Uzbek filmmakers in interviews conducted specifically for this study. The study of Uzbek films in the last three decades has shown the search for new ways to make film portraits that take into account both the play of narratives and the variability of viewer expectations. Not all of these pursuits have been successful, but they have shown a steady desire on the part of filmmakers to avoid the emotional lethargy characteristic in post-Soviet documentaries due to the lack of a single idea of universal progress that viewers accept as credible. Nation-building requires both a renewal of the idea of progress and a new conflict of narratives with a flawless use of techniques that are not chosen by the director, but entail each other, and create the aesthetics of a documentary with acting performance inserts.

Keywords: documentary, film portrait, director, staging, image, hero, Uzbek cinema

Shaygozova Zhanerke Nauryzbaevna, Naurzbayeva Almira Beketovna, Nekhvyadovich Larisa Ivanovna THE SEMIOTIC BASIS OF KAZAKH CULTURE: ORNAMENT AS AN ETHNO-SIGN CODE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024. Issue 1 (39). P. 120-142

The relevance of the study of ornament in a semiotic way is confirmed by the active research in the world semiotic science enriching its methodological reserve more and more. The results of studies on problems of ornament as a semiotic structure and ethnographic code since the mid-twentieth century are illustrated by dozens of works on the material of different cultures: Slavic, Balkan, and many others. However, it should be acknowledged that at the moment all the diversity, beauty, intelligence, plasticity, aesthetics and semantics of Kazakh (and wider Turkic) ornament are little known outside Kazakhstan. Many aspects of Kazakh ornament remain insufficiently studied from the standpoint of semiotic research, which will expand the horizons of understanding not only ornamental art itself as a “chronicle of culture”, but also its symbolic nature and code system. Ornament in such a reading appears as a special kind of language, a sign system that exists in structural unity with other structures of the cultural whole. On the one hand, ornamental design functions in the field of various types of traditional art and crafts: textile art and costume, wood and stone processing, jewelry, pottery, architecture, rock art, tamgas, and others; thus, considering ornament as a special kind of a sign system, we should also remember the polysemantic nature of ethno-sign codes. On the other hand, the internal structure of ornament correlates with other languages of culture: music, poetry (oral culture), writing, dance, etc., as well as with the phenomenon of Tengrian calendar, which is seemingly incommensurable in its functionality. The article presents the results of a study of the structural model of ornament in its correlation with the languages of other phenomena of Kazakh culture.

Keywords: ornament, Kazakh culture, semiotic basis, ethno-sign code

Donskikh Oleg Albertovich THE VISUALIZATION OF RELATIVITY (A REPLY TO OPPONENTS) // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 2 (36). P. 115-124

The question of the possibility to consider not only science but also religion and art as forms of cognition is discussed. It seems that due to the multidimensionality of each of the mentioned spheres of culture it is quite possible to consider the others in the aspect of any of them. This thesis is considered on the example of the figure of Stadel’s Lion-man. A special situation develops during the “axial time”, when the possibility of reflexive relation between different forms of social consciousness increases sharply. In turn, the example of the antique science Harmonica is used to discuss the question of what, after all, specifies science as such. And here those features, which were singled out in the course of the discussion, are clearly presented: this is a special language saturated with terminology, empirical provisions, and theoretical provisions. At the same time, it is proved that with the emergence of a separate science there also appears a special ideal reality, not reducible to the subject of study. It is no coincidence that science begins with the creation of ideal objects, without which the representation of the real ones proves impossible. The question of the possibility of having different types of thinking is also discussed. The use of the term functional style is suggested, and this allows the individual researcher to quite accurately combine different functional styles within the framework of his intellectual activity. An indication that the free creation of new words, which is inherent in poetic creativity, positively affects philosophical discourse, in which abstract vocabulary is created with maximum common semantics, is substantiated. This makes it possible to build generic chains and, accordingly, to build hierarchical conceptual systems, which was impossible in the pre-axial period. On the example of ancient hermeneutics, the thesis about the appearance of the humanities at the beginning of the 19th century with their new (in relation to natural sciences) relation between the subject and the object of research is questioned. Besides, the question about the definition of the humanities and their difference from natural sciences is discussed. And also the role of mathematics in the formation of the position of the observer is pointed out.

Keywords: science, forms of cognition, humanities, functional style, levels of reflexion

Ivanov Dmitry Igorevich, Lakerbai Dmitry Leonidovich CONCEPTUAL-SEMANTIC FORMULA OF THE COGNITIVE-PRAGMATIC PROGRAM “LAW OF CONSCIENCE” (BASED ON THE BOYS FILM CONSTRUCT) // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 2 (36). P. 9-29

The article considers the conceptual-semantic formula of the Boys film construct through the authors’ theory of cognitive-pragmatic programs (CPPs). In terms of this theory, the film construct is a specific synthetic (creolized) form of embodiment and transmission (translation) of one/several CPPs that have received the status of the foundation of subjective reality (i.e., that determine the consciousness, self-consciousness, and behavior of the characters of the film). The filmmakers confront two options for the CPP of socialization of a teenager’s personality: didactical-compulsory, based on external copying and reproduction (“law of the law”), and humanistic, based on the constructiveness of equality, love, involvement, conscience (intrinsic “law of conscience”). In the first, the constructive impact of society is perceived by the object of “forced socialization” as a destructive act of subordination. As a result, the educational impulse is absorbed externally, at the level of a “social mask”, or is redirected back in the form of a distorted aggressive reaction. The second option is conceptualized as the only possible productive way of a constructive socialization of the individual. The CPP “Law of Conscience” is a key semantic and structural component of the authors’ concept and has a two-part structure (“to return the teenager to himself”; “to bring the teenager to the people”). This is the only possible productive way of an individual’s constructive socialization. The main instrument here is conscience, which blocks the process of simulative “social disguise” and helps the teenager to realize that the norms, attitudes and behaviors offered to him should not be automatically adopted. The figurative formulation of this CPP – “one’s heart needs to be woken up” – has two subject-role vectors of implementation (“to wake the hearts of parents”; “to wake the heart of a teenager trapped in a circle of alienation”). The vectors are interconnected, but, at the same time, two main perspectives of implementation are possible: a) individual-personological (when it is impossible to “wake the hearts of parents”); and b) the complex one. A teenager trapped within the “circle of alienation and desocialization” cannot adequately assess himself and his actions, or the actions of others. In the light of the irrevocable two-part conceptual formula of the CPP “Law of Conscience”, a clear structure of necessary educational actions is being formed, including the rejection of “repressive pressure”, the attitude towards the adolescent as an equal, indifference and involvement, the desire to awaken responsible introspection (conscience), to break or transform distorted relationships with sources of desocialization, to awaken civic identity. External pressure from society is replaced by constructive internal stress (feeling a sense of duty and responsibility in oneself). A teenager no longer needs to defend himself or hide, he can and should be himself, for which it is necessary to follow the principles of the basic moral quality of his personality (his conscience).

Keywords: film construct, destructive/constructive socialization, cognitive-pragmatic program, “circle of alienation”, conceptual and semantic formula, “law of conscience”

Speshilova Elizaveta Ivanovna THE IMAGINARY IN URBAN STUDIES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 4 (38). P. 59-78

The article deals with the conceptualization of the notion “imaginary” in urban studies. The author analyzes the theoretical prerequisites for the formation of the concept “urban imaginary” and various options for its definition. She argues that the urban imaginary is significant for identifying the uniqueness of a particular inhabited place, understanding the cultural meanings associated with it, and the corresponding patterns of social behavior. The author shows that the urban imaginary is a set of representations of the city, that is, a complex of mental, figurative and symbolic representations of the urban environment. Such representations of the city can be individual and collective, textual and visual, subjective and fixed in cultural practices, attractive and repulsive. The urban imaginary in many ways anticipates and determines the actual perception of the city, influences the tactics of further human interaction with the urban space. In addition, the urban imaginary can act as a stimulus for the development of urban areas or, conversely, as a cause of their degradation and decline. It can serve as a way to attract tourists and new citizens, as well as the reason for the tourist unattractiveness of a place and an impulse for resident migration. The author discovers the origins of the theme of the urban imaginary in the concepts “social imaginary” and “geographical imaginary”. In these concepts, the focus of attention is shifted from the givenness of the object of study as some natural fact to its construction through mental, symbolic and figurative comprehension, which ultimately serves as a key tool for the production of society, the production of space, and the production of the city. The author also explores the significance of the urban imaginary in Christian culture and demonstrates that it plays a special role as a tool for conceptualizing, creating and transforming Christian urban spaces, and becomes one of the ways of demonstrating religious faith. In conclusion, the author argues that the urban imaginary has a significant impact on real urban pragmatics and allows citizens to realize their right to the city.

Keywords: urban studies, urban imaginary, symbolic landscape, cultural meanings, social and spatial structures, city in Christianity, city as existential space, right to city

Izgarskaya Anna Anatolievna VISUALIZATION OF SPACE IN GEOPOLITICS: TO THE PROBLEM OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE METHOD // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 3 (37). P. 37-53

The article presents a comparative analysis of space visualization tools in the history of geopolitical science. Until the middle of the 20th century, there were two main approaches to space that accented various objects in the process of visualization. The founders of geopolitics Friedrich Ratzel and Rudolf Kjellen were influenced by organicism and social Darwinism, so they used figurative metaphors to explain the relationship between space and the state. Biological metaphors have been used as ontology of the state that led to the politicization of the natural characteristics of space and the depoliticization of really political phenomena and processes. The result was the emergence of political mythologems in science. Alfred Mahan, Halford Mackinder, Karl Haushofer studied the processes of international competition for world domination in their works. Geopolitical maps were used as visualization tools. The connection with geography brought their theoretical constructions closer to those of natural sciences and ensured compliance with the requirements of scientific rationality, which were required by positivism. A comparative analysis of geopolitical and geographical maps showed that geopoliticians “redrew” geographical maps in accordance with the main object of the study – the processes of the struggle of states for world space. Geopolitical maps focus the viewer’s attention on existing or possible areas of conflict of interest between competing powers in unstable regions of the world. Geopolitical maps describe or predict breaks in the global political space. They are able to attribute specific semantic content to the zones of space, as well as to the communities and identities included in them. Geopolitical maps, unlike geographical ones, do not exist without texts, since any of them is only an illustration of the scientist’s ideas. The problems of using geopolitical maps to interpret the processes of modernity were shown by the example of Mackinder’s heartland model. At the present stage, there are several key zones in the world, and the modern idea of the location of the heartland depends on the subjective positions of scientists. Attempts to bring the theory model in line with political reality lead to a significant distortion of the authentic model or a narrowing of the empirical field of Mackinder’s theoretical construction. Despite the existing problems and justified criticism, the rejection of Mackinder’s heritage would mean significant losses not only in the field of the history of geopolitical thought, but also for studies of competition for territorial control in the modern world. Modern methods of visualization in geopolitics were illustrated by Randall Collins’ theory of geopolitical dynamics. The review of the evolution of visualization methods in geopolitics led to the conclusion that the development of the scientific method proceeded from figurative metaphors to strict descriptive models built in the form of “if–then” statements that make nomological explanation and prediction possible.

Keywords: geopolitics, geopolitical maps, methods of geopolitics, concept of heartland, theory of geopolitical dynamics by Randall Collins

Kuzembaev Serik Bapaevich, Kaposhko Inga Anatolyevna, Berezyuk Vladimir Grigorevich, Lytkina Svetlana Igorevna, Mishnev Sergei Vasilyevich TRADITIONAL KAZAKH ORNAMENT IN THE LIGHT OF THE LAWS OF SYMMETRY (ON MODELING VISUAL IMAGES) // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024. Issue 1 (39). P. 44-61

Ornament is one of the oldest methods of decoration, with the help of which people often tried to express their emotions, knowledge, beliefs, hopes, desires, and requests. Ornamental art can undoubtedly be considered as a completely independent type of applied arts, visualizing the conceptual thinking of its creator at a given moment in time. Therefore, the development of ornament is closely related to the history of the formation and development of the nations of the world. This article considers such a formation on the basis of traditional Kazakh felt carpets of different types, regardless of their manufacture method and purpose. The traditional shape of the carpet is most often a rectangle with a central symmetrical pattern edged with an ornamental curb. In the study of ornaments of traditional Kazakh felt carpets, attention is focused on the symbolism and conceptual meaning of Kazakh ornaments, borders and rosettes in particular. The work is based on a study of the national Kazakh ornament due to its dominant position in the visual arts of this country until the end of the 18th – early 19th centuries, as a result of the semi-nomadic way of life with its inherent unity with the outside world, as well as due to the gradual penetration of Islam with its ban on images of humans and animals. The study is also based on the laws of symmetry, on Curie’s principle in particular. As it was established, the most common methods of constructing curbs of Kazakh felt carpets are: the use of the sliding reflection operation and various combinations of the transfer axis. Also, when creating an ornament, attention is paid to the structure of the substrate - an invisible flat grid (lattice). The ornaments were explored as a single unit rather than its individual elements. Special attention was also paid to the fact that, in the Kazakh folk ornament, along with the shape, its color scheme plays a huge role. Although the value of color is noted in many works, a comprehensive analysis of motifs, background, and substrate has not been carried out. Physical symmetry (that of color) in the Kazakh ornament is no less important than the motif. In this work, the value of color in the life of Turkic peoples, which had been formed in the conditions of nomadic life in the endless steppes, was invested in the consideration of color design. Color for the nomad became not only a hallmark, it could also mean the directions of the world or characterized the quality of the object. As a result, the location of the types of elements of the ornament was determined with special points on the grid that have specific properties compared to the entire ornamental field. The role of an invisible substrate (grid, lattice) for building ornaments was confirmed. Such a mathematical analysis opens up great opportunities in the applied use of the results of this study.

Keywords: ornament, Kazakh, symmetry, Curie’s principle, grid, motif, border of ornament

Kyrchanoff Maksym Valerievich THE “CLASSICAL” IN MODERN POPULAR CULTURE: CITATION, IMITATION AND ASSIMILATION OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S LEGACY IN THE STAR TREK UNIVERSE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 3 (37). P. 73-89

The legacy of William Shakespeare occupies a unique place in modern Western society. Shakespeare’s texts, on the one hand, belong to the classical discourse of high culture. On the other hand, the modern popular culture of the consumer society was able to integrate separate Shakespearean images in particular and rethought the legacy of the English poet and playwright in general, integrating it into its own cultural canons. The range of perceptions of Shakespeare in Star Trek is quite wide, ranging from cultural and visual quotations to attempts to deconstruct the classical Shakespearean legacy, which turns into a simulacrum combining classical and popular cultural features, mixing Earth and extraterrestrial social perceptions of the poet’s heritage. Popular culture assimilated Shakespeare’s texts, turning them into simulacra and constructs. These metamorphoses became possible as a result of the deconstruction of high culture. In this article, using the principles of the interdisciplinarity of intellectual and cultural histories, the author analyzes the tactics and strategies of a cultural and intellectual assimilation of classical Shakespearean legacy through the prism of the Star Trek series, defined as one of the most consistent attempts to visualize the Shakespearean impact in the popular culture and modern society of consumption. Therefore, the aim of this article is to analyze the main strategies for visualizing the classical cultural canon, represented in Shakespearean legacy in modern American popular culture. Visual sources capturing the main directions and trends of rethinking the Shakespearean legacy in the discourse of popular culture are represented by the television series and films of the Star Trek franchise. Studying the assimilation of Shakespeare’s metatext, the author believes that Star Trek transplants the realities and images of high culture Shakespeare’s texts belong to into speculative and fantastic contexts of imagined and imagining alien societies. Since the narration of the English poet and playwright becomes a cultural code for reading and understanding the social and political realities of the Star Trek universe, their further integration and assimilation became inevitable. Analyzing the main directions and features of the assimilation of the classical Shakespearean narrative in the visual environments and spaces of modern popular culture, the author shows that the transplantation of classical plots into the contexts of American television fiction has allowed several generations of directors and screenwriters to use the images of Shakespearean drama for the construction and deconstruction of the “political” in society. The author believes that such strategies of cultural construction and deconstruction actualized the continuity between classical high culture and its modern mass forms that prevail in the consumer society. Therefore, the author analyzes the features of the integration of Shakespeare’s legacy into the canon of popular culture through such a prism of its assimilation as Americanization. The Americanization of Shakespeare’s legacy led to a revision of the classical perception of the image of the poet, which turned Star Trek into a cultural space for rethinking William Shakespeare through the prism of his vision by alien eyes. Therefore, the Klingon Shakespeare project actually emerged as an attempt to promote an alternative cultural memory based on the perception of the classical legacy as a construct existing in the state of constant deconstruction and revision.

Keywords: popular culture, high culture, William Shakespeare, “Shakespearean” in Western culture, series, Star Trek, continuity, assimilation, integration

Nefedova Olga Igorevna VISUAL POETRY ON THE INTERNET: CREATING A MYTH OF A METAMODERN POET // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024. Issue 1 (39). P. 82-101

The aim of the article is to investigate the modern phenomenon of poetry in social networks in terms of its artistic and social value, legitimacy and role in the cultural context. First of all, its main features, which are influenced by the nature of the social media platform itself, are established. The following aspects are identified: interactivity, the perception of the poem as content, a hybrid audiovisual form, the transformation of the criteria of what is considered literature under the influence of the rules of social networks and the desire for popularity and commercial success, a tool for building digital identity, performativity. All of them influence the transformation of habits of consumption of poetic content, as well as its assessment. Secondly, poets attempt to balance the roles of an influencer and a traditional poet, which contributes to the creation of a mythologized image through the way they maintain their account, certain linguistic and visual markers within the posts. In addition, poems have therapeutic properties because they come in the form of daily emotional and visual experiences. They also not only have personal value for the individual, but also spread important social messages relevant to the Western mass culture currently. Thirdly, the article establishes how poets develop their virtual identity and how this affects the content they create, which has the characteristics of being authentic and fake at the same time. Poets’ work, like the image they create on social media, oscillates between these two poles, conveying an ambivalent emotional message. A person’s subjective experience is put at the center. The movement of Western culture beyond postmodernism towards the currently developing metamodernism is analyzed. Sincerity versus irony is the main opposition here, relevant for the media text subgenre in question. Metamodernism combines only emerging different states of culture that have replaced the postmodern ones, so the term does not have the necessary stability and accuracy for it to be widespread. Several interpretations of the term are analyzed in the article, and common elements are pointed out. For instance, in poetry we can note its characteristic use of modernist techniques in a new context and with different goals. Another example is that at the forefront is a conscious attempt to connect the unconnected, namely, the opposite poles of binary oppositions, which postmodernism tried to deconstruct. The identification of a tendency for the recuperative qualities of literature and art to become important in contemporary society and culture speaks to the scholarly significance of the paper, as does the overall interdisciplinary nature of the article. The article also reflects new aspects of the characterization of the contemporary state of poetry, which is moving from elitism to utilitarianism and dehierarchy.

Keywords: social networks, visual poetry, metamodernism, New Sincerity, myth

Avanesov Sergey Sergeyevich MISUAL PATTERNS OF THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT AND LOCAL IDENTITY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 4 (38). P. 14-36

This article correlates the trend towards the “digitalization” of a person and the trend towards the atomization of urban space. It shows that the fragmentation of modern man and his practices is similar to the fragmentation of the urban environment. The concept of the visual frame (texture) of the urban space is presented, and the heterogeneity of this frame is substantiated. Various approaches to determining the content, role and number of elements of the urban environment, or patterns of urban space are explored; the semantic and visual nature of these elements is argued. The difference between the urban pattern and the architectural, urban planning, and design patterns is demonstrated. The connection between the urban texture and the individual appearance of the city is shown. The qualities and functions of the visual patterns of the urban environment are investigated. The thesis is substantiated that the unity of the urban environment is maintained due to the mutual openness of the key patterns, and the degradation of the urban space is caused both by the violation of the integrity of the patterns and their mutual isolation. Patterns as key nodes of the visual-spatial environment are presented as interrelated localized socio-cultural processes aimed at forming elements of the unique image of the city, that is, they function as coordinated ways of building a local identity.

Keywords: city, habitable environment, texture, fragmentation, visual pattern, urban space, urban practices, city structure, local identity

Bobrova Angelina Sergeevna Mental models and existential graphs: How to define a rule // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024. Issue 2 (40). P. 32-56

The article draws a parallel between Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of existential graphs and Philip Johnson-Laird’s theory of mental models. The existential graphs (EG) theory is a diagrammatic logical theory. Its deductive capacities are approximately compared with propositional logic, first-order predicate logic, modal logic, and higher-order logics (this section was not completed). In draft notes, Peirce also speculates on the extent to which diagrams can work beyond deduction. The mental models (MM) theory is a psychological theory, which is developed within the framework of the psychology of reasoning. It states that people reason by constructing, combining, revising, and eliminating models that are compatible with given information. In its time, EG theory had a significant impact on the development of MM theory. This article evaluates this influence. In addition, it declares possible ways for their further interaction since modern studies of Peirce’s and MM theories provide new materials. Both theories rely on iconicity and the economy of research; they prefer singular representations to sets and try to model the way in which thoughts are connected. Graphs, like models, can overcome limitations of language linearity. At the same time, they logically represent information processing, i.e. they serve both logical and cognitive purposes. That is why EG theory can specify the process of obtaining conclusions in the theory of MM. I suggest that this can be done by incorporating Peirce’s guiding principle into EG theory and extending this idea to the theory of MM. This principle is a fundamental logical rule, which directs the course of reasoning. It helps to systematise information and draw conclusions, but it cannot be fully represented by signs; therefore, it cannot be reduced to the rules of logical theories. Such rules only describe its steps. I show, how the general logical rule iconically manifests itself within the theory of EG, how specific rules of logical theories reflect its core characteristics and how this rule is integrated into MM theory despite the fact that the latter denies specific rules of logical theories. With such integration, MM theory becomes more dynamic. Finally, the article claims that Peirce’s theory can also contribute to analyses of the dichotomy of embodied or amodal representation. It is useful for clarifying complex aspects of two reasoning systems (system one and system two) collaboration. Both of these aspects are crucial for MM theory. However, they deserve their own attention, since they expect an appeal to both the means of EG theory and diagrammatic elaborations, which Peirce attributed to its pre-theoretical level.

Keywords: existential graphs, mental models, guiding principle, rule of logic, pragmatism, psychology of reasoning

Gorbuleva Maria Sergeyevna, Melik-Gaykazyan Irina Vigenovna, Pervushina Nina Andreyevna Construction of the semiotic optimum in students’ notes (on the example of an open lecture on ethics in a philosophy course) // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024. Issue 2 (40). P. 120-144

The beginning and end of this article record two literary examples, the meanings of which are conceptually interpretated. The first example – the Unseen University – captures the problem of domestic education caused by ignoring the essence of education. According to the authors, the essence of education is that education systems (of any scale) are self-organizing systems; the mechanisms of their self-organization are information processes (they represent an invariant sequence of stages); each stage of the information process expresses the result of its “work” in a semiotic form. The invariant sequence of stages strictly distributes the characteristics of information by which it is possible to judge the achievement of a “semiotic optimum” (a concept proposed by the authors) in the structure of the educational process at a particular university. These characteristics lead not so much to some kind of pedagogical innovation but rather serve to define the application boundaries for many techniques – those application boundaries that often remain “unseen”. To a first approximation, these characteristics represent the dependences of education results on the interpretation of what the goals of education subjects’ actions express. Therefore, the condition for achieving the semiotic optimum is the effectiveness of managing the goals of the subjects of education. Secondly, the effectiveness condition is the concision of the method of goal achieving. However, in the reality of life, the concision of a method is never a straight line segment connecting the “start” and “finish” points. The characteristics of information are presented in graphical and analytical form, which is not the simplest but the most concise way. A similar method – laconic graphics of conceptual schemes – is chosen to construct a semiotic optimum in lecture notes. The pursuit of this optimum determines the way the lecture itself is prepared. The lecture preparation by an educator is subordinated to the construction of the optimal balance of goals stated in the work program of the discipline, in the curriculum of a particular program, and in the potential range of students’ life aspirations. From the standpoint of the authors’ concept “pedagogical bioethics”, this range of students’ life aspirations should be accepted by the educator in a modality similar to the doctor’s acceptance of the suffering of patients. For this reason, the content of a lecture is not a moralistic sermon but an explanation of the distribution of communicative formats and communicative roles within the scope of a specific idea of morality. The construction of a semiotic optimum in the circumstances of the Unseen University meets the potential of visual semiotics: finding unseen reasons for actual visibility. The second literary example in the article is Hogwarts School since its structure contains a magical instrument – the Sorting Hat – for determining those inclinations and life aspirations of students that students are yet to know how to recognize. The role of the Hat can be played by the optimal relationship between the actual goals of all subjects of education (students and their parents; teachers and developers of training programs; managers of the educational process and potential employers). Hogwarts ghosts serve as a marker of possible errors in recognizing individual goals. With sad irony, the ghosts express possible deviations within the scope of a specific idea of morality. The chosen topic of the lecture most fully corresponds to the research problem: elucidating the potential of the syntax of the goals of the main subjects of education for constructing an optimum in fixing the content of the lecture (translation in synchrony) and the content of the student’s individual work (translation in diachrony), in particular, fixed in students’ notes. It is such notes that can become a textbook created by students for themselves, that is, in awareness of the limits of personal autonomy.

Keywords: Unseen University, Hogwarts ghosts, characteristics of information, communicative formats, pedagogical bioethics

Fedotova Natalia Gennad'evna GENERATING COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE CITY IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL CULTURE: A VISUAL ASPECT // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 4 (38). P. 37-58

The article focuses on the analysis of generating processes of collective representations about the city in the age of digital culture, which are directly related to the urban imaginary structuring. The academic relevance of research on collective representations about the city is supported both by increased scientific interest in phenomena which symbolically and mentally determine the urban reality and by the consequences of digitalization influence on these processes. At the applied level, this problem is revealed in the context of the existing necessity to study the predicting and projecting of the urban environment development processes, the prospects of constructing urban spaces and the urban imagery taking into account the digital transformation of reality. In this research, the main focus is on the visual aspect of generating collective representations about the city and, accordingly, on practices that produce visual urban imagery in the age of digital culture. A digital city representation opens up new ways of structuring collective city views. Imagining a particular city, a person mentally recreates images that allow him to perceive it as a visible location. Nowadays, the process takes place by means of AR or VR digital technologies through the digital media content via electronic gadgets. In the digital culture age, collective city representations are concentrated in a mosaic of reviews, publications, videos, posts in digital communications, where personal information is transformed into collective through digital media. The city is imagined via a digital code as a symbolic system of storage, representation and translation of meanings in digital environment. This situation causes a fundamentally new logic of generating collective urban representsations, where actors of visual content production and city virtualization in digital communications, which create a unique “digital footprint” of each particular city, play a significant role. The city perception onthology is changing, as well as the processes of its comprehension by citizens, guests, tourists: the hyperreal and virtual reality takes up more and more space. Now, collective representations largely depend on the tendencies and trends that the actors of the urban imaginary follow, in particular, on how popular certain images of the city and its objects (nature, gastronomy, architecture, public spaces, etc.) are with opinion leaders in the digital environment.

Keywords: city, collective representations, urban imaginary, digital culture

Bityutskaya Ekaterina Vladislavovna Representations of the lifeway in Soviet cinematography of the 1930s – early 1950s // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024. Issue 2 (40). P. 9-31

The article analyzes representations of the lifeway in Soviet films made in the period from the 1930s to the early 1950s (the Stalinist period of Soviet cinema). The idea of the certainty of the lifeway of Soviet people and the predetermined nature of their future is described. This trend is based on the sustainability and reproducibility of behavior patterns that can be transmitted through the arts. Soviet cinema can be considered as a source of behavioral models. The article analyzes what examples of living life were created in Soviet films of the Stalinist period and how this relates to the values of modern people. The research question is posed: What meanings and significance describe the representations of the “lifeway” presented in Stalinist cinema? Based on the review of literature, two tendencies stand out: biography glorification and biography typification. This, in the context of the tasks of the art of socialist realism, was necessary to create Soviet people’s behavioral models. For an empirical analysis, a technique is used that is based on the ideas of the structural-semiotic approach. Based on psychological approaches to understanding of the lifeway, the main units of film analysis are identified: life events and time perspective (attitude to the past, present, future). The films were selected according to the criterion of correspondence of the central theme to the description of the Soviet people’s life events presented within the framework of the film over a certain period. Initially, a general analysis of films about Soviet people’s “lifeway” was carried out, and then, with the help of a case study, the film The Village Teacher (year 1947) was considered in more details. The representations of the lifeway are analyzed on the basis of the events’ content and distribution by life spheres. The following life themes are highlighted: (1) the character’s labor formation is shown as the focus of the most significant meanings of his life; (2) the theme of love is closely related to work activities; love is the “reward” of characters who are successful at work; (3) the collective is shown as a significant context of human life. The character’s internal qualities include willpower, persistence, and unity of purpose. Choosing a difficult path is also associated with heroism. Orientation towards the future, idealistic plots, and lack of information about the character’s past characterize the time perspective of Soviet films. Based on the case study, the cyclical dynamics of the “lifeway” is described as a way of “controlling the collective future” and as an optimistic confidence in it. The results are discussed in the context of the stability and reproducibility of certain values presented in Soviet films in modern people’s behavioral patterns. It is concluded that the attractiveness of perceiving life as stable is determined by a sense of comprehensibility of the structure of the world, certainty of the future, and confidence in the tomorrow.

Keywords: semiotics of cinema, hero, life event, time perspective

Artamonov Denis Sergeevich, Tikhonova Sophia Vladimirovna VISUALIZATION OF HISTORICAL MEMORY: THE IMAGE OF PETER I IN INTERNET MEMES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024. Issue 1 (39). P. 9-29

The article deals with the problems of historical memory visualization in Internet memes. In the digital age, the construction of historical memory is no longer a matter for professional historians and political actors only. Internet users actively create historical media content, interpret historical events, and make representations about the past. This practice destroys the line between historical knowledge and memory. Visualization has become a key form of representation of the past in the media environment. Digital technologies for creating visual images transform historical memory. Internet users perceive polysemantic images of the past on an emotional level. The main emotions are nostalgia for a bygone era and the desire to recreate historical reality. At the same time, visualization of the past strengthens the simulation of historical reality. For people, the authenticity of historical events ceases to be a value, since they have equated history and myth. In visual historical images, the masses do not resurrect the past, but create the present. This gives rise to fakes. The emergence of historical fakes is due to both the general concept of the post-truth, in which the authenticity of the fact ceases to matter, and the visualization of distributed polysemantic images, which leads to the simulation and semiotization of the media sphere. The Internet meme is characterized by its emotional impact, changeable structure and viral spreadability, so it introduces historical images into the mass consciousness with high efficiency. It is the perfect embodiment of a historical fake. Historical memes combine mythological representations of the past with current agendas, popular culture stereotypes, and modern media images. By compiling various elements, Internet memes distort historical reality and create new images of historical memory while visualizing them. Internet memes about Peter I illustrate these processes. The Russian Emperor is a highly mythological historical figure in Russia, with his reign, life, and actions being presented as a collection of myths in popular consciousness. These myths include an order to shave beards, the "opening of a window" to Europe, construction of a fleet, and establishment of a Northern capital on marshy lands. These stories are reflected in Internet memes, connecting with the visual characteristics of current events. The practice of combining ideas about the past and the realities of the present allows users to actualize the memory of Peter I in the mass consciousness and fit modernity into the historical context. The case “Peter I and Shrek” shows how the visual image of a historical person becomes a part of digital culture, and the image of mass media acquires the status of historical reality.

Keywords: media environment, images of past, memory studies, wistfulness, visual images, fake

Donskikh Oleg Albertovich LANGUAGE AS AN INDICATOR OF THE VISUALIZATION OF SCIENTIFIC THINKING // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2023. Issue 2 (36). P. 74-80

This article examines the changes in language that eventually led to the formation of a functional style representing scientific thinking. These changes begin to take place during the period designated by Jaspers as “axial time”, when reflexive thinking emerges, leading, in particular, to an awareness of language in poetic discourse. Poetry makes speech activities the subject of attention, which is reflected in attitudes toward texts. They are framed according to certain well-formulated rules, synonymy is used, and new words are invented. Under the influence of poetry, philosophy emerging at this time begins to reconstruct pictures of certain fragments of reality, creating an abstract vocabulary that in principle did not exist in the languages of previous societies. It is the emergence of a common vocabulary that becomes a condition for the proper organization of definitions, and hence for the emergence of a new type of classification. Thus, in mythological consciousness, classifications, however lengthy they may be, do not go beyond the visually represented, while the appearance of words not correlated in principle with the objects of the external world (like being, space, infinity, atom, etc.) allows the formation of new generic chains. This is the expression of a reflective attitude to reality, the new way of thinking about the world. The Sophists, with their language games, prepare the possibility of representing general knowledge at the level of logic, which is necessary for the formation of scientific methodology, primarily in the works of the Aristotelian school. Attention to language leads to the creation of grammars (independently in India in the 5th century and in Greece in the 3rd century) and, consequently, to the emergence of literary language. On a new level, attention is paid to the way of expressing thought including the scientific style.

Keywords: science, scientific thinking, language and speech, poetry, “axial time”, reflexion