Borisova Tatiana Stanislavovna THE PLACE AND THE FUNCTIONS OF TEXT INCORPORATIONS ON THE MULTIFACETED ICONS IN THE CRETAN AND RUSSIAN BAROQUE TRADITION // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2017. Issue 3 (13). P. 71-85

The present paper deals with the relationship between the visual image and the poetic text in the emblematic message of the hagiographic art of baroque. Specifically two different traditions of the 17th–18th centuries, namely the Cretan and the Russian, were studied by the typical examples of the icon “Μέγας εἶ, Κύριε” (“Great Art Thou, O Lord”) by Ioannis Kornaros and the iconographic type of the “Living cross”. The comparative analyses of the function of the poetic text – the homonymous prayer of St. Sophronius of Jerusalem and the religious poem of Silvestre Medvedev – on these icons revealed that in spite of the obvious differences there are certain common features which correspond to the general trends of the changing role of the icons in the European spiritual and social context.

Keywords: talking icons, emblem, Baroque, Cretan school, Ioannis Kornaros, Silvestre Medvedev, Living Cross, St. Sophronius of Jerusalem

Soboń Grzegorz STREET ART IN SIBERIA CITIES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 3 (17). P. 88-100

In article author investigates street art in some of Siberia cities as a ethically motivated visual integrations into common space. From historical point of view the author presents beginning of this phenomena in world specially in Russia. Signatures, graffiti, street art are seen as a manifestation of values parted in three categories: individual, involved, patterns recognized global. Street art in Siberia cities want to change social, political and what most important aksio-semiotic shape of city space. Article is way to propose research about Street Art and paintings on the walls as a visual texts on example of Siberian cities. How this visual phenomena’s exist in the city space in the East part of Russia. How do they relate to the city space? Do they reproduce the urban space? Do they visually build an image of urban space or create the illusion of a uniqueness of place? Where are they created and for what reasons? Street art can be individual experience, involved activity, political and social, global and local. Graffiti can be seen as a memorials or form to communicate function of place even hidden problems of society; as manifestation of values and form of interaction through symbols (the way they present themselves and possible interpretation); as the fight for values and beliefs (about the world) in Siberia urban space. For author cities like Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Novokuznetsk, Irkutsk, Gorno-Altaisk can be seen through street art as a desire of citizens for egalitarian changes: the accessibility of art, the aesthetization of buildings, political discourse, creating values / identities based on the place of residence. The key to their study is the way in which values are presented in them, the social and economic context of their occurrence, the political form of struggle by them, local activism and the construction / expression of a neighborhood identity. Street art is not only thinking about aesthetization of the Siberian cities space is also increasingly becoming an expression and a way to realize values or way to organize public space by common people.

Keywords: axio-semiotic, street art, urban space, Siberia, culture

Ignatova Irina S.., Abbasova Alina A.-K. VISUAL-ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF PHOTOS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 1 (15). P. 171-177

The academic discipline “Methodological bases of visual anthropology” is taught in the Philosophy faculty of the Tomsk State University for master’s degree students in the direction of “sociology” from 2012. Master students acquire the skill of system theoretical explication of anthropological meanings contained in the photographic image, as part of the study of this discipline. They demonstrate their competence in this area in the respective thematic essays devoted to the conceptual interpretation of photo selected by them. Here are some work of master student in sociology, devoted to the analysis of the photographic image from the perspective of visual anthropology.

Keywords: photography, visual anthropology, analysis of images

Rybchynskyi Oleh V., Khokhon Mykhailo P. SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FORTIFIED MONASTERIES IN UKRAINE’S WESTERN REGION IN THE CONTEXT OF THEIR HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2016. Issue 2 (8). P. 8-23

In seventeenth and eighteenth centuries monastic complexes had reliable fortifications, which were developed according to the newest requisites of the times. Most of the monasteries lost their ecclesiastical, religional, scientifical, cultural, and artistic roles during the twentieth century; this became the reason of their decline and gradual decay. Today, many monasteries gradually restore their original roles of spiritual havens. However, the fortifications which are essential parts of their architectural image are not protected and are in decay. In this article we present monasteries of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which were founded both inside city walls and included in the city fortification systems, and outside cities and constructed on highlands or lowlands. As a result of the analysis it was possible do discern that the monasteries located on plains or lowlands had regular fortifications, while the ones on highlands had irregular fortifications. In some monastic complexes due to development of architectural and engineering thought, and also due to political and administrative factors, developed fortification systems arose.

Keywords: fortified monasteries, regular and irregular fortifications, monastic orders, developed fortifications

Afonasina Anna Sergeevna PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS AND THEIR PLACE IN ANCIENT CITY: PLATO’S ACADEMY AND THE HOUSE OF PROCLUS IN ATHENS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 3 (21). P. 27-42

This work is dedicated to the history of Academy in Athens in early and late periods of its existence. I will first consider Academy in the time of Plato and then switch to the Athenian school of Neoplatonism (“the House of Proclus”) in the period of late antiquity. Using both archaeological and written evidences, fortunately sufficient in case of both of these institutions, I intend to draw a picture of their physical location and structure. Such an attitude towards the history, typical to the Annales School, will help us to place intellectual life of the ancients in proper everyday context. There is one more reason why I have chosen these objects. One can say that these two institutions represent two different approaches to the way of life and the methods of education. On the one hand, one can see here the evolution of educational system from free discourses to more familiar for our educational system formal instructions. On the other hand, Plato’s Academy reminds us of the contemporary tendency of organizing scientific life far from the densely populated cities in the form of university’s campuses, which, to some extent, constitutes a return to the classical paradigm.

Keywords: topography of Athens, Plato’s Academy, Gymnasium, Square Peristyle, exedra, Athenian school of Neoplatonism, Proclus, Marin, university

Volf Marina Nikolaevna, Berestov Igor Vladimirovich THE PROBLEM IN THE THEORY OF ARGUMENTATION: IS IT POSSIBLE TO CONVINCE THE INTERLOCUTOR? (A COMMUNICATIVE-PRAGMATIC SOLUTION) // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 4 (26). P. 9-40

The paper propose a variant of a communicative-pragmatic approach to determining the meaning of proposition, expressed by agents in the discussion. We intend to: 1) to offer an interpretation of the process of persuasion, according to which it can be recognized as successful – even if it pays tribute to the fundamental problem of sign communication and admits that agents in the process of communication transmit only signs to each other, and the meanings of these are inaccessible to the interlocutor; 2) to show that popular contemporary approaches (Pragma-dialectical approach, AGM-approach, DBR-approach, etc.) to the process of persuasion do not offer this kind of interpretation the process of persuasion; 3) to establish precise and verifiable conditions which are necessary and sufficient to admit the process of persuasion in our interpretation as successful. Our approach uses contemporary approaches to the interpretation of the meaning of the proposition (first of all, the mental holism – M. Harrell, N. Blok, etc.), and also extrapolates actual structuralist approaches to the understanding of mathematical objects in the philosophy of mathematics (D. Hilbert, M. Resnik, S. Shapiro) on sign communication in a situation of persuasive argumentation. We reject the solution to the problem of sign communication, which in fact consists that it is quite possible to transfer visual images regardless of their content or meaning, which implies that the communication of agents is still possible through the transmission of such images. This solution, in fact, suggests discussing unsigned rather than signed communication, but, first, the transfer of beliefs as linguistically expressed objects is not possible in this case, and, second, there are strong arguments in favor of the fact that even the content-free objects of different agents are different, which also makes transfer impossible. We determine the rhetorical meaning of the proposition expressed by agents in the discussion. Such a meaning is also a proposition, the antecedent of which is a complete description of the agent's belief system, and the consequent is the original proposition. We also admit the persuasion process as rhetorically successful if, at the end of this process, the audience cannot object to the persuader's thesis, on the assumption that the persuader attaches some (at least rhetorical) significance to his or her suggestions and those of the audience. The fact that the rhetorical meaning does not depend on the meaning attributed to their words by the interlocutors themselves, allows us to show that, despite of the problem of sign communication the persuader can have a rhetorical success. Since our approach is focused solely on rhetorical success in the process of persuasion through sign communication, our interpretation of the process of persuasion has a communicative and pragmatic character. As befits a pragmatic approach to the persuasion process, our approach does not require the persuader to express only those proposition that he himself understands and considers to be true, and those arguments that he himself understands, considers its as correct and acceptable.

Keywords: argumentation theory, argumentative belief, change of beliefs, meaning of beliefs, communication, pragmatics, mental holism, structuralism in the philosophy of mathematics, formalism in the philosophy of mathematics

Bernatonite Ada. K.. CORRELATION OF PERSONAL AND CREATIVE BEGINNING IN CREATING OF THE ACTOR’S IMAGE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 1 (15). P. 120-133

The article analyzes individual semantic structures that have an external and internal nature and help in the process of creating an actor’s image. The author is interested in precisely the problem associated with determining the place of the actor’s personality in his screen character. We can formulate some aspects of the actor’s influence on the consciousness and lifestyle of the viewer and society on the example of documentary films about three famous actors. The specificity of the actor’s personality becomes an part integral of his screen hero. The analysis of the films reveals the opportunity to explain and prove that Cary Grant creates on the screen an image that he would like to be in reality, while Jean-Paul Belmondo projects his human credo onto his screen character, and Heath Ledger ceases to exist as a person in each role, dissolving into it. The semantic core of “alter ego” in the screen image is filled with meaning depending on the internal settings of each, that is, it is purely individual, it is inevitable in the profession of a movie actor.

Keywords: the Hollywood star, inner and outer transformation, duality, the process of getting into the image, the screen image, the romantic hero type

Khitruk Ekaterina Borisovna VISUALIZATION OF “FATHER’S REVOLUTION” IN THE CONTEXT OF A CHANGE OF PHILOSOPHICAL PARADIGMS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2016. Issue 2 (8). P. 97-107

The phenomenon of social practices and paternity comprehended in the context of a change of philosophical paradigms are considered. The “traditional” and “absence” fatherhood is examined by the author as a consequence of the binary conceptualization of gender in the classical philosophical discourse. An interpretation of the Universe throughout opposition to each other of the different aspects of reality (spiritual / physical, sensible / sensory, transcendent / immanent, etc.) is closely related with the existence in the cultural space of an ideal of estranged, rational father-man focused on out of family self-realization. Modern transformation of the father image, the appearance of “entrained” paternity trend are considered as a specific cultural implication of overcoming dualistic principle in modern philosophical ontology and anthropology. Display of photographs named “Fatherhood as a measure of a man” is conceptualized in the article as visual proof of overcoming the classic style in philosophy.

Keywords: duality, binarity, masculinity, “absent father”, “traditional father”, “involved father”, “father’s revolution”

Svetlov Roman Viktorovich PHILOSOPHER ON A CITY STREET // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 3 (21). P. 11-26

Visual semiotics studies a variety of fields of human culture and human behavior. In particular, various forms of social self-identification and presentation of a visual nature are directly related to the field of its study. We propose to expand this list to include forms of social clan self-presentation, which is quite obvious, but also the visual component of the intellectual practice. In our case – the ancient. The modern metaphor of the polis as a “city of speeches” is quite applicable to the ancient world. But we must add to it the equally important metaphor of the “city of viewing”. The visual curiosity of the ancient Greek was no less than the auditory curiosity. And philosophers responded to this need. The creators of the most radical visual version of philosophical behavior in ancient Greece were cynics. It was strange not only from the point of view of food austerity and eccentric manners (attributed to the Pythagoreans). It contradicted other visual examples of ancient intellectuals. The provocative behavior of cynics can be called “visual rhetoric”. In contrast to the rhetoric of Aristotle, which was aimed at preserving public order and decency, without which a policy is impossible as “communication for the sake of maximum good”, the cynics rejected public decency. They did it in a clearly visible way. Their rhetoric was illustrative. As one of her tools, they used their own body, which became a vivid expression of freedom and independence from public control. The description of cynical visual arguments allows them to be classified into the following topics. 1. Overcoming myself: Victory over myself means deliverance from the power of a social type with which a person identifies himself. In order to cope with the mandatory power of symbolic communications, it is necessary to train in oneself the “power of Socrates”: the ability to pay no attention to anything other than virtue. The cynic asceticism was intended to prevent the transformation of the satisfaction of needs into a subject of passionate lust. This was expressed in their economical minimization and in a clear demonstration of how to get rid of lust. Visual clarity freed from the fear of obsceneness. 2. Argumentation: Cynics use elements of everyday food culture as cheese, beans, and fish as illustrative tools for refuting. They actively exploit the metaphorical connotations of these objects in ancient folklore and literature. 3. Counter-Movement: Cynics visually demonstrate that they are “swimming against the stream”. They are convinced that this is the only correct way of behavior. 4. Search for a person: The famous anecdote about «the Lamp of Diogenes » testifies to the famous Heraclites’ «argument from a dream». 5. Attitude towards death: The attitude of Diogenes to his own death shows that in this case “visual decorum” must be rejected too. A dead body is more worthy of a “barbarous” (most likely Zoroastrian) burial, but not a Hellenic one. Cynics’ visual arguments were related to Antisthenes’s teaching of the correct name, which should have a one-to-one correspondence with the subject. The paradoxical behavior of the cynics was aimed at changing the focus of our view on the real. It can be said that cynic behavior is part of their “name correction” strategy.

Keywords: Visual anthropology and semiotics, cynicism, Antisthenes, Diogenes the Cynic, chreia

Artamonova Julia Dmitrievna, Volodenkov Sergey Vladimirovich MEDIATIZATION AS A RESEARCH CONCEPT: MAIN PREREQUISITES OF THE FORMATION AND POSSIBILITIES FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2021. Issue 2 (28). P. 9-27

The concept “mediatization” captures fundamental changes in society due to the development of modern media. It is actively and widely used in modern research, but the conceptualization of mediatization processes takes different directions and differs in different countries. Meanwhile, clarifying the content of this concept and the research assumptions associated with its use is an important and independent task. The article analyzes the appearance and initial ideas of this concept: the idea of a special media logic, as it was understood by David Altheide, the idea of formatting based on the concept of the medium as the key to the message developed by the followers of Marshall McLuhan. The problematic aspects of this conceptualization are identified and presented. On the one hand, complex forms are analyzed as simple, which leads to incorrect analogies; on the other, they are related to the understanding of the medium outside of the material and organizational conditions necessary for its functioning. At the same time, it is shown that a number of critical arguments against these concepts related, for example, to ignoring the ethical dimension and the awareness of the message in the McLuhan model are invalid. The main views on the dating of mediatization processes are presented. The key premises of the introduction of the “mediatization” concept are identified; they are connected with the separation of reality itself and constructs of this reality, as well as the lack of a single logic for the formation of various mediatized social worlds. The direction of further evolution of studies using this concept is shown. It is associated with ideas of different media logics, not a single media logic, and is represented by three main approaches: (1) a strategy of understanding media as an institution whose influence transforms other actors’ logic; (2) a strategy of analyzing “mediatized social worlds” that is based on the ideas of semiotics, poststructuralist approaches to discourse analysis, and different interpretations of social worlds; (3) a “technological” strategy that demonstrates the connection between “media grammar” and the transformation of thinking habits.

Keywords: media, mediatization, media logic, media format, mediated social world

Makarova Nina I. JOHN WHITE: IMAGE OF ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2016. Issue 2 (8). P. 71-81

The article considers the drawing Pictish Warrior by John White, an English artist of the XVI century, representing a native of ancient Britain. The drawing reflected contemporary ideas on national self-identification, belonging to the supporters of two different views on the British past. Supporters of the first view based their opinion mainly on the medieval History of Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in which such legendary leaders, as King Arthur and Brennius, were represented as the founders of empires and rivals of Ancient Rome. The second view on the British past was presented by historians of the so-called School of antiquaries who proceeded mainly from the analysis of historical antique texts and the remained ancient monuments. The analysis of the image created by John White shows that the drawing has been executed primarily under the influence of the School of antiquaries. However, White also paid attention to the views of the medieval version supporters, trying to glorify his image and establish close connection between it and the images of Ancient Rome.

Keywords: Renaissance culture, John White, Geoffrey of Monmouth, William Camden, Roman Britain

Panciuchin Joanna DIFFICULT NEIGHBORHOODS. REPRESENTATIVE SPACES AND NEGLECTED AREAS ON THE EXAMPLE OF TOMSK // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 3 (17). P. 76-87

The article concerns bottom-up creative acts oriented toward the transformation of urban space. Objects that are the result of these activities represent something that can be called alternative urban aesthetics. Basing on the results of research conducted in Siberian Tomsk, as well as photographic material collected as part of research projects such as “Invisible City”, the author tries to prove that the described phenomena in the urban iconosphere have a global character. The “invisible” activities of the city’s inhabitants are spontaneous forms of creative activity. These are traces of being and inhabitation left by the very people who create urban space. The residents who are the active actors, not only modifying but also creating the surrounding space. Importantly, these practices have material implications, thus affecting the appearance, organization and dominant aesthetics of cities. The “invisibles” are often assigned to the spheres of kitsch and bad taste because they quite strongly break the established and valid canons. However, paradoxically, alternative aesthetics have their own internal canon, too. As its basic principles, we can identify re / upcycling, independent construction of objects, avoiding abstractness, and referring to animal and plant shapes not necessarily known from the surroundings, as well as an unusual community of forms that cannot be denied in its global character. From 2015 the author has participated in a research project called “Visual organizations of urban space: behaviors, interpretations, historical and cultural perspectives. Comparative analysis of the iconosphere and its relations to the ways of life of Russian Tomsk and Polish Wroclaw inhabitants”. Tomsk turned out to be extremely abundant in “invisibility”. In almost every courtyard, whether adjacent to modernist blocks of the Soviet period (the so-called big slab, that is large panel system-building), or to unique, wooden single- and multi-family houses, the author has found examples of spontaneous creative activity by residents. Tomsk’s residents transform unnecessary objects or materials into installations whose primary function is to “tame” and “embellish” the nearest – often dehumanized – space, as well as work to solve everyday problems and shortages. Bricoleur-like minds and hands are then transforming rubbish and fragmented objects into emancipating entities. Invisible objects introduce familiarity and mark the presence of the creators / residents who, by adopting an active attitude, thus decide about the image of those city fragments. These creative acts “give” their power back to them and the objects produced in this way are characterized by a very special position in the entire universe of objects.

Keywords: urban aesthetics, city, globality, self-agency, “invisible” city, representative, neglected, urban space, urban studies

Matveeva Elena Viktorovna, Kurpatova Maria Alekseevna THE ORGANIZATION OF PUBLIC SPACE AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS OF CHINA // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 2 (20). P. 217-224

The work analyzes the problem of organizing the public space of China in the context of impact on the socio-economic sphere. A special place is given to analysis of economic growth of China in the light of the aggrav ation of the ecological situation in the country. Two key strategies for the further organization of China’s public space are presented. The first strategy is the strategy of urbanization of China through the resettlement of villagers to megalopolises and large cities. The second strategy is the strategy of transition from large megalopolises to small settlements with a small population. At the present time the priority of the state is given to the first strategy that is connected with the need for further economic growth of the state. In an effort to preserve the realized strategy for the organizing of public space and at the same time to weaken environmental problems the state relies on a policy of resettlement of the population in the territory of the Russian Federation. One of the possible regions for the resettlement of the Chinese population is Zabaykalsky Krai. Now there is a process of coordination of the agreement between the Russian Federation and China taking into account possible benefits and further prospects for both states.

Keywords: public space, urbanization, ecology, economic development, indigenous people

Kovkel Natalya Frantsevna, Popova Olga Vladimirovna PROBLEMS OF APPLYING A SEMIOTIC METHODOLOGY IN MODERN JURISPRUDENCE AND BIOETHICS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 4 (22). P. 126-155

The article aims to analyze the problems of applying a semiotic methodology in modern jurisprudence and bioethics. It is shown that the conductor of the semiotic methodology in legal research is the semiotics of law, an interdisciplinary scientific branch intensively developing since the 1970s. The current state of the semiotics of law is primarily due to the lack of a theoretical, conceptual and methodological unity. At the same time, the diversity and the “conflicts” of scientific theories, concepts and methods are observed not only at the level of interaction between semiotics and jurisprudence, but also within semiotics itself. The article considers the main scientific directions that laid the foundation for the formation of the semiotics of law, associated with two cardinal lines of the initial development of general semiotics: logical, leading its tradition from Charles Peirce’s works, and linguistic, the founder of which is Ferdinand de Saussure. It is concluded that significant methodological difficulties for the development of the semiotics of law and the application of the semiotic methodology in legal research is the lack of common concepts. It is also shown that the phenomenon of multimodality poses new challenges for the semiotics of law. It presupposes an increased research interest in non-verbal legal signs: natural, figurative, and action signs. The analysis of figurative and action signs, the results of the research of other law-related discourses (political, religious, etc.) may be particularly useful for the productive development of the semiotics of law. The article also gives an idea of heuristic possibilities of applying the semiotic approach in bioethics. In this field, it is generally accepted that semiotic problems are more likely to be related to logic, epistemology, or cognitive science, but can only be indirectly related to ethical problems of biomedicine. Based on the ideas of Charles Peirce and Victoria Welby, the article examines the historical and philosophical prerequisites for the development of the semiotics of ethics and shows that this field of research can serve as a philosophical and methodological basis for the development of semiotic research in the field of bioethics. The semiotic approach to bioethics, as stressed in the article, should be based on the problems of human body rights. They are the “semantic universals” (Umberto Eco) that can be considered inherent to the whole of humanity. In the author’s opinion, the explication of the problems of “body rights”, “somatic” law, within the framework of the semiotic approach, can become a link for the rapprochement of the semiotics of law and semiotic research in the field of bioethics.

Keywords: semiotics of law, semiotics of bioethics, semiotic methodology in legal research, sign, meaning, language games, ethics of meaning

Gavrilenko Stanislav Mikhaylovich IMAGES OF EARTH: CONCEPTION OF GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION IN DENIS COSGROVE’S CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2021. Issue 4 (30). P. 36-57

“Geographical imagination” is a very strange terminological combination. It might arouse suspicion in academically respectable geography as a consequence of epistemological dangers it presumably posed. The article examines the concept of geographical imagination in the research works of the distinguished British cultural geographer and historian of cartography Denis Cosgrove (1948–2008). Cosgrove has no advanced and systematic theory of geographical imagination, but it is the main focus of his studies. For Cosgrove, the question about geographical imagination is fundamental since, in his cultural geography, imagination becomes virtually a “transcendental condition” of every geographical act as an act of representing Earth and its parts in various geographical images (maps, paintings, landscapes, photographs, urban plans and city parks, digital representations). The article considers some basic characteristics of geographical imagination and the rich field of geographical image in Cosgrove’s cultural geography. 1. Geographical images are not some entities, spontaneously generated by the “productive capacity of imagination” in the interior of the “Cartesian Theater” and remaining closed within the borders of its scene. Geographical imagination is a name of a complex mechanism, whose work we find so hard to understand and describe (if this is even possible). In this work, hands, eyes, minds, and technologies are involved. The mechanism of imagination generates externalia (images of Earth). 2. Geographical images create new (empirically unimplementable) horizons of visibility, conspicuity, and intelligibility. For example, according to Christian Jacob, “the map presents a schema, visual as well as intellectual, that takes the place of an impossible sensorial vision”. 3. Geographical images are one of the “privileged places”, and also expressions, of graphic experiments, experiments of imagination, during which new ways of seeing and thinking Earth have been tested and are being investigated further. Geographical imagination is work on visual representations of not only the empirical order, but also conceptual structures. 4. Geographical images cannot be reduced to pure and neutral representations of geographic facts. In relation to the “factual” level, it demonstrates visual and semantic redundancy. For Cosgrove, the history of geographical imagination is also the history of “investment” in geographical images that human fears, hopes, desires, metaphysical speculations, religious pursuits, and moral sensitivity make. Considered as a whole, Cosgrove’s research in the field of cultural geography is one big act of an ontological, epistemological, cultural, and even moral rehabilitation of images.

Keywords: imagination, geographical imagination, geographical image, geography, Denis Cosgrove, map, cartography, image

Sakhno Irina Mikhailovna TEXT AS PALIMPSEST: ANTHOLOGY OF TRACES AND POETICS OF THE INVISIBLE IN ANSELM KIEFER’S ART // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 3 (33). P. 53-72

The article examines the theoretical issue of the palimpsest by looking at the art of the German neo-Expressionist painter Anselm Kiefer. In the context of semiotics and cultural semantics, the palimpsest is a new text written over the erased previous version, with the old meaning shining through the new. In an attempt to provide a semantic description of the palimpsest, the author finds crucial tools for its study in the notions of the stratification and intensity of the palimpsest as a multi-layered hybrid text, in which the logical structure of the text forms the basis for convergence of various microtextures and authorial utterances. Palimpsest texts have a certain narrativity of their own: it turns the reader or viewer towards finding textual references and quotes, searching for traces of the invisible and accounting for other existing discourses – thus revealing links between text and subtext, the visible and the invisible, form and content. The textual space of the palimpsest moves along a certain trajectory and features a certain kind of anaphora, as a combination of semantic constructs which differ in their level and structure. The author sees the palimpsest both as a research method which harks back to hermeneutics and to interpreting traces of past culture. At the same time, the palimpsest remains an artistic device. The narrative logic mandates removing layers of superimposed texts, one by one in a fixed order. The article focuses on studying such tropes as “trace”, “labyrinth”, or intertext. In the study of visuality in the palimpsest texts by Anselm Kiefer, the author emphasizes the morphology of artistic texts and shows how the verbal context can be interpreted on various structural levels, and how allusions and reminiscences can be discovered in the depths of the text, and the topoi of cultural memory can be marked. In the analysis of Anselm Kiefer’s Varus (1976) and Margarete (1981), the author concludes that, throughout the many decades of his work, Kiefer polemically assaults the nationalist rhetoric. He deals with important historical events and topoi of the traditional German mythology, trying to find true examples of heroic past and reconstruct the historical truth. Textual layers, seen as multiple borrowings, allusions and reminiscences, open the door into a new space of visual optics and interpretation zones. The mythologem of the palimpsest is closely linked to the narrative and its features, where textual references and direct quotes reveal new connections, which previously remained invisible.

Keywords: palimpsest, Postmodernism, trace, intertextuality, visible/invisible, Anselm Kiefer, German mythology, cultural memory, Holocaust, Paul Celan, hybrid text

Bobrikhin Andrey Anatol'evich MUSEUM AS A PUBLIC SPACE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 2 (20). P. 169-176

The article represents a view of the museum as a public space that is woven into the networks of other city sites. It is also a space that is determined by the way it behaves and uses it. The peculiarity of using the visitor of the museum space is described in terms of “demonstrativeness” and “spectacularity”, when the mode of behavior in space is manifested in performances and games with openness and accessibility for viewing. It is proposed to study the phenomenon of the multiplicity of scenarios for the use of exposure space, that is, the study of the transitive properties of the museum space.

Keywords: museum, exhibition space, public space, transitive space, publicity, accessibility, demonstrativeness

Margaryan Ervand Grantovich VISUAL SEMIOTICS OF THE ARMENIAN REVOLUTION: THINGS AND SYMBOLS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 3 (21). P. 156-181

The purpose of the article is to reveal the formation of symbolic meanings/ signs/codes in the visual representations of political transformations on the material of the Velvet revolution visual images in Armenia in 2018. Revolution, like any change in the socio-political paradigm inevitably leads to a metonymy, a substitution of the old, hackneyed images, sociocodes for a new ones. The revolution of 2018 in Armenia, if not by novelty, then by the number of newly formed signs/codes, is highly comparable with the classical revolutions of the past. During the revolution, the leaders and ordinary members have shown amazing creativity in the design and memoization of new visual images playing up the hidden symbolic signs, beards, clothes, accessories, etc. The revolution is carried out by extraordinary individuals who are able, among other things, to rise above everyday clichés and stereotypes. Therefore, in an era of revolutionary change, the role of nonverbal social impact is increasing dramatically. Not possessing the power of the State’s propaganda machines, resources and power, revolutionaries are forced to use a variety of techniques, showing flexibility, resourcefulness and revolutionary pressure. However, the role of nonverbal social interaction becomes crucial in conditions of rapidly changing realities of postmodern network society. The driving force behind any revolution is the youth, with whom it is necessary to speak in its language, avoiding instructive tone and tiring narrative with streamlined formulations and lack of meaning. Much more effective and intelligible clear and scathing slogans in the spirit of assertive and expressive “ROST Windows”. In Armenia, the slogan was: “take a step...” – a slogan of multiple use, “charged”, each time depending on the changing political situation, like a gun, new goals and objectives. The material world of the revolution turned out to be just as “speaking” and convincing. During the revolutionary events of 2018, ideologies acquired physicality, which made them look very convincing, at least more convincing than the speculative moral teaching categories produced by the Dashnak-Republican’s propaganda machine. Revolution events in Armenia developed with rapid speed, so that sometimes it was impossible to keep track of the kaleidoscope of events and especially to comprehend them. And then the images and signs have joined in the struggle that have an impact on the subcortex, “especially imprinted” in it like the commercials or banners. At the same time, the main principle of building visual images of The Armenian revolution was a short format, always more effective than unreasonably prolonged moralizing resonance. Unconvincing advertising is anti-advertising, unconvincing propaganda is anti-propaganda.

Keywords: Armenian velvet revolution, visual semiotics, visual images, structural hierarchy, semiotics of beard, semiotics of clothes, network community

Bernatonite Ada. K.. ANDRZEJ WAJDA AND SCREEN ADAPTATION OF RUSSIAN CLASSICS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2016. Issue 4 (10). P. 93-108

The article reveals the principal stylistic and semantic features of screen adaptation of Russian classics by the Polish film director Andrzej Wajda. The emphasis is on the transfer of texts Leskov and Dostoevsky on screen. Andrzej Wajda analyzes the nature of female and male love, as well as the aspect of obsession with the idea. Using the devices of Kabuki theater in adaptation of Dostoevsky’s novel ‘Idiot’, Andrzej Wajda expands the semantic field of death’s and love’s aesthetics. The specificity of the Slavic soul is attained through the combination of different cultural stratums.

Keywords: screen adaptation, Andrzej Wajda, Kabuki theater, Dostoevsky, Leskov, Russian classical literature, Slavic soul, obsession with the idea, destructive power of love

Varkhotov Taras Aleksandrovich IMAGINATION AS A BORDERLINE OF UNDERSTANDING: THE FUNCTION OF IMAGINATION IN THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 2 (24). P. 199-224

The article is devoted to the epistemology of imagination and thought experiment. The starting point is the metaphorical definition of a thought experiment as a "laboratory of the mind" given by J. Brown. Based on this oxymoron, which combines experimental (material and manipulative) and theoretical activity into one concept, a study of imagination is carried out as a means for providing mental experiments. Firstly, the epistemological relations of the laboratory and thought experiment are examined in connection with the approach to bring these methods closer together on the basis of the structural and functional similarity of theoretical modeling and experimental practices, which is characteristic for the modern model approach in the philosophy of science. It is demonstrated that a thought experiment is not an experiment and solves different problems associated not with the production of concrete knowledge (about reality), but rather with the search for ways to objectify the scientific problems themselves and clarify their relationships with each other. For this, the themata concept proposed by J. Holton in his theory of “scientific imagination” is used. Themata, which are not clearly enough defined by Holton, are interpreted as machines of conversion that allow one to schematize perceptual content and give it a model-like form while maintaining the moment of visibility, i.e. the possibility of reverse conversion (the movement from a theoretical model to an experiment). Thought experiments, in turn, reveal the boundaries and nature of the relationship between themata. To clarify the mechanism of how the imagination works with non-visualizable objects, the prototype theory of E. Rosch was engaged. The imagination’s scheme of objectification in this context is based on the semiotic connection of the non-visualizable signifier with the visible signified (prototype), and semiosis is ensured by the “naturalization” of the metaphor, which throws the objectification scheme (rules for constructing images) associated with the prototype onto an unmarked (new) or requiring markup updating because of new circumstances subject area (task). The work of imagination here is the natural boundary of understanding – to understand is (at least to have an ability) to imagine, and a thought experiment allows you to map the work of the imagination and use the obtained maps to analyze the principles of its work. Therefore, although a thought experiment does not allow solving the question of the empirical adequacy of the results obtained in it, it is representative and reliable in the study of epistemological attitudes and associated conversion machines, i.e. imagination. The map does not say anything about the existence of the terrain depicted on it, but much can tell about the cartographer’s imagination.

Keywords: imagination, thought experiment, cognition, understanding, scientific discovery, methodology of science, epistemology

Avanesov Sergey Sergeyevich, Bernatonite Ada. K.. THE SEMANTICS OF LITHUANIAN URBAN AND RURAL LANDSCAPES IN SOVIET CHILDREN’S CINEMA // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 1 (23). P. 221-231

The article analyzes the specific reasons for the occurrence of episodes demonstrating urban and rural landscapes of Lithuania and creating a distinctive atmosphere within the frame in Soviet children films. Since Vilnius baroque was influenced by Italian architecture, filmmaking in Lithuania created the illusion of Italy for Soviet cinema. Another reason lies in the ground of otherness of the culture, inside which an image of an enemy was easier to create. But along with this extreme point there is another opposite aspect in the context of Soviet children cinematograph – visual demonstration of the absolute identity of Lithuanian urban space to Russian, or, more precisely, Soviet one. The use of Lithuanian cities landscapes was mosaic by its nature. Different meaning, than the one they performed in reality, was attributed to certain places that the audience saw in frames. The urban space of Lithuania in children’s Soviet cinema is devoid of its true meaning. The article reveals those patterns by which filmmakers deliberately refuse to show historical and everyday objects of this Baltic republic in a recognizable way.

Keywords: landscape contrast, Lithuania, urban environment, Soviet children’s cinema, visual code.

Shcherbinin Alexey Ignatevich FROM “LIVING LABORATORIES” TO “LIVING CITY”: SOCIAL SPACE AND UNIVERSITY MISSION IN THE ERA OF SMART CITIES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 1 (23). P. 208-220

The article deals with a number of problems related to theoretical and applied aspects of the university role in various models: as a supporter in the economy of survival or as a driver of technological and socio-economic changes in the era of smart cities. The article goal is to prove the leading role of the university in both the educational and socio-economic areas of the city and region development. The academic relevance of the research is supported by the international economic processes Russia has become a member of, such as the movement of smart cities, the Trianon dialogue (Russia – France) at a high level. Using the Tomsk case, we demonstrated the achievements of universities in the socio-economic changes of the country. Based on historical examples, relevant studies of major urbanists and the author’s ten-year experience of comparative studies of cities, we show how the University can organize city and region social space. The fails associated with the reduction of meaning and uncritical handling of popular theories are analyzed. The article put forward an algorithm of the collaboration of city and university. We use methods of comparing city policies toward the university, historical reconstruction of successful cooperation projects between university and city, analysis, and participant observation during the decision-making process. Problematization of issue solving begins with an analysis of the reduction of theory meaning. This reduction often results in fashionable slogans and transformation programs, which leads to a distortion of these theories and international experience. Such popular theories today include ‘smart’ and ‘creative’ cities. We agree with K. Nawratek, the British urbanist, that such projects are doomed to failure without including the interests of the citizen and the community. The gap with meaning and technocratic abstractness are confirmed on the example of two relevant projects “Smart Grove” and “Living Laboratory” (Tomsk case). We reconstruct the figurative and semantic model of the university grove as the visual space of Siberia and the image of its civilized future. Using the example of the living laboratory of BMW and the Guggenheim Foundation, we reveal the interaction of the city authorities of New York and residents concerning improving the living climate and appearance of the metropolis. Raising the problem of living cities, we consistently consider the university role in the city. We support our position, referencing to an article, published by R. Florida (August 2019), dedicated to the rankings of 50 American cities, which is based on the percentage of university graduates. This confirms the role of the university in the modern knowledge economy, the potential for smart cities development or trivially – for improving the city and region economy. Referencing G. Ave’s publication, the Cleveland case and the projects of the Tomsk university campus, we concluded that to form a university city today means living a full social life.

Keywords: university cities, visual environment, meaning, image, creativity, living labs, living city, Russia.

Chervonnyy Mikhail Aleksandrovich THE SEMIOTIC CONTEXT OF PEDAGOGICAL EDUCATION // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 4 (22). P. 206-222

Although there exists a considerable number of research works on the semiotic nature of education, they do not provide a comprehensive idea of the semiotic context of pedagogical education. The article considers the issues of hierarchization of sign systems and the part they play in pedagogical students’ development as professional teachers. To characterize the semiotic context of pedagogical education, the author of the article addresses A.B. Solomonik’s pyramid of sign systems. In connection with this classification, he distinguishes two goals of pedagogical education. The first one is connected with the use of sign systems for the determination and application of the content of a school subject pedagogical students learn in order to transfer it to schoolchildren. In this context, the relevance of semiotic research and its development has three aspects: semiotics of school subject content visualization; semiotics of educational process visualization based on the modern capabilities of technical educational aids, information and communication technologies; semiotics of pedagogical communication. The second goal is associated with the application of the semiotic pyramid for systematization and transmission of the general professional culture to student teachers. However, pedagogy as a science does not have formalized sign systems of the first and second orders of the considered classification. In this study, stereotypes (representations, images, forms of behavior) that determine the dynamics of the student teacher’s professional development act as units of sign systems. The development of pedagogical culture stereotypes in students determines their further professional and personal progress. The description of sign systems of four stages is given. (1) Natural sign systems. These are elementary ideas about relationships, characteristic of interaction between the student and the teacher, which reflect life experience obtained by the student prior to their professional education. (2) Image systems. These include stereotypes that characterize pedagogical university applicants’ ideas of the system of lessons and its attributes thus forming the image of the traditionally existing school. Stereotypes may have both positive and negative properties. (3) Language systems. These are verbal texts containing theoretical information about a specific field of professional culture which suggests its individual assimilation by each student (lecture material, traditional educational tasks, etc.). A semiotic teaching model emerges. The professor introduces educational paradigms (metastereotypes of pedagogical ideas and forms of behavior) to the student in theory through language systems. (4) Notation systems. These include written texts (documents) reflecting pedagogical systems and technologies, educational programs and standards. A certain role in the development of stereotypes in student teachers belongs to lists of competencies and labor functions set by educational and professional standards. The article considers student teachers’ personal and professional development approach to pedagogical education which implies a practice-oriented system of education through the continuous solution of profession-oriented educational tasks. In this sense, teachers’ training is to reflect professional activities in terms of the emergence of a synergistic effect.

Keywords: levels of sign systems, pedagogical education, content of education, educational process, general professional culture, stereotype

Sharov Konstantin Konstantin SACRAL VISUAL SYMBOLS IN ISAAC NEWTON’S HISTORIOGRAPHY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 3 (21). P. 135-155

The purpose of this work is 1) to analyse the features of the content and style of historiographical works of the English philosopher, scientist and theologian Isaac Newton, connected with the sacred symbolism; and 2) to find out the place and role of sacred symbols in the civilisation theory of the thinker. This study of Sir Isaac Newton’s understanding of Biblical symbolism is based on the analysis of his unpublished manuscripts from the Library of King’s College (Cambridge), Library of New College (Oxford), National Library of Israel (Jerusalem), Babson Library Collection in California. The principles and techniques of hermeneutic, historical philosophical, linguistic and structural analysis were used to achieve the task of the paper. As a result of our research, it is found out that in forming his civilisation theory Newton used a complex of prisca sapientia (ancient wisdom) ideas. According to Newton, physicochemical and cosmological ideas reflecting the unity and completeness of the material world and expressed in the notions of the Universe, Galaxy, Solar system, harmony of the aggregate states of matter and their mutual transformation, can serve as the basis of our understanding the ways of the ancient civilisation development. It is revealed that, according to Newton, when the ancient Greeks and later Romans learned the knowledge of prisca sapientia from the Ægyptians, they perceived and re-interpreted the Old Testament biblical visual symbols. Thus, the Prytanæum architectural, cosmological and cultural-sacred tradition arose, that was based on the architectural hieroglyphs of the structure of the Universe. In his historiographical manuscripts, Newton proves the advantage of the Jewish religious and cultural tradition and its chronological precedence over the antique and ancient Eastern ones. It is assumed that complex and obscure style as well as rather rough philological stylistics of the Newtonian historiographical works may be caused by the two reasons. First, Newton wrote his historiographical compositions in a private manner, preferring never to publish them, therefore the texts of these works represent merely drafts, sketches, rather than finished scientific papers. Second, Newton made an attempt (conscious or unconscious) to copy the inspired style of many ancient representatives of the prisca sapientia tradition, e. g., Old Testament prophets, Ægyptian priests, Chaldean oracles (sages), Persian Magi, and Indian Brahmans.

Keywords: Newton, symbol, symbolism, sacral sign, Biblical symbolism, hermeneutics, semiotics, architectural symbol, architectural hieroglyph, Christian non-canonical sermon, literary sermon, Christian homiletics, religious scientific homiletics, historiography

Klyushina Alena Mikhailovna, Stoikovich Galina Vladimirovna A SEMIOTIC APPROACH TO THE INTERPRETATION OF ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PRINT ADVERTISING // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 3 (25). P. 59-71

The article is devoted to the study of creolized, or semiotically complicated texts. Such texts consist of two non-homogeneous parts, verbal and non-verbal, in which elements different in their semiotic nature interact and generate meaning. The aim of the article is to identify and describe the specifics of the semiotic system of English-language printed advertising texts. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the study of the semiotic system (both visual and verbal) of modern English-language advertising texts supplements the interpretation of the advertising text and ensures the discursive integrity of the analysis of the analyzed phenomena. In modern linguistics, an advertising text is considered creolized; it has a multi-code character, which is why it is justified and necessary to apply a semiotic approach to its interpretation. The research material was modern English-language advertising texts published in Vogue, Elle, In Style, Tatler, Marie Claire, Wedding, and Cosmopolitan magazines in 2013–2019. The specificity of English-language advertising texts is considered in the framework of three areas of semiotics: semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics. The semantics of the advertising text contains the so-called “linguistic-visual communicative complex”. The author of the advertising text aims to create a competent combination and interaction of image and idea. Analyzing the printed advertising text in terms of syntactics, the authors note its so-called formulaic character, that is, a coherent strict sequence of its structural elements: heading, text, slogan, trademark. The authors consider the pragmatic component of the advertising text in the form of four elements of the mechanism of advertising influence: attention, interest, desire to have, action/purchase, which follow in in the strict specified order. At the semantic level, the authors establish the most frequent and effective types of visual signs used in advertising. They also analyze the color decisions chosen for affecting the recipient emotionally, psycho-physically, and symbolically in order to arouse the desire to purchase goods, which enhances the advertising impact. The article provides a number of language techniques used in creating advertising texts: allusion, metaphor, repetition, alliteration, pun, hyperbole, ellipsis, and others. As a conclusion of the research, the authors formulate justifications for the formation of ideas about the semiotic system of English-language print advertising.

Keywords: advertising text, creolized text, semiotic approach, sign, visual semiotic system, visual signs, verbal component of text, stylistic language techniques

Murastova Xeniya Alexandrovna “HOLY LAND” IN MODERN CITY: THE EXPERIENCE OF ANALYZING THE CULTURAL AND SEMIOTIC TRANSFER OF “PALESTINE” INTO THE ALTAI SACRED SPACE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 1 (23). P. 174-192

The article discusses the phenomenon of transferring of Holy Land images into modern urban space on the example of Orthodox temple building and the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society (IOPS) social activities. The choice of the subject is due to the need to interpret the conscious transfer of Holy Land images into the iconographic concept of the Church of 14,000 Bethlehem Martyrs Babies (2008–2015), created in Altai region (Russia, Siberia) by two experts in hierotopy. One is the chairman of the Altai branch of IOPS, art professor and archpriest Georgy Kreidun who developed the concept and led the construction of the temple. The other is Russian Byzantinist, the author of the hierotopic approach Alexei Lidov, who proposed an iconographic concept of the church with Holy Land symbols. In this article I explore some “local” ways of building the links between the modern Orthodox community and the Palestine sacred landscape. It is postulated that along with the restoration of the “Russian Palestine” in the Middle East and the traditional practice of pilgrimage, the connection with the Holy Land is established today through hierotopic creativity and social activities. The analysis is carried out in the conceptual context of cultural-semiotic transfer, proposed by S. Avanesov, and the phenomenon of hierotopy, introduced by A. Lidov, and involves interviews with temple founders. The data were collected in the expedition to Barnaul in March 2019 and include interviews with Georgy Kreidun and Metropolitan of Barnaul and Altai Sergius. Interviews with Alexey Lidov published in open sources are also regarded. An ethnographic approach allows analyzing the historical and cultural foundations and motivations for the hierotopic creativity as well as the activities of the IOPS as the Holy Land transfer society. The identified motivation is concerned with (1) bridging the gaps in the Eastern Christian tradition (by referring to the images of the Holy Land through “early Christian matrices”); (2) memorizing some local aspects of Altai spiritual mission, historically and metaphorically associated with the Holy Land; (3) strengthening the liturgy spiritual aspects in the penitential church (through the connection of a sin of infanticide with the relevant images of the tragic beginning of the earthly life of Jesus Christ). The conclusion about the role of individuals in the formation of the Holy Land sacred landscape is made.

Keywords: hierotopy, Altai, Eastern Orthodox church, Orthodox Palestinian Society, New Jerusalems in Siberia, Russian Palestine, cultural and semiotic transfer, Holy Land images, sacralization, sacred landscapes.

Bernatonite Ada. V. PRINCIPLE OF CONSTRUCTION CINEMATIC NOVELLA IN THE POLISH CINEMA OF “NEW WAVE” // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2016. Issue 2 (8). P. 24-36

This article discusses some aspects of constructing the cinema novel in Polish cinematography at the period of its formation, that is the late 1950s and the early 1960s. The main task is to show the specificity of cinema novel from the different points of view, as from the author and from the character, taking into account the fact that the form of cinema novel has been transforming, modifying its internal principles. The author detects the specificity of the character’s image, that exists as an independent unit, however, is reflected in the other characters. It is proved that this way to showing film material is necessary for reveal diversity and ambiguity of seemingly the same situations and phenomena.

Keywords: new film reality, cinematography of life, prevailing theme, semantic nuance

Govorunov Alexander Vasilyevich MATRIX AND THROUGH IT. COLLECTIVE MONOGRAPH REVIEW “MEDIAPHILOSOPHY XII. GAME OR REALITY? RESEARCH EXPERIENCE IN THE STUDY OF COMPUTER GAMES” // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 1 (19). P. 196-203

Collective monograph “MediaPhilosophy XII. Game or reality? Research experience in the study of computer games” is being reviewed. The book is an attempt to develop an independent philosophical discipline of game studies. Besides philosophical and methodological issues in such discipline authors explore juridical, ethical, social and existential aspects of the problem. Also, some more specific topics of special interest to computer games researchers are discussed.

Keywords: mediaphilosophy, mediareality, computer games, technophobia, aggression

Basina Polina Aleksandrovna, Malyar Anna Arhipovna SEMANTIZATION OF TOMSK LOCAL SPACES: VIEW THROUGH INSTAGRAM // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 2 (20). P. 193-201

The subject of the presented work is the intersection of urban studies, visual research and research of network culture. Researchers are interested in ways of semantizing some local spaces of Tomsk in Instagram photos. The review and explanation of visual representations of public places in Tomsk in the social network is present in this paper. Location – Camp Garden, Igumen Park, Siberian Botanical Garden of Tomsk State University (TSU). The focus of the study is aim at the organization of public space and methods of marking the territory in the Instagram. The social network is chosen because of the predominance of visual content. Photos placed in the social network are important in the presented study. Instagram pictures differ from photos in home and electronic albums of users. Users of the social network need to get approval from the Internet audience. The audience demonstrates approval in the form of “likes” and comments. The methodological basis of the study is the semiotic concepts of F. Kittler and R. Barth. The empirical basis of the study is an analysis of 150 publications of Instagram users. Publications were select by geotagging (geographical references) locations for the period from 2015 to 2018. Representation of urban space in networked environments was consider through categories of optical perception “real – imaginary – symbolic”. Ways of urban space development by the inhabitant, fixed in a social network, create an image of a place at an audience. The results of the study are present in the analytical reviews of public places. Photographs of Tomsk’s Camp Garden centered on the sculptural memorial of Motherland, giving weapons to the Son, and on the natural landscape, the image of the Camp Garden as a place of memory and freedom is present. In the Igumen Park users focus on the audience’s attention in online publications on the interaction of visitors with small architectural forms (a statue of a bear, a statue of a bird) and residents of the territory (pigeons, squirrels). The image of the Igumen Park is presented in the social network as “private space” with the possibility of performative space formation. In the Siberian Botanical Garden of TSU users focus the attention of the audience in online publications on the diversity of the vegetation of the garden and the natural color scheme of the image. The image of the Garden is present in the social network as a space of appeasement and naturalness. At the same time, the presentation of the Siberian Botanical Garden in a social network demonstrates the specifics of the location on one side, on the other hand, allows network users to “be in a trend” creating a “fashionable profile design”. The visual design of public space is present on photos in the social network. Network models of local representation form a single image of space. Significant, especially for extra-urban actors (residents of other cities, economic and political actors), part of the semiotics of urban space will be its representation in digital Internet networks, in particular – in Instagram.

Keywords: urban space, public space, network media, Instagram, visual representation

Ivanov Konstantin Vladimirovich CARTOGRAPHY AS A TOOL OF IMPERIAL POLICY IN CENTRAL ASIA // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 2 (24). P. 151-181

There are, at least, two difficulties of principle that we face trying to figure out the role of maps in any historical process. The first one is that the maps are generally understood as a product of strict empirical procedure free of perception gaps and idealizations. We are told that maps reflect objective realities. Consequently, if one suggests that they can be prejudiced, he insults the very scientific Method. The second difficulty relates to the supposed utilitarian attitude of cartography. It is customary for us to consider maps as primarily a supporting means not influencing the process but assisting it. The map is a useful and effective facilitator, rather than mentor imposing predefined positions. Both these beliefs are in fact myths, but extremely persistent myths. The talisman of precision protected the topographic methods against charges of complicity in imperial expansion for a long time. Fine scales of graduated circles, vernier scales, scrupulous procedures of error recovery, diminution of aberration and quantifying uncertainties – a whole range of positivist epistemologies allowed to speak that maps were nothing but scaled-down representations of real world. Still, the very existing of reduction, which is an integral part of map-making, obliges the topographers to resort to selection. What deserves to be depicted on the map and what not? Maps do not mirror the space, but re-encode it, and it is quite natural that this procedure operates as instrument of a particular political system with the underlying ideology and consequent social interests. Maps are both instruments and representations of power. The article shows how this particular feature of European cartography allowed to depict the Kazakh Steppe as vast uninhabited areas and helped to render Kazakh peoples invisible in their own land. The other indispensable function of cartography is delineation of phenomena. Cartographers draw lines, bridge them into particular totalities and thereby inscribe into the landscape new spatialized identities. The steppe did not contain boundaries, but surveying and mapping techniques allowed to establish “frontiers” by imaginary lines that connected rarely scattered Russian fortifications in the steppe. The article traces how these topographical lines formed a particular way of thinking among Russian top bureaucracy and military leaders, who eventually began to perceive them as gradual extension of imperial “frontiers” in the Central Asia. In spite of the fact that “frontiers” in question were no more than techniques of representation, military and civil functionaries granted them the status of firm state boundary. Since it was a primitive description of previously unexplored territory, political and cartographic discourses tightly intertwined each other. The article demonstrates how the objects produced by military topographers in the “no-man’s lands” obtained their own existence on maps and have been used as a platform for further imperial expansion.

Keywords: cartography, imperial policy, Russian empire, Central Asia, military topography, Kazakh Steppe, empire’s border

Tenetova Ekaterina Aleksandrovna MEDIATIZATION OF URBAN SPACES AS FACTOR OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARCTIC CITIES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 2 (20). P. 160-168

This research deals with sociological and urban aspects of the phenomena called mediatization of urban spaces. There is a review of works and projects devoted to city transformations caused by great dissemination of new media in urban spaces. The author suggests us critical view on “smart cities” and address alternative approach in city planning – “involvement to city”. The author makes analysis of modern social transformations in the urban environment caused by influence of new media and offers the classification of different forms of urban medialization. Among them there are new technologies in a smart city (mobile payments, smart cards, etc.), acted spaces (urban activism, social networks, mobile applications), navigation signs (tourist online maps), informational Interactive desks (QR code, smart boards, new journalism), transferring the logic of new media to urban development (construction of the urban environment according to the laws of new media) and online tracking (video cameras, sensors). Sometimes we even can’t notice how much modern technologies and new media influence on our everyday life. But new media changes not only physical spaces of cities; also, it shapes new digital social spaces and citizens practices. This study sheds light on characteristics of mobile digital practices in the Russian context, especially in arctic cities. Author argues use of the term “interactive city” and “media city” as a more voluminous concept for arctic cities. According to authors hypothesis problems and challenges of arctic cities (geographical remoteness, weather conditions, and infrastructural imperfections) can be solved by opportunities of modern technologies, mostly by the opportunities of so-called acted space when new technologies allow inhabitants to talk with the city and to create an acted urban space. The aim of this paper is identification of social practices of “smart crowds” in arctic cities and prediction of its role in further city planning and making recommendations for city’s administration. In this work you can find some statistic data and case studies of virtual citizen’s activism in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, the biggest cities of Arctic region. This research is start and rationale for further examination interactive arctic cities.

Keywords: urban space, media city, virtual urban communities, mobile crowds, arctic city

Tikhov Vladislav Germanovich, Shifman Anastasia Vladimirovna DESIGN ASPECT OF THE FORMATION OF MICRO-SPACES IN URBAN ENVIRONMENT // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 2 (20). P. 152-159

The paper investigates the problem of the creation of microspaces in the environment of the postindustrial city. In the context of the given period, the city is considered as a complex spatial and social phenomenon, the place of activity of city inhabitants. A number of qualities of a highly comfortable urbanized environment is determined under the lens of ideas about the needs typical for a modern citizen and the comfort of the object and spatial environment of the city. The authors describe the principle of ergocentrism, which extends the boundaries of ergonomics to its macrolevel – “ergonomics of space”. The comparative analysis of architectural and urban planning and design approaches to the creation of microspaces is carried out. The existing architectural typologies of microspaces are considered as part of the urban planning theory. In the frame of the design approach the authors analyze new experimental forms of urban design aimed at finding spatial potential in urbanized environment. The work identifies the need for discovery, scientific understanding and classification of new types of micro-spaces based on a constructive approach and the principle of egocentrism.

Keywords: micro-space, urban design, principle of ergocentrism, typology of micro-spaces, urbanized environment

Fedorov Viktor Vladimirovich, Fedorov Mihail Victorovich, Korotaeva Zinaida Vladimirovna PREDICTORS OF SPACE POWER: THE SEMANTIC ASPECT // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2015. Issue 3 (5). P. 86-96

The space of social existence is considered as a “social reality, projected on its territory”. The spatial dimension of relations between society and government is understood as the phenomenon of the existence of special power spaces – contamination of architecture, landscape and regulating power relations. It shows the existence of predictors of the architecture and layout of these spaces of power, the semantics of which is a continuous differentiated, transformed and receives new historical, cultural, regional and individual psychological coloring.

Keywords: architectural environment, space of power, predictors, semantics

Knysheva Alexandra A. SENSE AND ABSURD IN DAVID LYNCH’S FILMS «LOST HIGHWAY» AND «MULHOLLAND DRIVE» // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2016. Issue 3 (9). P. 125-131

David Lynch’s “Lost Highway” and “Mulholland Drive”, the classic products of postmodern culture, carry multiple interpretations and senses within their plots. Unlike other works, these two films exploit absurd, one of the most prominent instruments of modernity, adjusting it to current realities by disguising it as complex but logical narrative. On the one hand, researchers of absurd note its current decline due to abolition of binary oppositions, which has made the concept of common sense and, thus, possibility of opposing anything to it, ungrounded. On the other – while analyzing the works of modernist writers in his “Logic of sense”, Deleuze comes to the conclusion that absurd in this sense plays a rather different role than in so-called philosophy of absurd: if for Camus absurd is attributed to lack of sense, for an absurdist like Lewis Carroll it, on the contrary, signifies surplus of multiple senses. Thus, the abovementioned films represent a bundle of multiple readings, often conflicting, but never falling apart into incoherent stories. The concept of Umberto Eco’s “opera aperta” acquires different geometry here – multiple senses do not lie parallel to each other, from depthless to deeper readings, but constantly intersect, deflect and change directions. Lynch intentionally puts contradictions into each interpretation to let the viewer to assemble multiple senses as a puzzle over and over, configuring unique interpretations each time. The plot structure is conceived in such a way that each of the interpretations would be insufficient and tangled with others.

Keywords: film, David Lynch, sense, absurd, logic, film semiotics

Haydarova Gulnara Ravilevna FROM VISUAL ENVIRONMENT TO VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2015. Issue 4 (6). P. 92-99

In the article on the example of the photographic project presented the concept of personal visual defence. In modern war of images is important a rationalization. In the situation of uncontrollable and addictive stream of images, the solution is not in increduility to the images and iconoclasm, but, as shown by the individual searching of the artist and his unique way of seeing, in recoding popular and often shocking images and concepts. Only image, reduced to functions, whether political or economic, is militant, but by itself, it is material for our imaginary. The entity of iconoclasm is not in the struggle against image, aspiring to the Ideal, but in the struggle for human, for his presence, immanent to the image, for his protective and life-giving support of the Ideal.

Keywords: the war of images, photos, media war, visual ecology, visual security

Golovneva Elena Valentinovna, Golovnev Ivan Andreyevich CHEKHOV’S SAKHALIN: PHOTOGRAPHIC FIXATION OF THE ISLAND // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 1 (23). P. 76-92

The article examines the photographic representations of Sakhalin in the end of XIX century, in the period of A. P. Chekhov’s stay on the island. Sakhalin is viewed as a peculiar cultural and geographical space with clear frontier characteristics. Sakhalin regional identity is seen as formed on the basis of ideas of “the remote island – continent” and “the place of nameless misery”. Beginning with an analysis of Sakhalin in the context of imperial imagination, authors rediscover a photofixation of the island in the above-mentioned period. Analysis of Chekhov’s photo collection is addressed to the works of frontier and memory studies as well as visual anthropology. The article is based on empirical data of Archive of Amur region Research Society (Vladivostok) and photos from Benedict Dybovsky’s (1833–1930) album that is stored in Kamchatka Regional United Museum (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky). Developing a discourse about photography as a valuable resource for visual representation of the frontier territories, the authors give systematization and classification of the main images of Sakhalin at the end of XIX century (a case of photographer I. I. Pavlovsky), present the correlation between photographic and literary images as well as reveal the role of those photos in perception of Sakhalin inside and outside of an empire. The article argued that visual criteria of Sakhalin’s life were created by means of typical protagonist’s positions and scenes (labor and everyday life of hard laborers), physical anthropology (indigenous faces, faces of criminals), architect and natural landscape of the island. The authors came to the conclusion that photos of Sakhalin as well as literary works on the island depict the visible margins between Sakhalin and other parts of Russia and present the specifics of Sakhalin regional identity.

Keywords: photography, frontier, Sakhalin, Russian Empire, visualization, constructing the image of region, XIX century literature, Anton Chekhov, Innokentii Pavlovsky.

Fedorov Viktor Vladimirovich, Fedorov Mihail Victorovich THE URBAN SPACE OF POWER: THE DIACHRONIC DIMENSION // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 3 (17). P. 170-178

The phenomenon of architectural and landscape spaces of power, showing the specificity of the relations between society and power, is considered. Asym metry of influence and other characteristic of power are clearly expressed in the organization of these spaces. Reproducible for thousands of years they are content due to the technology of power. Among the invariant features of the spaces of power: the symmetry of the architectural and compositional solutions (the presence of severe axis), the dominance of the ‘classical’ forms, the ensemble construction, the availability of space for demonstrations and so forth. The existence of specially organized territorial and spatial structures reveals the content, non-obvious connections and dynamics of mutual relations between society and government. Spaces of power are the object of reflection as an “image of power”, acquire a symbolic expression (verbal or visual), bearing a semantic load. The article uses the diachronic method of correlation of architectural methods of expression of power with the characteristic moments of the state of society. Identified sustainable and re-usable architectural decisions, traced the patterns of their development. It is established that the processes of formation and development of spaces of power are characterized by stages of both complexity and simplification of the environment. The nature and forms of their manifestation in the interiors and exteriors of modern objects of power of democratic communities are analyzed. Bringing the russian spaces of power in compliance with the requirements of the time is evaluated as a socially significant problem.

Keywords: city, social spaces, relations of society and power

Inishev Ilya Nikolaevich DISTRIBUTED IMAGERY: IMAGINATIVE PRACTICES OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 1 (23). P. 31-46

Main theme of the article are the types of imagery becoming increasingly characteristic of contemporary culture. The core feature of these types is their being distributed across time and space, their ability to accompany us virtually everywhere, without being tied to any organizational form. Distributed imagery opposes “traditional”, non-distributed images “representing” some identifiable subject-matter. One of the essential traits of non-distributed imagery is its normative claim addressing not only the ways of its interpretation but also bodily practices of the perceiving subject, relevant for experiencing images of this kind. In contrast to the inherent oppressiveness of non-distributed image connected to a perceptual regime characteristic of it, the distributed imagery draws not on reduction and control of body of the perceiving subject but – on the contrary – on intensifying (and in this sense, on emancipating) its bodily emotional self-presence. From a diachronic point of view, the relationship between distributed and non-distributed imageries is mediated by quite a complicated socio-historical and material-technological dynamic of the developed and late modernity. Reconstruction of this dynamic enables us to identify the genetic interrelation (continuity) between non-distributed and distributed imagery. From a synchronic point of view, distributed and non-distributed imagery forms generate incompatible experience types with mutually exclusive structural characteristics and social-political implications (discontinuity).

Keywords: distributed / non-distributed imagery, political implications of perceptual experience, culturalization of matter, image theory, visual culture.

Emelin Vadim Anatolyevich, Tkhostov Alexander Shamilevich COGNITIVE VS TECHNOLOGICAL MAPS OF GEOSPACE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 4 (18). P. 125-141

The formation of cognitive maps of geographical space is a crucial condition for an agent’s cognitive activity, determining his possible orientation as the highest psychical function. The initial way of understanding oneself in the surrounding world for humans was to correlate oneself with one’s natural dimensionality and to form an anthropomorphic system of measures and coordinates. This article considers processes of transforming natural geography into a culture-determined one, resulting in the formation of world maps based not on the objective vision of geospace but on mythological, religious, pragmatic, and ethnocentric factors. The influence of human’s technological extensions on transformation of his natural spatial ideas into cognitive schemata and on change in his spatial “worldview” is analyzed by the example of accessibility/inaccessibility of geographical objects. The paper posits that the possibility to interpret geographical knowledge and skills as symbolic and culture-determined options of the orientation ability are fixed not to natural, but technological mode of travel. Furthermore, the paper describes a special hybrid construct of orientation/locomotion that arises in the conditions of technological progress and sets a new topology of man’s cultural body, a technologically transformed topology of the surrounding world. Additionally, it is stated that any technical development does not abolish human dimensionality but only modifies it, expanding natural human abilities and identity.

Keywords: cognitive activity, identity, cognitive map, geography, geospace, technologies, anthropomorphic dimensionality, spatial orientation, transport, embodiment

Kukso Kseniya Aleksandrovna THE SPACES OF HOPE IN PLAGUE’S RUSSIAN AND EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE OF THE XIV–XVI CENTURIES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 3 (21). P. 89-97

The article is devoted to the specific behavior of the community, responded to the experience of the plague with creating the sacral architecture. By referring to Russian and European materials of 14th – 16th centuries the colossal existential- ontological role of these reactions is investigated – the re-creation of the existential structures of the openness of future and the compatibility, exterminated during pandemics. Author reviews Russian tradition of creating obydennye temples and European model of building sacral vow architecture intrinsic for periods of the plague pandemic and analyzes their values for restoring the social and temporal tissue of human existence that is extremely thin during the spread of the plague. The act of their creation represents the experience of the collective’s uniting, extremely atomized in the pandemic situation. The semantic resource of this architecture is the affirmation of the good’s imperishability in the circumstances of high death rate. Lively attitude toward the instance of good embodied with its forms and conveyed with the artistic motives of its interiors opens the otherness beside the life seized by the plague. So its presence creates for the collective dimension of the future’s openness, disappeared during stability of the mortal threat’s. The paper presents the understanding of the unique experience created these architectural forms – saturating the present is always only coming and recreating the principle of being together. These analytical materials lead to the problem of the ontology of hope.

Keywords: visual semiotics of architecture, sacred space, epidemic, rituals of community, sacrifice, temporality, openness of future, “obydennye” churches, cult of saints

Barbaruk Magdalena POETIC BOUNDARIES OF OPEN CITIES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 1 (19). P. 32-43

The author argues that in order to fruitfully explore the city within the cultural-studies framework one must first accurately define the city as an object of knowledge, which only highlights the problematic nature of the boundaries of the city. The article foregrounds the key role of the cultural heteronomy of the city, which overrides its civilisational heteronomy. Culture, which the Polish culture scholar Stanisław Pietraszko understands as a way of being in accordance with values, is the determining factor in the identity of the city and is manifest in the openness and fluidity of its limits. Central thematic concern lies in literary “prostheses” of cities, which are needed in places inhabited by migrants, the colonized, “the subjects homesick” for “their” cities. Fiction and poetry bear a crucial ontological and axiological city-making responsibility, as demonstrated in the author’s previous studies on Quixotic La Mancha and re-confirmed in this paper on the example of the Latin American Amereida, a group of architects, poets and artists. The author examines their 1965 journey from Chile, called Travesía (The Crossing), whose aim was “poetic dwelling” in America. During the journey, they performed poetic acts referred to as phalènes, whose idea grew out from an earlier trip to Paris and urban poetic practices in Santiago de Chile. As the pampa and Patagonia became a symbol of absolute modernity, the realisation is prompted that the modernity of the city-text can be “re-written” onto a non-urbanised space. The article ends with a glimpse of the utopian Open City (Ciudad Abierta), which the Amereida founded on the Pacific coastal dunes in 1970 in order to live there, work and teach students of the Faculty of Architecture of the Catholic University of Valparaíso. The pursuits undertaken in the city show that what is poetic is “open,” long-lasting and communal.

Keywords: Amereida, the Open City (Ciudad Abierta), travesía, city, city limits / boundaries, modernity, culture, values, South America

Evstifeev Roman Vladimirovich DESIGNING CITY IDENTITIES: GOALS, MECHANISMS, ACTORS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 4 (26). P. 75-89

The article presents an interpretation of the study of city identities of the cities of Vladimir, Smolensk, and Yaroslavl in terms of describing the main goals, actors, and mechanisms for designing city identities. The problem of manageability of the development of local identities and the designing of local identities is one of the pressing issues of both the theory and practice of city community management. The author carried out a theoretical reflection on the concept of city local identity, understood as a psychosocial complex of a person that sets an emotionally important person’s self-relation to a group/community and determines the rules of people’s behavior in this group, the rules for admitting people to the group and expelling from it, the criteria for distinguishing “friends” and “foes" for the group. The results of the study made it possible to identify the main elements of city local identity: significant places (including the periphery and the symbolic center); ideas about local, medium- and large-scale geography; significant people of the city (“pantheon” of heroes—real and mythical); residents’ representations about their city; residents’ representations about about themselves; ideas about the structure of the community (core, borders, strata, segments); rituals of identity reproduction. The described elements of urban identities exist as a construct created by researchers rather than as a subject of city life. In order for a city identity to acquire subjectivity, special efforts are needed form the politically active part of the city residents. The article proposes an approximate model for designing the city identity: development of the city community; development of social “software” for interaction with each other; formation of an independent intellectual space with alternative competing “packages” of interests; public expression of interests on discussion platforms; creation of coalitions; competition; and promotion of one’s own agendas in the field of public policy. The study shows that a typical actor in the construction of city identity is the city government, which welcomes or rejects the attempts of the citizens and their associations to participate in the construction. The main mechanism for designing city identities is the activity in the symbolic sphere aimed at redefining and reinterpreting the past and present city community. Thus, the main factor in the construction of city identities is the resource of intellectual awareness and understanding of the characteristics of the city and city community; at the same time, the development of city identities, even when constructed by dominant groups, leads to the formation of the subjectivity of diverse groups and, consequently, to conflicts in the struggle for values. The conflicting nature of the development of collective identities raises a demand for an identity policy aimed not only at constructing a city identity, but also at revealing the possibilities of a positive interaction between different identities.

Keywords: city identity, city development, local communities, values, democratic intellectualism, actors, symbolic politics, political discourse

Joussellin Charles, Mailenova Farida Gabdelkhakovna L’OBJECTIVATION DU CORPS ET NOUVELLES TECHNOLOGIES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 4 (18). P. 142-147

L’objectivation du corps, nécessaire pour en parler, permet de grandes avancées dans le domaine de la technique, mais peut aussi devenir source de dérives déshumanisantes. Nous aborderons deux notions paradoxales et complémentaires, le corps comme objet de recherche voire de marchandise, mais aussi le même corps subjectif et parlant à soi et aux autres. Le langage de l’homme est principalement corporel. Notre chair « pense », notre corps parle. Toutes les manifestations de la vie, que ce soit la douleur, la peur, l’horreur, ou la joie, l’amour, le bonheur-peuvent être considérées comme la conscience montre par le corps. L’objectivation du corps de l’homme est une condition de son observation. Toutefois cela doit rester un moyen et non pas devenir une fin.

Keywords: la Philosophie du corps, l’éthique, la Psychologie, la technologie biomédicale, la chair de pensée, l’objectif du corps

Borisov Evgeny Vasilyevich HIDDEN ARGUMENTS OF VISUAL PREDICATES // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 4 (18). P. 49-60

Predicates expressing visual properties, like ‘large’ and ‘larger’, constitute a special category of linguistic expressions. Whereas their meaning in most contexts seems to be uncontroversial, there are contexts where their meaning is hard to determine. Cross-world comparison is an instance. Its specific feature is that it compares an object taken in one possible world with an object taken in another one (distinct from the first one). In the paper, the problem of semantics of comparative visual predicates in the contexts of this type is examined. The problem can be illustrated using Russell’s famous example ‘I thought your yacht is larger than it is’. What makes this sentence problematic for semantic analysis is that an object as it was conceived by the speaker is being compared with that same object as it actually is. If we construe this sentence (as t suggest) as expressing a comparison of objects rather than their sizes, it is hard to see what the logical form of this sentence might be like. As a starting point, I take the uncontroversial claim that predicates like ‘large’ have a hidden argument, viz. a standard of being large for the contextually salient category of objects. I show that generalization of this point to comparative predicates like ‘larger’ enables us to solve the problem stated above. To this end, we have to distinguish a) between overt and hidden arguments of visual predicates, b) between an interpretation utilizing functions from objects to numbers, and an objectual interpretation, c) between immediate and mediated comparisons. I show that adopting the concept of comparative predicates having hidden arguments and the concept of cross-world visual comparisons as mediated by a hidden argument allows us to provide an intuitively correct objectual interpretation of cross-world visual comparisons.

Keywords: semantics, interpretation, logical form, predicate, visual property, contextuality, comparison, possible world, visual experience

Simyan Tigran Serzhikovitch INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR SPACE OF YEREVAN STATE UNIVERSITY: SEMIOTIC ASSESSMENT // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 1 (23). P. 104-120

The article is semiotic-typological analysis of Yerevan State University (YSU) interior space and external grounds. It is a part of Yerevan City discourse, which depicts separate part of Yerevan downtown, and fragments of the interior and exterior space of YSU. Moreover, this article is a continuation of the discourse “University Space”. YSU cultural artifacts are described both by culturalhistorical as well as by a semiotic method. Russian reviews have described the semiotically labeled spaces of the university mainly by a cultural-historical approach. The cultural environment has become the meta-language concept of this approach. The cultural-historical methodology does not imply a semiotic metalanguage and analysis. This reveals psychological and cultural values, different historical eras and signs of identity, etc. The article is a detailed description of the starting point of the university exterior grounds represented by the central sculpture, interior works of art and bas-relief of the YSU Library. The central space of Yerevan State University is semiotized by various sculptures, monuments, and bas-reliefs. These are signs of social and cultural memory, referring to different cultural eras: from the Middle Ages to the Soviet Empire. The principal sculpture of the university garden represents the founder of Armenian alphabet Mesrop Mashtots and other prominent representatives of the Armenian medieval university traditions. The figures depicting Mesrop Mashtots and Sahak Partev refer to the past, pointing to the antiquity of the Armenian alphabet and the deep roots of the Armenian scholastic university tradition. Among medieval cultural figures, we see other renowned poets and writers of New and Contemporary Armenian Literature such as Abovyan, Nalbandyan, Tumanyan, and Charents. They played an important role in the formation of public and literary life, leading to the Europeanization of Armenian literature, as well as to paradigmatic cultural transitions. The analysis of empirical material demonstrated that the range of historical artifacts also incorporates the Soviet era (socialist realism). Detailed study of the basrelief of socialist realism showed that it is a stereotypical artifact of the Soviet era, a visual propaganda of Soviet totalitarian ideology.

Keywords: semiotics of space, university space, Yerevan State University, visual semiosis, Mesrop Mashtots, Sahak Partev, socialist realism.

Savchuk Valery Vladimirovich WORLD VERNISSAGE: VISUAL-ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2016. Issue 1 (7). P. 26-33

It’s about blurring the boundaries of documentary and artistic photography. The difference of time, which we experience today, is that the documentation often serves as documentation of the same document, or otherwise, it works with the image of the document. The symptoms that we find in all spheres of science, politics, economics. In the Humanities the Sciences appear more related with the dimension of the images subjects: visual anthropology, visual sociology, visual ecology. Symptomatic in this context is the attempt of historians of philosophy to work with images of ancient philosophers, the interest in visualizing the categories of education, to everyday photos.

Keywords: vernissage, visual anthropology, visual ecology, documentation, expression body, gesture, portrait

Ogleznev Vitaly Vasilyevich INDETERMINACY OF LAW AS A LINGUISTIC PROBLEM IN THE CONTEXT OF WITTGENSTEIN’S LATER PHILOSOPHY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 4 (26). P. 137-149

The linguistic indeterminacy of law is the most discussed topic of modern legal philosophy, the key issue of which is whether legal rules determine the result of judicial decision in each case. Legal formalists (and partly legal positivists) respond positively to this question, since they believe that the task of a judge is to resolve judicial disputes by applying consistent principles to facts. The judicial decision, therefore, is interpreted as the consistent application of generally accepted principles to established facts, that is, a judicial decision is reduced to a deductive inference where the truth of the conclusion is guaranteed by the truth of the premises (legal norms and facts). On the contrary, legal anti-formalists argue that legal rules and the concepts they contain (and law in general) are “radically indeterminate” and primarily because of the indeterminacy of language in which they are expressed. Anti-formalists, defending the position of linguistic indeterminacy, proceed from the fact that if legal texts (as well as the words that they contain) do not have an independent meaning, then the application of certain provisions of the law cannot be directly derived from its text. Their argument is not that some words are ambiguous or vague, and, therefore, we cannot be sure of their correct application, but that the application of all words will inevitably be indeterminate only if the unit of meaning is words themselves. They argue that certainty and determinacy in use of words depend solely on the agreement of linguistic community on how a particular word should be used. Formalists refer to the ideas of “late” Wittgenstein to confirm their position, while anti-formalists refer to Kripke’s interpretation. But there are legal philosophers who question the applicability of Wittgenstein’s ideas to solve the problem of legal indeterminacy, although they do not deny that some of his ideas are quite appropriate for analyzing the problem of legal interpretation and judicial enforcement.

Keywords: rule, interpretation, application, rule-following argument, semantics, legal norm, legal language, Wittgenstein

Andina Tiziana EMBODIED MEANINGS AND NORMATIVITY. SOME REMARKS FOR A NEW CONCEPT OF ART // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2015. Issue 4 (6). P. 11-27

The contemporary art world – namely, the current artistic and cultural situation, which emerged at the beginning of the Twentieth century – has led to a process of profound rethinking of the relationship between art and law. This relationship is inherent in the very concept of art and is as old as the history of the arts. In particular, the relationship between art and law, as it has structured itself from the beginning of the Twentieth century, has two vital functions – one of which is intrinsic to the concept of art, the other being extrinsic – the understanding of which is essential to investigate the contemporary art world.

Keywords: Art, Ontology, Embodied Meanings, Normativity

Atmanova Yulia Georgievna THE EULOGY OF BADSHAH JAHANGIR: POETICAL VARIATIONS OF THE MUGHAL ALLEGORICAL PORTRAIT // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2016. Issue 3 (9). P. 97-114

The paper is devoted to problems of correlation between the Mughal allegorical portrait and its original source – the Persian poetic eulogy. The strategy of translation from the verbal language to the language of painting suggested different variations: a close adherence to the text by which the onomastical and phraseological units of panegyrical topics were reproduced literally on the visual level, and also associative abstracting by which individual motives and devices were applied and visualized indirectly through the significant attributes, recognizable hints, and the like. This article is intended only to sketch the basic lines of interaction between different levels of reading of the Mughal visual panegyric and to show how the difficult task of visualization of literary conventions was solved on a practical level to glorify the king.

Keywords: visual panegyric, verbal panegyric, mughal painting, allegorical portrait, literary conventions, badshah Jahangir

Smirnov Sergey Alevtinovich PHILOSOPHER IN THE CITY: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE PLACE Article 1. Mikhail Bakhtin // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 3 (21). P. 43-61

A series of articles in which the author poses the problem of the connection between the life and the biography of the philosopher with the life and biography of the city begins with this work. Through the identification of event links between the biography of a particular philosopher’s person and the places in the cities in which his life took place, the author proposes to examine the problem of how the place’s autobiography is formed. The author considers the specifics of philosophical autobiographies through the prism of the biography of the city. The article proposes a working model for the reconstruction of the author’s habitat. The reconstruction scheme is in an attempt to restore the author’s habitat and events of his life by highlighting layers consisting of socalled “units” and “organizations”. Units of reconstruction are artifacts (things, objects, material objects, results of activity), signs (texts, symbolic structures), values and meanings, events and actions. Artifacts form such organization as urban infrastructures. Signs form a city text. Values and meanings form the memory of the city. Events and actions constitute everyday life in the city. Each author, as a result, creates his own trajectory of life, his autobiography, consisting of these units, which are then restored and reconstructed by researchers. Each specific biography of a particular philosopher will be considered in the language of the proposed construct. This article discusses the biography of M. M. Bakhtin. It is shown that the sources of Bakhtin’s biography (artifacts, texts, etc.) are very scarce. The texts are fragmentary and incomplete. Events and actions are hidden and difficult to recover. Values and meanings, of course, have to be reconstructed. As a result, Bakhtin, as an author, confirms with his biography his own thesis about the outsidedness and unfinalizability of the author’s thoughts and actions. The philosopher himself tried in every possible way to disappear from the geographical map of the territory of residence, forcing researchers to engage more in the interpretation and reconstruction of the author’s life than in analyzing the real facts of his life. At the same time, even the disappearing event point, which Bakhtin as an author is for subsequent researchers, clearly shows his discrepancy with himself and also the auto-reflective, event-related nature of the philosophers’ autobiography in principle.

Keywords: autobiography, philosophical autobiography, memory visualization, city, place, artifact, event, city text