No 3 (2024)

ARTICLES

“Vestibule” as a pattern of the visual environment: Urban practices’ scenarios

Avanesov S.S.

Abstract

The article considers one of the basic load-bearing elements of the urban texture – the space in front of the entrance to the most significant urban buildings. The analysis of the types and functions of such patterns, their connections with other basic elements of the urban topic, their influence on the configuration of urban practices is the most important resource for the growth of knowledge in the field of visual semiotics of the city. The current stage of development of urban studies requires an increasingly focused shift of attention from the urban planning and aesthetic aspects of a particular pattern (already sufficiently studied) to its pragmatics. This refocusing of epistemic optics allows us to see and analyze the elements of the urban environment not as physical constants, but as dynamic local scenarios, which is most consistent with the understanding of the city as a complex cultural and communicative phenomenon. To identify and develop these issues, the article simultaneously applies two methodological approaches to the study of the urban environment: visual-semiotic and anthropological. The work shows that any building (ensemble) that is significant in sociocultural terms, be it a theater, university, administration, station or cathedral, occupies a certain place on the urban stage and plays its specific role in the aesthetic and pragmatic configuration of the urban environment, acting not only as an object aesthetic contemplation, but also as a mediated actor (motivator) of emotional and behavioral scenarios offered to citizens and guests of the city. In the construction of these patterns, the rules of relationship between architectural facades and the surrounding open space play an important role. Properly located and structured “vestibules” present a city building in its significance, orient people’s attention and action, and contribute to the integration of a person into the city’s psychological environment. Ignoring the pragmatic-anthropological aspects of the formation of entrance spaces leads to the destruction of the visual frame of the city and becomes the basis for the existential discomfort of its inhabitants and visitors.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(3):9-36
pages 9-36 views

A thought experiment for constructing a semiotic optimum in the classroom (based on the ethics lesson in the philosophy course)

Baisultanova K.S., Gorbuleva M.S., Melik-Gaykazyan I.V., Pervushina N.A.

Abstract

The article begins with two literary examples from the works of one author. One example is a quote from Harper Lee's first published book. The content of the quote suggests a way to understand another person (“… climb inside of his skin and walk around in it”). The second example is the title of the author”s last book, Go Set a Watchman, which quotes a biblical exhortation. These examples are interpreted in the context of the lesson topic. The actions expressed by the words climb into, walk around, go, and set are emphasized. These emphases and interpretation illustrate the formulation of the research problem: identifying the conditions under which changing the classroom configuration is effective. The search for relevant ways to solve the problem is based on two circumstances. The first is the interpretation of each idea of morality as an impulse that organizes social structure, in particular, the structure of educational space. The paper focuses on such a semiotic result of ethics as the name “classroom” for one of the types of the room layout for holding parliamentary debates. The second is the concept of semiotic diagnostics (Irina Melik-Gaykazyan), which establishes correspondence between self-organization phases, information process stages and forms of the sign. A relevant methodological solution to the declared problem is a conceptual model of information generation that demonstrates the correspondence between the stages of transformation of two different spaces. In the phase space, scenarios of nonlinear dynamics of the system are competing. In another space, these same scenarios compete in the sizes and configuration of the distribution of their supporters (information carriers). Within the framework of a thought experiment, we present a “point” proposed to be interpreted as a locus of a potential “semiotic optimum”. At this point, there is an intersection of phase trajectories, while the intersecting trajectories refer to alternative scenarios. This optimum point creates an illusion of coincidence of positions; however, it is precisely overcoming this illusion that creates the basis for understanding and mastering different positions. We conclude that the first condition (1), under which a change in the configuration in a classroom is effective, is the need to discuss questions leading to alternative but equally correct given answers. Such a necessity arises during discussions on moral issues and when students master the essence of ethical dilemmas. The model demonstrates its sensitivity to a change in positions (a transition from one distribution to another), which reveals the second condition (2): the necessity of training for proactive socialization. The same sensitivity reveals analogies between the change in the configuration in a classroom and the syntax of ethical positions, between the organizational context and discursive strategies in discussions. The validity of this analogy is confirmed when comparing the author results and the results obtained in research fields of “language and learning”, “language and education”. We find that the problem we have set and the solutions we have proposed are pertinent for fulfilling another condition (3): the necessity of gaining experience in recognizing the ethical differences between educational strategies and acquiring professional skills within them. Configuration examples are provided as an illustration. We conclude that the use of the information generation model serves as a basis for thought experiments when designing lessons which educational goals include compliance with the conditions (1–3). The proposed model enables its role of a constructor for “reproducing” – in real classroom time – of intellectual history fragments in which a change of paradigms took place and specific teachings were created as a continuation of those paradigms; as well as enables also a retrospective tracing of shifts in the meanings of morality ideas on stable and unstable trajectories of social history.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(3):37-57
pages 37-57 views

Irreality and counterfactual thinking in the semiotics of cinema: A cognitive-psychological aspect

Druzhinin A.S.

Abstract

Modern literature and cinema increasingly draw on possible world semantics to tell stories about alternative realities, parallel universes and counterfactual events. Imagining the world from a plurality of perspectives, envisaging several life scenarios for one and the same developing story, undoing the past and rewriting history are only a few interesting ways in which our alternative (counterfactual) thought can flow as we engage in the changing and unpredictable experiences our environment affords. In this research, I view irreality as a linguistic product of counterfactual thinking analyzable on the level of both text and cinematic observation. Given that irreal semantics has been mostly investigated so far in terms of logic and information processing, I aim to explore the bodily experience in which our imagination of what could (not) be is grounded. With such a focus on the empirical and psychological aspects of irreality construction in thought and action, I turn to films and filmmaking techniques observable on screen as enactments of irreal meaning and irreal description of the world. In doing so, I analyze the features of polymodal construction of irreality in cinematic discourse. Using four feature films as research material – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Atonement, Sliding Doors, and Desperate Housewives – I investigate the dynamics of attention, bodily movements, perception and intellectual operations that are enacted on screen through the audio-visual semiotics to enable coherent alternative thinking and produce irreal descriptions of the situation. I argue a conclusion that in polymodal cinematic discourse, irreality “emerges” as a result of the subject’s operating with his/her past perceptual experience and re-configuring this experience in temporal terms in accordance with certain pragmatic goals and interests. In particular, I distinguish the following cognitive-psychological functions of irreality: undoing (canceling the lived experience), rescripting (rewriting, or re-evaluating and reconceptualizing, the lived experience), exploration of options (thinking of an experience in its alternatives), and scenario planning (acting on such experiential alternatives). I establish that imagining an alternative reality is not rejected by a film character as a perception-distorting fantasy but accepted instead as a useful cognitive and psychological tool that helps deal with uncertainty and solve various life problems. Through irreality, filmmakers manage to construct reversible time out of the characters’ non-linear flow of experience by enacting changes in their understanding of familiar events and objects of the surrounding world. A conclusion can be made that irreality and counterfactual thought in films are emplotted experiential configurations reproducible through the audio-visual semiotics of recorded video sequences.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(3):58-90
pages 58-90 views

Image of an initiative teacher

Igna O.N., Chervonnyy M.A., Li B., Yakovlev I.N.

Abstract

The formation of a holistic (internal and external) image of a teacher must be created and developed in future teachers even at the stage of their university education; it is a prerequisite, a condition for the creation and development of their own “teacher self”. The image of a teacher is not just an image that gradually emerges in the student’s mind from the beginning of receiving pedagogical education, but deep subjective connections that are gradually and consistently transformed into values, thoughts and actions. Their complex is manifested in the teacher’s appearance, style of thinking and activities, where the regulator is the visualized “teacher self”. The limitations of full-scale studies of the image of an initiative teacher are obvious, which is due to the lack of a universal definition and unified understanding of the essence of a teacher’s professional initiative. The aim of this article is to study deep and superficial interpretations of the image based on a comprehensive analysis of philosophical and pedagogical sources focusing on theoretical justifications of iconic models, characteristics of the concepts “image”, “ideal” in relation to educational activities, to the teacher and generalization of the collective image of a proactive teacher through the eyes of teachers themselves (experienced and future). Research objectives are: clarification of the concept “image” and related concepts; systematization and generalization of ideas about a contemporary proactive teacher; specification of examples of manifestation of initiatives in educational and extracurricular professional pedagogical activities; identification of the ideas of future teachers and experienced teachers about the image of an initiative teacher; determination of the positive characteristics of such a teacher, the connection between professional pedagogical initiative and the quality of teaching and education, the specifics of the perception of such a teacher by students of a pedagogical university. The value of the conducted research lies in expanding theoretical knowledge, ideas about the image of a teacher in the minds of students (future teachers) and its detailed characteristics, in capturing young teachers’ vision of the essence of a teacher’s professional initiative. Research methods include analysis and synthesis, specification, generalization, grouping, oral surveying of experienced teachers and surveying of future teachers (students of a pedagogical university). An image is often associated with stereotypical associations, including in the educational environment, since stereotypes are a schematic image of an object, stable and emotionally charged. An oral survey of experienced teachers and teachers of a pedagogical university (Tomsk, 96 people) revealed a number of positive characteristics of the image of an initiatice teacher: constant development, concern, activity, passion, uniqueness, etc. Surveying of future teachers (students of Tomsk State Pedagogical University, 104 people) showed that an initiative teacher, as a rule, does not have clear gender and age boundaries, although it is more likely to be a young woman. Such teachers are competent, smart, highly qualified, and have a sense of humor. Their external beauty, passion and activity visible to everyone are not so important. The school administration respects and supports them, yet can “use” them for one purpose or another. Every fourth student has the opinion that in a team an initiative teacher may be disliked by his colleagues, but, on the contrary, respected and supported by students. There is a relationship between a teacher’s initiative and their ability to teach well (almost 70% of the respondents think so), to be a good class teacher, mentor (this was indicated by almost 80%). The examples given by students of the manifestation of initiatives by teachers in educational and extracurricular teaching activities indicate that they often replace initiative with activity. Thus, many activities designated as initiative are not such and are considered traditional and widespread. The results of the study can be used to correct the content of pedagogical disciplines and pedagogical practices in the professional training of teachers, and to develop career guidance activities.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(3):91-116
pages 91-116 views

Cultural code of a modern regional city: An experience of discourse description (based on street art objects in Tomsk)

Kuryanovich A.V., Wang X.

Abstract

Within the framework of the modern humanitarian paradigm, research carried out using interdisciplinary methodology is of particular relevance and is distinguished by the presence of a new perspective in the study of traditional objects. Involving semiotic and discursive analysis data in the consideration of objects of urban street art in order to identify their cultural potential determines the correspondence of the work to the modern vector of humanitarian thought development. Objects of regional street art culture are considered as means of transmitting socially significant values. Studying the functional potential of street art within the framework of various humanities allows us to understand the features of the national picture of the world in its regional version of synchronous existence and identify key aspects of culture and language that are reflected in street art. The aim of the article is to study art objects of the urban environment as a means of forming an idea of the system of collective axiological attitudes in relation to a particular city, existing in the minds of citizens and guests and constituting the essence of urban identity and cultural code. The material is individual street art objects that are part of the urban space of Tomsk – one of the Siberian cities with rich historical cultural traditions and at the same time sensitive to modern challenges and trends. The criteria for selecting objects for analysis were the recognition of an object in relation to its location in the urban space, the mandatory presence of a verbal component to express pragmatic and conceptual content, and the presence of the possibility of discovering cultural meanings in the process of interpretation. The methodological basis of the research is complex in the choice of tools and techniques. The main methods are discursive, linguo-conceptual and linguo-cultural analysis, supplemented by the results of introspective and experimental (using a social experiment in the format of an online survey) research. The analysis of each of the street art objects selected for presentation in the article is carried out in stages. Each stage is associated with a description of certain characteristics of the object: local, formal, substantive. In the latter case, special attention is paid to the analysis of the pragmatic, including axiological, semantics of the linguistic units included in the structure of the art object. As a result, a conclusion is drawn about the degree of significance of the art object for the representation of the cultural code of Tomsk. One of the objects was studied in terms of the manifestation of communicative and pragmatic properties in conditions of synchronous dynamics, taking into account changes in formal and content indicators. This study shows that street art elements in a regional landscape reflect the unique culture of a city, convey the lifestyle and behavioral norms of its inhabitants, reflect cultural traditions and mythology, as well as characteristics of collective thinking and linguistic expression.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(3):117-137
pages 117-137 views

The retrovisual method of conceptualizing novelty in the city discourse

Savchenko I.A.

Abstract

The aim of the article is to study the concept of novelty in relation to the visual components of the city discourse. There exist different forms of novelty, and they can be generalized and conceptualized through the retrovisual method, which allows carrying out procedures for recreating visual images of the “new” formed in the past. The retrovisual urbanistic “fate analysis” makes it possible to identify three forms of novelty in the city discourse: reconstruction in combination with quasi-innovation, innovation, and upcycle. Examples of quasi-innovation are skyscraper piles, which, in their technical design, lagged far behind the projects of avant-garde artists or early modern architects of the first third of the last century. Recreating the past (sculptural and architectural creations lost during extreme events: revolutions, wars, and natural disasters) is one of the most popular trends in designing the future today. In addition to the well-known restoration (restoration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow or the monument to Alexander III in Irkutsk), one can observe specific variations of reconstruction: post-reconstruction and reconstruction relocation. Post-reconstruction involves the creation of urban landscape objects that did not exist before, but which could have existed if history had developed differently (for example, the monument to Admiral Kolchak in Irkutsk). Reconstruction relocation (full or partial) is the localization of lost objects in new areas (for example, the transfer to urban localities of buildings that were previously located in places flooded as a result of the construction of hydroelectric power plants). On the one hand, the restoration of the lost can be considered as a form of historical continuity. On the other hand, reconstruction also often contains an element of destruction: the memory of the period when the lost structures were temporarily absent and in their place there were other, possibly also significant, objects is erased. Using the example of the so-called “cities of the future” (for example, Arcosanti in the modern USA or Akhetaton in Ancient Egypt), the thesis about the “curse of innovation” is put forward. Attempts to create something fundamentally new often end in failure; innovative cities turn out to be “non-functional projects”. Creative upcycle means a new life of ideas and projects from the past and, in our case, implies a creative urban project based on a certain pattern. St. Petersburg is an upscale of Amsterdam, and Helsinki, Makhachkala and Poltava are upscales of St. Petersburg, but Amsterdam is also an upscale of Antwerp, which, in turn, repeated the structural combinations of cities of the early Middle Ages. Creative upcycle as an integrative form of novelty in the discourse of the city is often more meaningful and durable than reconstruction, reproducing the past for the future, or innovation, rejecting and devaluing the past. The retrovisual method makes it possible to identify and conceptualize the forms of novelty that realize themselves in the discourse of the city. The same method allows one to model the success parameters of urban design. A four-dimensional coordinate system of the city discourse is modeled, including vectors of social communication and cognition, on the one hand, and vectors of subjective activity and creativity, on the other. It is established that, in quasi-innovations, reconstructions and innovations as forms of novelty in the discourse of the city, these vectors are extremely unbalanced, while in the technology of upcycle these vectors often turn out to be quite balanced and, therefore, ensure the viability of urban projects.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(3):138-164
pages 138-164 views

OPEN LECTURE

Semiotic treatment of a visual philosophy lecture: The mechanical duck of Descartes

Markov A.V., Shtayn O.A.

Abstract

Teaching the history of philosophy requires actualization; visual studies provide a distinctive asset for such actualization. The history of philosophy should be conceived as an exposition of a series of issues, each of which can be modeled visually, and more complex models can be reduced to simpler and more precise ones. Each philosophical thesis can then be presented as a use of the view of philosophy itself: the metaphor of sight in Western philosophy turns out to be not only the common denominator of methods, but the semiotically optimal justification for any method new to the listeners or to a professional philosophical readership. The use of images produced by artificial intelligence then proves to be productive for such instantiation. The lecture shows how the history of philosophy and science was not only the exploration of new objects with the help of ontological tools, but also the ontologization of whole areas of consciousness, including imaginary ones. In this way, the discovery of the world was also the discovery of the mirror of one’s own consciousness. Descartes put this experiment in its purest form by establishing an ontology of science. Unlike the usual accounts of new European rationalism, which emphasize the priority of experimental science over theoretical generalization, the lecture provides a more complex view. The Renaissance virtue destroyed the correlation of the ontological tools of human self-justification with the worlds of nature and art, whereas Descartes only completed this destruction. But his voluntarism and teleology were rooted in Jesuit science, and the development first of the Baroque imagination and then of the Enlightenment imagination destroyed the initial self-evidence of Descartes as well. As in the Renaissance, its own ontological domain of signs emerged, only their number became unlimited, unlike the small set of them in the Renaissance rhetoric, and visual semiotics eventually devolved into a romanizing imagination. With the help of illustrations created by artificial intelligence, it has been possible to present in the lecture these complex vicissitudes of imagination and the formation of new ontological domains that can undermine or order other domains of ontology, including the ontology of pure consciousness. The lecture allows us to better understand both the main problem of ontology as a discipline of philosophy and the informational productivity of visual signs produced by artificial intelligence.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(3):165-190
pages 165-190 views

EVENT OVERVIEW

The 225th anniversary of Alexander Pushkin: “Above all virtues is reasoning, for every virtue without reason is empty”

Tyrina M.P., Zikratov V.V., Kovaleva A.V., Khalina N.V.

Abstract

The II Cross-Cultural Assembly dedicated to the 225th anniversary of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin “Reasoning Is Above All Virtues, for Every Virtue Without Reason Is Empty”: Geopoetics, Media Aesthetics and System-Functional Grammar of Euro–Afroasiatic Cross-Border Territories (Barnaul–Samarkand, Russia–Uzbekistan, 10–12 April 2024) is overviewed. In the year of Pushkin’s 225th anniversary celebration, the Department of Media Communications, Advertising Technologies and Public Relations. Altai State University, and the laboratory Center for Language Management and Communication Marketing, Institute of Humanities, Samarkand State University named after Sharof Rashidov with the support of Rossotrudnichestvo in the Republic of Uzbekistan held a cross-cultural assembly, the purpose of which was to gain an understanding of the modern generation’s sensitivity to the word, formed by the Russian language culture, permeated and inspired by the poetics of Pushkin's Word. The Assembly participants and organizers, representatives of 25 countries, managed to jointly create an amazing emotional and intellectual atmosphere based on a fine sense of their language’s word, understanding of the meaning put into the word by other generations, and the ability to present the history of their people in a way emotionally and stylistically accessible to listeners. Pushkin’s works are a model of a life of a citizen worthy of imitation, a feat of an honest Russian, a nobleman who is proud of his family history − the history of his fatherland, dictating to him the forms of creative work based on filial piety. The Assembly’s conceptual design assumed the creation of communication spaces of three types: scientific (Plenary Session, Settings), discussion (Table Talk, or Round Table), literary and artistic (Literary Lounge), which was supposed to form a special sensual world of belonging to Pushkin’s semantic innovation – a new semantic correspondence – based on a continuous change of perceptions. The Assembly’s compositional design was built taking into account the cross-cultural specifics of exchanging meanings through moving from one association to another, to finging a common world shared by all participants. A new predicative correspondence, a living metaphor, distinguished communication within the scientific space, which was formed during the speeches and their discussion at the plenary session and settings. The Assembly’s important component was the holding on the second day of a table-talk, The Life Worlds of A.S. Pushkin: The Modern Man’s Sensitivity in the Focus of Mental Anthropology, which was attended by representatives of Egypt, South Africa, Bolivia, Libya, Congo, Mongolia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Iran, Samali, China, Afghanistan, where an environment for the birth of a new semantic correspondence was created, a signifying matrix correlating semantic innovation with productive imagination. On the third day of the Assembly, the Literary Lounge “What Is in My Name…” was held. Pushkin’s works not only reveal the depths of the world around to attentive contemplators of Life, but also inspire them to create their own poetic works in which the heart and Soul speak to the world. The Literary Lounge aimed to reveal the creative potential of young people studying at educational institutions in Barnaul and Samarkand, to involve educational institutions in multicultural and educational events and projects that ensure the creative and innovative environment development of cross–border territories. In accordance with the wishes of the audience, in addition to novice poets, readers were also able to participate in the meeting of the Literary Lounge. In this way, two leagues were formed based on applications from students of Altai State University and Samarkand State University, and lyceum students of the Altai Krai Pedagogical Boarding Lyceum. At the deep ontological level, the Assembly made it possible to attain the state of “being like Pushkin” (être-comme-Pouchkine): to reverently treat one’s culture, the word given for salvation and admonition, and nature that created one’s family and Fatherland.
ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024;(3):191-203
pages 191-203 views

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