The influence of visual representations of "the Other" in the system of modern sociocultural communications

The paper deals with the way and the form of modern humanitaristics understanding of the problem of visual representation of "the Other". The authors’ tasks were to comprehend the nature and dynamics of visualization, to give a distinct working definition of visual competence. Besides, the purpose of the paper was to state the components of visual competence, its criteria, estimation methods and in this context to interpret the image of "the Other" decoded in scientific philosophic and cultural literature and in daily cultural practices. And the final task was to reduce the visual message to the verbal one. The doctrine that the image may be read is the common prejudice, which prevents the formation of a new approach to visuality. The first step towards the solution of problem is to describe the techniques, which help in potential understanding of the visual structure. Understanding the image diversity and its possible text analogues should help in establishing the specific requirements, which can be and must be applicable to visual representation of "the Other". Representations in the visual culture (photography, cinematography, media, painting, advertisement) influence the social image, affects the daily social practices and communications. Visual representations are of interest for social theorists as well as cultural texts, as they give an idea on the context of cultural production, social interaction and individual experience

A spectacularity concept in modern philosophy

The paper focuses on the interpretation problem of the concept of spectacularity in modern philosophy. The particularities of different conceptions of spectacularity are analyzed and the special attention is paid to its role in the development of the modern society. The main objective of the article is the critical analysis of different theories of philosophers and cultural experts in the context of the spectacularity phenomenon. The research applies the methods of the systematic approach and contextual analysis. The novelty of the paper lies in the formation of the strengths and weaknesses of the spectacularity concepts and in the development of certain principles of the interdisciplinary study of the phenomenon. This research could be of interest for professionals working in the field of sociology of culture and philosophy of culture

Philosophical Interpretation of the Visuality Regime: Convergence of Culture Practices, Conventions, and Experience

This work is devoted to the importance of the visual turn in the modern society, and to the fact, that the visual turn has drawn attention to the variety of existing scopic regimes and to the system of factors changing them. It deals with the nature of a contemporary dominant scopic regime in our society and gives the definition of scopic regime or, as it is also called, the regime of seeing. In order to get a broad picture on this issue, we are going to create the typology for analyses of scopic regime, where three main groups of approaches can be distinguished: phenomenological, psychoanalytical, post-structuralist and synthetic. The second part of the research will be focused primarily on the vision practice of the twenties of XX century. The implicit aim of the work is to create some kind of typology of scopic regimes, existing in the Soviet and the post-Soviet space, and to define the origins of these regimes. The highlight of the research is to reconstruct the local context of the visual experience description and the scopic regime at the modern age. In order to identify the basis for any scopic regime, the work makes several conceptual assumptions underlying the basic conclusions on this issue

Participatory Urban Projects in the Context of Cultural Pragmatics

The basic ideology of modernization of urban space should become a strategy for creation of a territory, providing a comfortable environment and human quality of life. Based on this postulate, a study was conducted to identify the specifics of cooperation with the virtual and real urban communities for the construction of foundations of urban policy, based on awareness of collective identity. The study was conducted on the basis of the methodology that allows the synthesis of Smart City concept and the theory of post-industrial city's development. In this study were identified the discourses about architectonic actors of the urban environment. Results of the study on the basis of real cases in Tomsk showed that today there are real urban communities, but their influence on philosophy and management's practice of space-communicative development of the city are insufficient due to lack of specific mechanisms and sites of interaction with government and business. The article also contains the main strategies of solving the problems in interaction with various Community