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VISUAL CARRIERS OF CITY’S CULTURAL MEMORY (ON THE EXAMPLE OF VELIKY NOVGOROD) // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 2 (20). P. 42-62

The article is devoted to the study of the features of visual carriers of the city’s cultural memory, which are one of the types of symbolic intermediaries that connect citizens and urban environment. The relevance of the research of cultural memory of the city is confirmed by the increased scientific interest to the problems of commemoration and mechanisms of structuring social forms of memory, and to the determination of collective ideas about the city. The functioning of the of the city’s cultural memory is supported by memory carriers as units of storage of the city’s culture significant elements (symbols, images, myths, etc.), which symbolically mark the urban environment. The author focuses on the visual carrier of the city’s cultural memory, which role is to accumulate, reproduce and translate the cultural meanings of the city, forming a visual matrix of urban memory. The methodology of the study of the city’s cultural memory is not yet formed, but the author gives a number of techniques to identify significant cultural meanings as fragments of urban memory. In addition to the use of cognitive, semiotic and sociological categories in the study, a certain methodological potential refers to a communicative paradigm that focuses on the analysis of the processes of generating cultural meanings of the city and their representation in the space of the city. The specificity of the functioning of the city’s cultural memory is illustrated by the example of the author’s 2016–2018 study of visual meanings of Veliky Novgorod, which transfer the key layers of urban memory. The author suggests to consider four main groups of translators of visible information about the city’s past as visual carrier of city’s cultural memory. The author identifies and substantiates features of visual carriers of the city’s cultural memory. The obtained results can be a starting point for further studies of the city’s cultural memory. The applied significance of this research is part of the intellectual capital that can be used by urban elites of each particular city in solving the problems of the policy of the city’s cultural memory associated with the creation of collective ideas about the city, including the image of the city.

Keywords: city, city’s cultural memory, commemoration, visual memory, cultural meanings

VISUAL MARKERS OF THE URBAN IMAGINARY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 1 (23). P. 121-139

The article is devoted to the study of visual markers of urban imaginary, which provide the accumulation and representation of collective memories of the city, and structure the process of imagination of the city. The relevance of urban imaginary research is confirmed both by the increased scientific interest in the phenomena that symbolically and mentally determine urban reality, and by the episodic nature of urban imaginary research in Russia. Urban imaginary opens the possibility of an interdisciplinary view of the city as a global text, generated by the structuring of collective imagination and formed by the dynamics of urban meanings in time and space. The work focuses on the fact that people come into contact only with fragments of the city, and in the conditions of informatization, digitalization of reality, the city as a whole exists, first of all, in the imagination of people, which approximates and reduces the symbolic code of the city. The key thesis of the work is the statement that the most important symbolic representative, thanks to which urban imaginary is structured in a particular city, is visual markers of the urban imaginary, which have an exceptional imaginative and generating effect. The author addresses the process of urban imaginary construction, reveals the typology and specificity of Russian cities visual markers that act as symbolic mediators. The dominant markers considered in the article are natural, symbolic, architectural, personalized visual markers, which may have different configuration in each city and differently structure urban imaginary. The result of urban imaginary’s visualization process, which translates collective representations of the city, is an urban image. Based on the symbolic and partly virtual nature of urban imaginary, it is emphasized that the process of representation of the city and the constructed image today have more significance than the city really is. The results can be a starting point for the further urban imaginary research, including applied research. They are part of the intellectual capital that can be used by urban elites in the symbolic struggle of cities for space and mobile resources, as well as in solving the problems of increasing the competitiveness of Russian cities.

Keywords: city, urban studies, urban imaginary, visual markers.

PRACTICES OF VISUALIZING NARRATIVES OF THE CITY’S CULTURAL MEMORY: THE CITY’S BRAND AS A MYTH // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 1 (31). P. 54-74

The article is dedicated to the study of practices of visualizing narratives of the city’s cultural memory on the example of the analysis of brand as a myth. The relevance of the research on the practices of visualizing narratives of the city’s cultural memory is confirmed by the increased scientific interest in the phenomena that symbolically determine the urban reality, as well as by the episodic nature of research related to the study of the city’s cultural memory. According to the author, narratives that represent the symbolic repertoire of fragments of the city’s cultural memory play a special role in the processes of representation of images of the city’s past. In this regard, the city brand is considered as a myth that conveys and supports the idea of the city for various audiences through the accessible symbolism of visual forms, evoking stable associations that identify the city through cultural meanings. Considering three levels of the narrative, the author reveals various aspects of the brand-myth functioning in the urban environment: a) the formation of a stable identification of the place and its “distinctiveness”, b) the construction of a cultural collage, parts of which form coherent texts of the city in chronology and in space, с) the implementation of social practices aimed at the reflection and interpretation of the brand idea. Since the narrative text assumes the presence of semantic sequences, the brand idea should be presented in the urban reality by regularly deciphering the meanings embedded in the brand. As an illustration of the proposed theses, the author refers to three types of city branding practices that visually manifest different ways of place uniqueness: the brand myth of the city, based (1) on folk crafts and cultural traditions, (2) on historical events, and (3) on the sacred meanings of nature. The symbolic nature of myth allows considering the city brand as one of the practices of visualizing narratives that construct urban reality through images of the city’s cultural memory. The visual media of the urban myth represent one of the modern ways of representing the narrative, which, using accessible forms, “packs” complex meanings of the city’s cultural memory into simple forms understandable for most people. Meanwhile, the mythological nature of the brand makes it a powerful determinant of structuring cultural meanings and therefore a factor in constructing urban reality. The author states that brand should be considered not only as a means of increasing the attractiveness of the place, but as a tool of understanding the city for citizens. In this regard, city branding is one of the directions of the symbolic policy of regional elites.

Keywords: city, values, meanings, city brand, cultural memory, memory narratives

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

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

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