WHAT DOES THE CITY SAY? SEMIOTIC AND AXIOTIC READING OF URBAN SPACES
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2018-3-11-26
Cultural / culturologic studies (referred in the text as “culturology”) that being developed in Poland and Eastern Europe since 1970s, has the ambition of showing the phenomena or processes hidden behind a directly visible reality – tying them to the symbolic and axiological spheres. However, nowadays increasingly often the discourse based on values, norms, rules and meanings is enriched with issues related to ownership structures, social distinctions and relations of power. The author of the article tries to show this dialectic of various ontological orders on the example of urban studies. In functioning of city infrastructure, the basic role undoubtedly is played by “utilitarian values”. But while looking at the city as a work (something that remains in constant creation), artistic, aesthetic and ethical values seem to be the most important. The first two types (which include, inter alia, modernity, originality, beauty, order, context, chaos, ugliness, devastation), are present both in the process of shaping the urban space itself and in the formation of the styles of life occurring in it – including both everyday practices and bottom-up, spontaneous creative acts. Some of values are individual (happiness, freedom, religiousness anonymity, responsibility, care for the public good), and some are collective (community, equality, democracy, security, multiculturalism, local identity, living standards, nature, ecology). The diverse character of the social fabric of a city means clashing together various interest groups organized not only around the pursuit of power and profit but also convictions, ideologies, beliefs, and tastes. How proves Fereński, urban areas should, therefore, be seen/read as spaces of axiological disputes, strongly related to politics and economic determinants.
Keywords: culturology, culture, visual culture, urban space, city, style of life, values, axiology, economy, politics
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Issue: 3, 2018
Series of issue: Issue 3
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 11 — 26
Downloads: 975