We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
This publication is part of a family history which is dedicated to Todor Slavov Doychev who has fallen on the Dobrudzha Front during the First World War. The interest in this issue was arisen by a family photography and by the stories of some relatives. My personal motivation plays a leading role here – to seek out all the available information about this man in order to keep a promise I had given.
More...
The children’s art occupies an important place in the cultural space. Each child’s drawing reflects the culture of an epoch and therefore it can be investigated as a special document. Historical events, rituals, traditions, habits, clothing – everything is demonstrated in the children’s artwork. The children’s art language has specific features. It is generalized, spontaneous, expressive and schematic. All these characteristics give us reason to talk about children’s visual meta-language. In order to interpret children’s drawings correctly, we must know the principles of the meta-language. Each child’s drawing is a source of information about the tangible and spiritual culture of an epoch. Very often the children’s drawings possess some of the qualities of the works of art, created by mature artists. However, children’s art has its own principles, specific qualities and methods of creativity and therefore it is given a sovereign place in the world of fine arts.
More...
The city as a dynamic and multi-layered image of our immersive cultural and social environment, with all the flaws and problems of modern society, has the advantage to form and educate today. It is a truism that the referent environment of friendly circles largely dictates the behavior and tastes of the new generation, and this impact is difficult to be resisted by the family and institutions. And the circle of peers, thanks to its new, readily available technology and communication channels, has expanded monstrously, surpassing all limitations, including geographical and moral ones. The virtual Internet space and the new technologies have completely replaced the real space, schoolyard, street and park bench. Doesn’t the City as a continually growing, living organism reconcile in its dichotomous flesh the contradictions of past and future, of ugly and beautiful, of what we define as a historical and cultural heritage and art and what we condemn as subculture and kitsch?
More...
The paper gives an insight into the postbiological evolution and the posthuman world in the novel “The Abolition of Species” („Die Abschaffung der Arten“, 2008) by Dietmar Dath. The term postbiological evolution refers to a human-driven evolution that in the novel leads to a world inhabited by human descendants in the form of machines and animals. It analyzes the development of the opposed civilizations of robots (the so-called Keramikaner) and human-animal hybrids (the so-called Gente). The posthuman world they inhabit is a world in which Man is no longer at the center of world history and only lives on thanks to technogenic and genetic modifications. The aim of the paper is to explore the depiction of the altered relationship of the modern humans to their biological and technological environment by analyzing the influence of the theories of postbiological life and posthumanism on the novel.
More...
The study traces several different narratives – historical and fictional – related to the tragic affair between the Chinese concubine Yang Guifei and the Tang emperor Li Longji – a storyline which has been repeatedly interpreted in both the Chinese and the Japanese cultural environment. Chen Kaige’s “The Legend of the Demon Cat” interprets and re-reads the famous plot in a way which is completely different from the one in previous screen productions. The film is an adaptation of the contemporary novel “Samana Kukai” written by the Japanese writer Yoneyama Mineo. The director Chen, an emblematic figure of the Fifth Generation of Chinese cinema, constructs the fantastic, relying on the genre traditions in Chinese literature and Screen arts.The paper makes a first analytic attempt at “The Legend of the Demon Cat”, placing the research subject in the broad framework of Film and Culture Studies.
More...
The paper analyses Tai Ji Quan and Qigong, two of the traditional Chinese types of exercising, from four different perspectives: philosophical concept; history; training principles; health benefits. After an extensive review of literature, the study shows that despite of differences in origin and choreography Tai Ji Quan and Qigong share similar theoretical roots, their training methods are overlapping so are the health benefits relatedto their practice. The purpose of the paper is to serve as an accurate source of information for people involved in the practice of Tai Ji Quan and Qigong as well as to contribute to their overall popularization.
More...
Civil wars, political chaos, ecological revolutions, separatist agitations, ethnic conflicts and religious clashes form part of the larger body of what, following Ziauddin Sardar, we will define as “postnormal times.” The representation of borders in migration is a salient feature of African films and films on Africa, such as Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond, Half of a Yellow Sun, Tears of the Sun and Somewhere in Africa: The Cries of Humanity. These cinematic productions are rooted in the culture of migration, displacement, liberation and survival. The present article considers postcolonial African cinema and argues that filming migration, especially forced migration, is intricately related to the postnormal condition characteristic of African societies. Postnormality in that part of the world is largely produced by armed conflicts whose aftermath stages spectacular waves of human migration. The Boko Haram conflict, the Herdsmen crisis and the Niger Delta crisis of resource control in Nigeria and the Al Shabab terrorist group in Somalia and Eastern Africa are some of the instances ofviolent self-location that have necessitated discussions of refugeeism, migration and postnormality in Nigerian and African film studies. This article focuses on Biyi Bandele’s film Half of a Yellow Sun which is read in contextual juxtaposition with other films about crisis and migration. Sardar’s theory of postnormality is used in the analytical discussion of the film, which demonstrates that African cinema succeeds in representing the complexities, contradictions and chaos of voluntary and involuntary migration and provides an adequate response to the anti-oppressive reforms on that continent.
More...
The focus of this article is on the peculiar space that S.T. Coleridge constructs for his own genius in Chapter II and Chapter IX of Biographia Literaria. Specific attention is devoted to some rhetorical ploys that Coleridge uses to accommodate his own figure among paragons like William Shakespeare and William Wordsworth. The text then explores Coleridge’s attachment to and detachment from the figures of Friedrich Schelling and Jacob Böhme. In the conclusion, a statement is made on the intermundium between enthusiasm and metaphysical reasoning in which Coleridge’s genius is located.
More...
The article presents, analyzes and systematizes the nature and problems related to Alexander Bozhinov’s murals at D. A. Tsenov Academy of Economics, Svishtov. The relations between Alexander Bozhinov and his uncle – the donor Dimitar Tsenovich – are considered in order to clarify the creative process and the aesthetics of these works. The historical context and the artistic views of the artists are elucidated on by drawing a comparison between Nikolai Pavlov and Alexander Bozhinov; the murals are compared to what was achieved in the Bulgarian fine arts by that time – 1941. The idea is that the work of art created in times of war saves the spirit of the people after the war.
More...
The article analyzes the artistic features of the best film adaptations of several works by Ivan Vazov – the novel Under the Yoke and the novellas Characters and Outcasts. It also examines the dialogue between the literary original and the scripts, the cinematic means of expression and the literary techniques. The paper also discusses the director’s concepts and acting achievements in the respective film adaptations.
More...
The subject of this study is the professional competence of music teachers, as well as the complex relation between the musical competencies acquired in different musical disciplines during musical and pedagogical education on the one hand, and the specific manner of their complex functioning in music lessons on the other hand, considering the goals and tasks of this subject in general education. The aim of the study is to consider the necessary competencies of the music teacher for the accomplishment of practical learning outcomes, as well as to compare them with some aspects of the training in professional music pedagogy that is subject-oriented. An extensive database and regulations were surveyed, analysed, and then compared to the peculiarities of teaching as part of general education. In the course of this study, we came to the conclusion that the goal of the professionally studied music disciplines and the purpose of music education in Bulgarian schools are generally different. At school, the competencies of the teacher should not be adapted. They should function in a different way and with a different purpose. The current study proposes two models that would be effective for future teacher training. The first one suggests that, during the training of future teachers, integrativity should be intentionally demanded between the subjects studied. The second model considers the possibility of introducing elective music disciplines that would comply with the competencies set out in the training curriculum in music.
More...
In the era of highly developed digital technology there is a rapid production, distribution and consumption in the form of visual images. With the increasing volume of visual information there is a growing need to find new means of visualization in all spheres of human activity, including education. One of the effective methods of visualization is infographics. Modern pedagogical science, which studies different ways and methods of visualization in education, pays much attention to infographics. One of their varieties – the infographic – ‘geographical map’, is developing in pedagogical science. The use of such infographics was proposed for the first time in Fine Arts lessons in a vocational school. This article provides a method description of a specific example of creative learning work on the use of the infographic – ‘geographical map’. The conclusions in the article concern the description and commenting of positive educational results of the method of geographical infographic during the mastering of visualization methods by students.
More...
Poetry and painting were “the twin obsessions” of the American modernist E. E. Cummings. His engagement with more than one artistic practice makes his work suitable for a case study of polytextuality, which is the purpose of the present article. First, a brief theoretical introduction to polytextuality is offered. Then, four of Cummings’ poems are read against the background of their visual counterparts. Since the poem-picture pairs are treated as polytexts, the discussion focuses on the “intersemiotic transposition” involved in the process of transferring thematic and material data from one sign system to another.
More...
The current report takes into consideration the relationship between art and spirituality, as reflected in Joseph Beuys’s Aktionen (actions), focusing on the use of materials as vehicles of transport of energy and means of sculpting the social body, while transforming the human being into a creative one. Our attempt is to demonstrate, by analyzing the artist’s performative work, the iconography related to his actions; his declarations and talks; that the actionist artist surpasses the artistic and social dimensions of his work and, particularly, of the materials he uses towards a spiritual and ritual dimension, as mirrored in his actions, doubled by a deep understanding of spirituality as the foundation of his work.
More...
Teodora Hadzhidimitrova (1884–1963) was a painter, pedagogue, fashion designer, decorator, folklorist, local historian, the first female art teacher and municipal councillor, defender of women’s rights, writer, and founding member of the following societies: Ravnopravie (Equality), Rodno izkustvo (Native Art), the Society of the Sliven artists, and the Club of cultural figures in Sliven. She was the first compiler and publisher of a Bulgarian textbook on the history of clothing.
More...
In 2003, the prestigious Turner Prize for Contemporary Art of the Tate Britain Museum was awarded to the artist Grayson Perry for his painted ceramic vases. This award has been described by many institutions across Europe as a positive reappreciation of the ceramic material in the contemporary art world, and Grayson Perry has been seen as a precursor of the long-awaited ‘renaissance’ of ceramics. When compared to contemporary artworks executed in other materials, contemporary works using or entirely executed in ceramics show no thematic or expressive limitations conditioned by the specific qualities of the ceramic material. However, ceramics still has a very limited presence on the contemporary art stage. Historically layered cultural classification prejudices in society and the difficult specificity of the ceramic metalanguage are cited as the main reasons for the undervaluation of this material.
More...
This article addresses “Creativity after Computation” by looking into the concept of artificial imagination, namely the machine’s ability to produce images that challenge artmaking and surprise human beings with the aid of machine learning algorithms. What is at stake is not only art and creativity but also the tension between the determination of machines and the freedom of human beings. This opposition restages Kant’s third antinomy in the contemporary technological condition. By referring to the debate on the question of imagination in Kant, Heidegger, and Stiegler, the article suggests that imagination is always already artificial and that it is more productive to develop an organology of artificial imagination. It clarifies the notion of artificial imagination and offers an organological reading through a reinterpretation of Leibniz’s monadology, Kant’s sublime, and Schiller’s aesthetic education against the backdrop of recursive algorithms.
More...
Algorithms and automated learning systems have been successfully applied to produce images, pieces of music, or texts that are appealing to humans and that are often compared to artworks. Computational technologies are able to find surprising and original solutions–new patterns that humans cannot anticipate– but does this mean we ascribe to them the kind of creativity that is expressed by human artists? Even though AI can successfully detect humans’ preferences as well as select the objects that satisfy taste, can we ascribe to them the capacity of recognizing the intrinsic value of artworks? To answer these questions, I am first going to explain the kind of creativity that is expressed by contemporary predictive systems, then, in the second part of this paper, I will try to show the difference between the creativity of algorithms and the creativity of artists by expanding on Deleuze’s reflections.
More...
Contradicting the scenario full of images and the frantic pace of succession of information from the current consumer society and its technologies, since 2006 – when Tales Frey conceived the work “O Beijo” in partnership with the artist Cristine Ágape – he has created a series of actions guided by the minimum use of resources so that the main elements gain the maximum symbolic potential in each artistic expression originated. Still in contrast to the operating principle of the present time regarding an excess of information, it seeks to extend the time in activating simple actions, sometimes proposing insistent, repetitive gestures with clear objectives and, sometimes, presenting the body almost inert in a simple standby mode. In the book “Tempo e Memória”, by Katia Canton, there is an excerpt from a speech by the artist Bill Viola taken from an interview granted to Marcello Dantas in his documentary “Processing the Signal” (New York, 1989) where the artist says that the world pushes us to make “things shorter and shorter”, suggesting “more information in less time”. Based on this notion, Bill Viola proposes to do just the opposite: “to show less and less information in more time”. Tales Frey strongly identifies with this notion of time dilation as a tactic to induce the audience to an acute reflection stimulated by the few proposed signs. As questions and possible conclusions emerge on the part of the audience, with the time of action dragged out, an insistent image starts to impel new forms of interpretation about it and, thus, the meanings vary, are confirmed and/or changed and contradict. Although Tales Frey does not intend to place his work of live performance in a specific category, he understands it in part as a plastic art in movement and even as a kind of kinetic sculpture, since he uses the human body as a support to create reliefs, define shapes and spaces, providing three-dimensionality to each work produced, often denying the relations with the classic frontality of the scenic arts and with the inert matter of the visual arts. As opposed to the idea of frantic movement, he names most of his works as choreographies that are not necessarily submissive to the imperative of kinetics. Thinking more broadly about his artistic practice, Frey emphasizes that performance is the most recurrent means of expression in his propositions, but he is very committed to establishing the notion of performativity in different means, for example, using video, photography, the object, and the installation, among others. Although he uses nomenclatures that surround a certain artistic expression, he is aware of a post-media condition marked by the crossing of languages in current practices and, in this sense, each expression proposed by him is always integrated with several others, without walls, without categorical and orthodox restrictions.
More...
Brand, branding and rebranding are phenomena of today. Brand and brand management are talked about in many contexts today, one of which is the strength and power of the brand. We are currently dealing with a number of branding and especially rebranding campaigns across the entire spectrum of products and services. What does brand, branding and rebranding bring and what does a long-term strategy in the field of rebranding look like? These are the basic questions we want to answer in our study. We chose the Czech brand Mattoni from Mattoni 1873. The goal is to show what a strategic approach to rebranding should look like and what brand and identity elements are part of it. At the same time, we want to point out that rebranding is not just a change to or updating of the logo, but that it is a conceptual and sophisticated system of logical steps that are not static, but reflect development trends. We draw information from generally available secondary data, as well as information provided by the company Mattoni 1873. The complexity, strategicness, long-term and precision of the rebranding of the Mattoni brand is an example and at the same time an inspiration for the correct grasp of the rebranding as a whole.
More...
