Навык утопического взгляда:на материале авторских фотографий последних десятилетий социализма

Социологическое обозрение. 2015. Т. 14. № 2. С. 41–69.

Kaspe I. M.

The article examines the “utopian reception”, that is occurrence and reproduction of common understanding of the utopian. Attention is primarily paid to the visual experience -- the “utopian vision”, which means here a special social skill of perception and interpretation of space as being assigned the status of utopian. Thus certain inertia of vision encourages the observer to link visual materials produced in the soviet period to the media construct of “soviet utopia”. Here two patterns of spatial description are especially popular: “totalitarian place” and “queer place”. The article focuses on both patterns of  “utopian vision” in detail: the first one implies intensive rationalization and semiotization of space, while the second -- semantic crash and affectivity; within the former space is characterized by the metaphor of text, while in the latter – by metaphors of night dream or memory. The author refers to the semiotic and at the same time spatial analysis of the classic utopia within the framework offered in 1973  by Louis Marin and demonstrates that space perceived by the “utopian view” ceases being social: the reverse side of imaginary construction of perfect society is, paradoxically, blocking of any intersubjective relationships

Keywords: утопия, городское пространство, utopia, urban space, utopian reception, утопическая рецепция

Publication based on the results of: Urban imagery in the systems of communication (from XV to XXI century) (2015)