Sacred Art, a Core Value in the Cultural-Artistic Rethinking and Visual Practice

Author(s): Georgeta Merişor Dominte,Marina Vraciu,Bogdan Cojocea,Stelian Onica / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

In a postmodern world which hosts a mix of cultural values, Sacred Art brings into focus the sublimation of the form of representation. This makes Sacred Art a core value in the cultural-artistic rethinking and in the visual practice. On the other hand, in its relationship to society, the moral component supported by Sacred Art in Christianity represents a core value which offers cultural and artistic rethinking and visual practice a chance for spiritual revigoration. For over two decades, the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” in Iaşi has shaped and developed artistic and heritage preservation skills to generations of students educated to protect the Chruch Heritage and revive Sacred Art. The study of art history involeved in this process brings in signs of the sacred from around the world which show a constancy in their choice of location, shape and their function of signalling the presence of the sacred, which relies on their aesthetic component. Sacred Art has empowered the core human need of the sacred as related to certain locations in the world and to the very places where it is taught and practiced. This paper presents some of the results – in their theoretical and applied aspects – with reference to iconographic art and its weight in the professional training of those who can continue to create, protect and remake (by conservation and restauration) mostly heritage items. Some activities, forms of artistic expression and implications to support preservation of objects as accomplished by students and graduates of our division have been chosen to illustrate this aspect. The purpose of the work is to bring into discussion the role and place of sacred art in today’s society, where it rests a moral and a cultural landmark.

Czy muzyka przynależy do świata przedstawionego? Analiza z perspektywy Ingardenowskiej

Author(s): Wojciech Sikora / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

„Nie możesz mnie zniszczyć, jestem źródłem wszelkiego życia”. Mit gnostycki w serii Legacy of Kain

Author(s): Krzysztof Brenskott / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Niediegetyczna diegeza i emersyjna imersja – analiza gier meta na wybranych przykładach

Author(s): Paweł Gąska / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Miasteczko Greenvale. Strategie imersyjne i emersyjne w grze Deadly Premonition

Author(s): Jakub Musioł / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

„Dla ciebie wyglądają jak potwory?”. O naturze świata przedstawionego gry Silent Hill w fanowskich perspektywach interpretacyjnych

Author(s): Katarzyna Marak / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

„Zawsze jest latarnia, zawsze jest mężczyzna, zawsze jest miasto”. BioShock: Infinite i pytanie o mowę (anty)nienawiści

Author(s): Sven Dwulecki / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Gra komputerowa BioShock jako przykład chylącej się ku upadkowi utopii

Author(s): Celina Strzelecka / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Ludzkość w sidłach międzynarodowych korporacji. Motyw kradzieży snów i psychomanipulacji w grach The Longest Journey i Dreamfall Ragnara Tørnquista

Author(s): Katarzyna Cupała / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Filozofia i estetyka wojny w świecie gier z serii Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Author(s): Łukasz Czajka / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Narzędzia do prowadzenia narracji awatara w grze MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic

Author(s): Miłosz Markocki / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Audiowizualne widma Wschodu, filmowe cienie Rosji. Recenzja książki Anny Estery Mrozewicz pt. "Beyond Eastern Noir: Reimaging Russia and Eastern Europe in Nordic Cinemas".

Author(s): Jakub Sebastian Konefał / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

“We understand each other, my friend”. The freak show and Victorian medicine in "The Elephant Man".

Author(s): Małgorzata Bugaj / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

A large part of David Lynch’s oeuvre centres around corporeal anxieties and grotesque, divergent bodies drawing attention to their own biological nature. One such example is the 1980 feature The Elephant Man, focusing on John Merrick, a freak show performer severely afflicted with a disfiguring disease. The film juxtaposes key characters in the film and moves between their different perspectives: that of Merrick, a freak show performer; Doctor Treves, a man of science; Bytes, an entertainer; and finally, a number of peripheral observers from both the high and low classes of Victorian society. The titular Elephant Man’s disfigured body becomes the object of spectacle both in a freak show and in a medical lecture theatre. This paper compares scenes presenting Merrick’s body as an exhibit and argues that Lynch draws parallels between the domain of sensational entertainment (Merrick as a carnival monster) and scientific analysis (Merrick as a medical specimen). In this way, the film highlights the similarities between the perception of the body in those two seemingly incongruous discourses. I suggest that the exhibition of a monstrous body in The Elephant Man, both in the context of a sideshow and Victorian medical lecture, are consciously theatrical.

Między sacrum „starym” a „nowym” w przestrzeni miejskiej Wrocławia — kościół a współczesna galeria handlowa

Author(s): Karolina Tomczak / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article constitutes an attempt at redefining the sacral space and architecture in the ever-changing cultural and historical context, providing a complex juxtaposition of the historical and postmodern sacrum which constitutes an urban narrative, on the example of the developing urban structure of Wrocław. The broad perspective, apart from only looking at the issue through the prism of history and theory of art, encompasses also the sociological, aesthetic and cultural aspects. The comparison between the medieval St. Adalbert’s Church and the Dominican Gallery designed by Studio EL serves to examine the transformation of the urban sacrum on the basis of selected aspects with regard to the two buildings: the traditional and modern understanding of sacrality and the sacral space, the renewal of the hierarchy of the urban space along the cosmic axis, the historical alternation of the worship of the martyr and celebrity inscribed into the walls of the building and the place of worship of the Absolute as well as the sphere of consumption, and, lastly, the formal value of historical and contemporary sacral architecture. The canonical features of a medieval church of the exterior of the Dominican Gallery are then confronted with the postmodernist architecture of the interior designed by Andrzej Lach. In this last case the contextualism and functionalism of the commercial lay temple of consumption are understood as an attempt at a reconciliation with the classical sacral architecture. Apart from enumerating the significant differences, the article suggests the existence of a place of transgression of the sacred and the profane, a crack in the urban space which reveals the ambivalence of the sacred. Moreover, the author posits that the value of the discussed architecture, encompassing the various meanings of a sacred space, serves as a canvas for the human agent who creates the urban narrative.

Portret pary małżonków (Arnolfinich?) Jana van Eycka — pomiędzy naukową a artystyczną reinterpretacją

Author(s): Aleksandra Giełdoń-Paszek / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The 1434 Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck is a model example of reinterpretations made by scholars both under the influence of archival discoveries, which shed a new light on the scene painted by Van Eyck, as well as contemporary methodological strategies, which call into question the hitherto established interpretation. At times, this practice brings more serious consequences, which question the established model of art which the work of art in question is supposed to represent. The article engages with the most important interpretative strategies — from the classical conception of Erwin Panofsky to Lorne Campbell’s ideas — while discussing yet another aspect of reinterpretation, which allows artists to create their own works of visual art. Van Eyck’s painting has become such a pretext for creating new narratives across a variety of media, such as installation (Lynn Hershman), painting (David Hockney), and conceptual works. The author of the article points to the reflexivity of those transformations — through creative reinterpretation, we give historical pieces of art meanings they have never possessed before.

Imaginarium Picassa — kobiety w jego życiu i twórczości

Author(s): Tadeusz Rus / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article considers the women who accompanied Picasso both in his personal as well as artistic life. There were only a few of them, but their participation was significant enough to warrant them places of prominence in the history of art. They were the catalysts in the evolutions of Picasso’s style, while one of them, Dora Maar, had a significant influence on the form and content of Guernica, a seminal work by the great painter. The article attempts also to describe the character of the famous Spaniard. Moreover, the initial as well as closing remarks contain discussions concerning the general issues of art, such as interpretation, symbol, inspiration, cycle and content.

Cytat w muzyce. Odkrywanie znaczeń jako interpretacja

Author(s): Bogumiła Mika / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The following article discusses the notion of quotation in music and its communicative qualities, which affect the interpretation of the art of the sound. In music, quotation is defined as a sound structure borrowed from another, existing piece, quoted exactly or almost exactly. It constitutes one of the many ways to incorporate existing material, but it is at the same time extremely specific. It is utilized by composers for particular expressions and meanings it evokes. The composer, counting on the listeners to recognize the quotation and understand the associations connected with the type of music used in the piece, manipulates also the interpretation of the following parts of the piece. A quotation is thus intentional — it functions properly only when the listener is actively directed towards it. The author utilizes theory of communication (literary studies), linguistic, cultural and musical competence as well as styles of reception (theorized by literature and music theory). Moreover, she points to the connotations of a musical quotation, situating the phenomenon within the sphere of intertextuality.

Pomiędzy kreacją a interpretacją — środowiska dźwiękowe filmów fabularnych i gier wideo o tematyce historycznej

Author(s): Zenon Mojżysz / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Music and sound design are extremely significant elements for historical feature films and video games. The following article explains, on the basis of selected examples, what type of music is used in such productions. As the author suggests, while the soundscapes in such productions predominantly reflect the historical reality, authentic music from the given epoch does not feature to a significant degree. Rather, the score composers produce creative interpretations of selected historical elements. As a result, such scores are mostly ahistorical, but at the same time they underscore the dramatic developments of the plot as well as the general mood of the story. Such musical interpretation on the part of the score composer, both of the work itself as well as the presented historical reality, gives the entire work of fiction a unique character and meaning.

Zaburzona tożsamość — konteksty czytania/konkretyzowania wizerunku reklamowego

Author(s): Witold Jacyków / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article considers the transformations in the reception, or reinterpretation of the personas of famous celebrities who use their likeness for advertising on plastic bags, banners or t-shirts when it comes to their continuous use and eventual disposal. People selling their faces for the purposes of advertising have no control over their objectification and transformation of their likenesses into visual trash. The sight of the face of a popular, well-liked actress on a used-up shopping bag full of trash, deformed and grotesque, makes us reflect on the relative value of the reproduction of one’s likeness understood as a personal right worthy of respect. The author suggests that this phenomenon symbolizes the disturbed identity which emerges as a result of commercialism and the feeling of one’s uniqueness, presenting a set of photographs illustrating this phenomenon as an example.

Multiversum. Światy równoległe

Author(s): Agnieszka Jaworska / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

There exists a quantum hypothesis of parallel universes, which can resemble our world, or be completely different from it; which can be ruled by the same laws of physics, but not necessarily. Those worlds can contain our parallel, alternative lives in all their permutations. This conception comprises endless possibilities and solutions, but first and foremost can serve as a space for creative interpretation. The photographical project entitled Multiversum is an authorial vision of one of such alternative worlds. The author focuses on landscape, on the visual representations of places from that parallel universe. While the substance of that world is comprised of objects and matter coming from our reality, the pictures are governed by their own rules and acquire new identities thanks to the break in the spatial integrity. A key aspect is the multidimensionality of the picture achieved thanks to the use of properly angled mirror surfaces. Thanks to that, the picture is fluid and ambiguous, made stable thanks to its containment in the frame of the photograph.