Helen Petrovsky is head of the Department of Aesthetics at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She is currently employed by Université Sorbonne Nouvelle. Her major fields of interest are contemporary philosophy, visual studies, North American literature and culture. She has authored 10 books, including "Vozmushchenie znaka: Kul’tura protiv transtsendentsii" [Disturbance of the Sign: Culture against Transcendence] (Moscow, 2019, 2022) and "Zhan-Liuc Nansi. Lektsii o Kante (po konspektam Eleny Petrovskoi)" [Jean-Luc Nancy. Lectures on Kant (Based on Notes Taken by Helen Petrovsky)] (Moscow, 2023). Since 2002 she has been editor-in-chief of the theoretical and philosophical journal "Sinii divan". Address: Moscow, Moscow, Russia
Page 456. HELEN PETROVSKY 24 LOST IN TIME Boris Mikhailov and His Study of the Soviet In 1928 the... more Page 456. HELEN PETROVSKY 24 LOST IN TIME Boris Mikhailov and His Study of the Soviet In 1928 the pages of Novyi lef (New lef [Levyi Front Iskusstv or Left Front of the Arts]) included a lively discussion on the theory of photography. ...
The article focuses on the different strategies of representing
violence that are found in the c... more The article focuses on the different strategies of representing
violence that are found in the contemporary visual arts. Although violence itself is thematized and elicits neither a sense of horror nor condemnation on the part of the viewer, the most sensitive artists cannot remain indifferent to its place and role in human interaction. Studies of this kind include the work of the Canadian photographer J. Wall created in the wake of the War in Afghanistan (1992) and two cinematographic statements, namely, G. Van Sant’s film “Elephant” (2003) and “Dau” (2019), a multimedia project by the Russian filmmaker I. Khrzhanovsky. By means of photography Wall creates an
allegory which suggests that there is no way the viewer can understand (i.e., apprehend, experience) war. The viewer is thus fully excluded from the event in question and can establish a relation to war only through this rupture. The American filmmaker G. Van Sant examines the events surrounding the Columbine High School massacre. His approach is characterized by a markedly depsychologized narration, an emptying out of time and even of
the content of the narrated events. In fact, the “Elephant” offers the viewer a gaze that he or she is basically incapable of adopting, be it the mechanical eye of the meandering camera or the mechanics of violence itself. Finally, the project “Dau”, consisting of a series of films, conducts an unprecedented anthropological experiment: nonprofessional actors-volunteers, coexisting on the film set, display violence in their everyday communication as a mode of their own socialization related to the Soviet and post-Soviet experience.
Inscribed on the surface of their bodies, violence keeps recurring and
Khrzhanovsky provokes its unintentional manifestation. What unites the three examples is the creation of such conditions of perception, where violence appears as a senseless act of trampling over life itself without any reasonable ground whatsoever.
This article examines a changing global reality that manifests itself in new forms of social acti... more This article examines a changing global reality that manifests itself in new forms of social activism. The struggle of the multitude challenges political representation and contemporary art seems to corroborate this observation. Becoming a form of social intervention, it turns into an active force and leaves behind the need to double action with representation, representational practices being the hallmark of classical art. A new theory of the image would have to incorporate this dynamic: it would have to treat and develop the basic categories of action and relation. There are few philosophies of the act, and the existing semiotic models mostly deal with dual structures (signifier/signified; sign/meaning; image/referent, and so on). It is necessary to sketch out a dynamic theory of the image that would: (1) reveal the limitations of the concept of representation; (2) conceive of the image as a set of multiple changing relations. The image would thus be seen as a necessary part of th...
The present article considers the avant-garde as experience, and primarily as the experience of p... more The present article considers the avant-garde as experience, and primarily as the experience of perceiving avant-garde art in terms of interruption, estrangement, and arrest. The focus is on the “internal”—utopian—time of the avant-garde, or the dimension of the social imagination. This is directly related to Walter Benjamin’s concept of history, and his idea of the interruption of time (and thinking). The article analyzes the connection between the continuing interest in the avant-garde and the problem of representing utopia. Avant-garde art is considered as a “sign of history” according to Kant: it takes on the function of an index in that it delineates space for new social relations. Avant-garde art is a form of mapping out a new community, which precedes any institutionalization. Such an intrusion of the “invisible” into avant-garde imagery is explored with the example of Jean-Luc Marion’s reflections on Rothko and Marie-José Mondzain’s conception of the icon as the forerunner of modern abstract art
Один из основных тезисов исследования – утверждение о том, что речь, отголоски которой опознаются... more Один из основных тезисов исследования – утверждение о том, что речь, отголоски которой опознаются как отдельные высказывания в ходе коллективных выступлений, является эффектом действия массы, заявившей о себе как самостоятельная сила еще в XIX веке. В связи с этим уместно вспомнить два образа массы, формирующиеся в философии Нового времени, а именно толпу у Т. Гоббса и массу как динамику материальных сил у Б. Спинозы. Употребляя, по сути, один и тот же термин (multitude, multitudo), философы толкуют его совершенно по-разному. Именно материалистическое и физикалистское понимание массы как совокупного действия множественных сил и закрепляется за социальными движениями в современном мире. И именно поэтому радикальная философия Спинозы, ориентированная на познание действительных причин явлений, и становится сегодня столь востребованной и актуальной. Можно сказать, что это философия, отдающая приоритет взаимодействиям тел или, по-другому, отношениям. В такой перспективе и следует рассмат...
В статье ставится принципиальный по своему характеру вопрос: можно ли концептуализировать – с пом... more В статье ставится принципиальный по своему характеру вопрос: можно ли концептуализировать – с помощью фотографии – иное время по сравнению c историческим? Чтобы ответить на него, автор привлекает идею «формул пафоса» Аби Варбурга, разработанную им на основе его исследований искусства итальянского Возрождения и наглядно представленную в «Атласе Мнемозины», подборке визуальных образов из разных эпох и культур, изначально имевшей вид 63 заполненных репродукциями панелей. Еще одна концептуальная подпорка – это знаменитая библиотека ученого, организация которой позволяет судить о его неиерархическом и междисциплинарном взгляде на исторический материал. Если говорить обобщенно, «формулы пафоса» – это повторяющиеся элементы изображения, которыми передается бурное движение или, согласно Варбургу, «наполненные страстью жесты». Такие элементы сходны в одном – в выражении интенсивности переживания, притом что содержание страстей может быть и прямо противоположным (например, радость и страх). Е...
This chapter discusses three basic intellectual tendencies that can be discerned in contemporary ... more This chapter discusses three basic intellectual tendencies that can be discerned in contemporary Russian thought regarding its approach to art. The first is exemplified in the original philosophical method developed by Valery Podoroga, namely, his analytical anthropology of literature and visual culture. It is based on a fresh reading of the Russian formalists, as well as of phenomenology. The second trend has to do with the understanding of art as a phenomenon of mass societies. This approach lays primary emphasis on collective affectivity and can be associated with the work of Oleg Aronson and Helen Petrovsky. The same perspective is shared by younger scholars such as Alexandra Volodina and Denis Larionov. Finally, the third tendency focuses on the different aspects of the philosophy of culture. It is represented by the writings of Alexander Dobrokhotov, Vladimir Malyavin, and the composer Vladimir Martynov, to name but a few. Here art is viewed as the object of philosophical reflection, although ways of constructing the object in question may significantly vary.
When Viktor Yanukovych, then president of Ukraine, went back on his own decision to join the Euro... more When Viktor Yanukovych, then president of Ukraine, went back on his own decision to join the EuropeanUnion inNovember 2013, no one expected that it would bring aboutmassive transformative protests. This was the beginning of a revolution that led, among other things, to his ousting from power. Indeed, the Ukrainian public was taken unawares by this move. For quite a while the local media had been giving favorable accounts of the prospects of becoming part of integrated Europe. Yanukovych’s political maneuvering, his sudden interest in a Russian loan bailout and refusal to sign the Association Agreement—all this immediately triggered a distinct response. Already on November 21 angered people filled Independence Square in the center of Kiev, demanding a closer integrationwith the EuropeanUnion. But it was not until November 30, when a group of students were violently attacked by riot police, that a storm of indignation seemed to sweep the entire nation. People appeared day and night on Independence Square, despite the freezing temperature, steadily growing in numbers. By the end of the first week of December an estimated 1million protesters filled the central square. This was the beginning of Euromaidan. If we take a closer look at this compound noun, we will discover a direct reference to the circumstances of time and place. Time here is expressed in the demand for European
Cet ouvrage est l'aboutissement d'un dialogue franco-russe en philosophie, qui a été déve... more Cet ouvrage est l'aboutissement d'un dialogue franco-russe en philosophie, qui a été développé pendant plusieurs années (2010-2015) sous la direction de Maryse Dennes dans le cadre d'un programme de recherche de la MSHA et à travers des séminaires et des colloques organisés à Bordeaux, Paris, Moscou, Jérusalem, et Cerisy. La participation assidue de François Laruelle à toutes ces manifestations scientifiques a conduit les chercheurs russes et français engagés dans ce dialogue à faire de son œuvre la pierre angulaire de leurs réflexions communes. L'ouvrage permet de présenter un panorama de la philosophie russe actuelle en y repérant les auteurs, les thèmes ou les orientations qui la rendent particulièrement apte à recevoir la pensée laruellienne. La non-philosophie vs Quantique se trouve présentée, par François Laruelle et ses plus proches collaboratrices, dans la dernière étape de son développement : à partir de l'epistemologie générique, elle s'ouvre sur la messianité et la musique, et offre ainsi un accès privilégié à la philosophie russe, en y trouvant d'étonnantes résonnances et de nouvelles voies d'interprétation
The Editorial Team of the Topos Journal addressed a range of foreign scholars with an inquiry to ... more The Editorial Team of the Topos Journal addressed a range of foreign scholars with an inquiry to reply to the questions concerning the new protest movement in Belarus. We thank everyone, who responded to our invitation. In this rubric we publish the received reactions. Some of them are outlined as interviews, other are written in the format of mini essays, reviewing separate issues from the list proposed by the Editorial Team.
The article is dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Russian philosopher Valery Podoroga (19... more The article is dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Russian philosopher Valery Podoroga (1946–2020). Although his rich legacy is still awaiting to be read in a careful and thoughtful manner, even now it is possible to discern those nodal points that allow us to conduct an ongoing dialogue with Podoroga. Among them is a philosophical approach that has been named “analytical anthropology”. One of its key elements is a kind of vindication of the sensible dimension in philosophy, which in Podoroga takes the form of his marked interest in the inner logic of a work defined by the play of psychomimetic forces. What is at stake is an encounter with the work on the corporeal level, when the reader is gripped by its energy, and it is the task of the analytical anthropologist to reconstruct the latter’s unique pattern in the work. However, this position seems to carry an inherent tension: although observation is defined as non-participant (a version of phenomenological reduction), the ob...
Page 456. HELEN PETROVSKY 24 LOST IN TIME Boris Mikhailov and His Study of the Soviet In 1928 the... more Page 456. HELEN PETROVSKY 24 LOST IN TIME Boris Mikhailov and His Study of the Soviet In 1928 the pages of Novyi lef (New lef [Levyi Front Iskusstv or Left Front of the Arts]) included a lively discussion on the theory of photography. ...
The article focuses on the different strategies of representing
violence that are found in the c... more The article focuses on the different strategies of representing
violence that are found in the contemporary visual arts. Although violence itself is thematized and elicits neither a sense of horror nor condemnation on the part of the viewer, the most sensitive artists cannot remain indifferent to its place and role in human interaction. Studies of this kind include the work of the Canadian photographer J. Wall created in the wake of the War in Afghanistan (1992) and two cinematographic statements, namely, G. Van Sant’s film “Elephant” (2003) and “Dau” (2019), a multimedia project by the Russian filmmaker I. Khrzhanovsky. By means of photography Wall creates an
allegory which suggests that there is no way the viewer can understand (i.e., apprehend, experience) war. The viewer is thus fully excluded from the event in question and can establish a relation to war only through this rupture. The American filmmaker G. Van Sant examines the events surrounding the Columbine High School massacre. His approach is characterized by a markedly depsychologized narration, an emptying out of time and even of
the content of the narrated events. In fact, the “Elephant” offers the viewer a gaze that he or she is basically incapable of adopting, be it the mechanical eye of the meandering camera or the mechanics of violence itself. Finally, the project “Dau”, consisting of a series of films, conducts an unprecedented anthropological experiment: nonprofessional actors-volunteers, coexisting on the film set, display violence in their everyday communication as a mode of their own socialization related to the Soviet and post-Soviet experience.
Inscribed on the surface of their bodies, violence keeps recurring and
Khrzhanovsky provokes its unintentional manifestation. What unites the three examples is the creation of such conditions of perception, where violence appears as a senseless act of trampling over life itself without any reasonable ground whatsoever.
This article examines a changing global reality that manifests itself in new forms of social acti... more This article examines a changing global reality that manifests itself in new forms of social activism. The struggle of the multitude challenges political representation and contemporary art seems to corroborate this observation. Becoming a form of social intervention, it turns into an active force and leaves behind the need to double action with representation, representational practices being the hallmark of classical art. A new theory of the image would have to incorporate this dynamic: it would have to treat and develop the basic categories of action and relation. There are few philosophies of the act, and the existing semiotic models mostly deal with dual structures (signifier/signified; sign/meaning; image/referent, and so on). It is necessary to sketch out a dynamic theory of the image that would: (1) reveal the limitations of the concept of representation; (2) conceive of the image as a set of multiple changing relations. The image would thus be seen as a necessary part of th...
The present article considers the avant-garde as experience, and primarily as the experience of p... more The present article considers the avant-garde as experience, and primarily as the experience of perceiving avant-garde art in terms of interruption, estrangement, and arrest. The focus is on the “internal”—utopian—time of the avant-garde, or the dimension of the social imagination. This is directly related to Walter Benjamin’s concept of history, and his idea of the interruption of time (and thinking). The article analyzes the connection between the continuing interest in the avant-garde and the problem of representing utopia. Avant-garde art is considered as a “sign of history” according to Kant: it takes on the function of an index in that it delineates space for new social relations. Avant-garde art is a form of mapping out a new community, which precedes any institutionalization. Such an intrusion of the “invisible” into avant-garde imagery is explored with the example of Jean-Luc Marion’s reflections on Rothko and Marie-José Mondzain’s conception of the icon as the forerunner of modern abstract art
Один из основных тезисов исследования – утверждение о том, что речь, отголоски которой опознаются... more Один из основных тезисов исследования – утверждение о том, что речь, отголоски которой опознаются как отдельные высказывания в ходе коллективных выступлений, является эффектом действия массы, заявившей о себе как самостоятельная сила еще в XIX веке. В связи с этим уместно вспомнить два образа массы, формирующиеся в философии Нового времени, а именно толпу у Т. Гоббса и массу как динамику материальных сил у Б. Спинозы. Употребляя, по сути, один и тот же термин (multitude, multitudo), философы толкуют его совершенно по-разному. Именно материалистическое и физикалистское понимание массы как совокупного действия множественных сил и закрепляется за социальными движениями в современном мире. И именно поэтому радикальная философия Спинозы, ориентированная на познание действительных причин явлений, и становится сегодня столь востребованной и актуальной. Можно сказать, что это философия, отдающая приоритет взаимодействиям тел или, по-другому, отношениям. В такой перспективе и следует рассмат...
В статье ставится принципиальный по своему характеру вопрос: можно ли концептуализировать – с пом... more В статье ставится принципиальный по своему характеру вопрос: можно ли концептуализировать – с помощью фотографии – иное время по сравнению c историческим? Чтобы ответить на него, автор привлекает идею «формул пафоса» Аби Варбурга, разработанную им на основе его исследований искусства итальянского Возрождения и наглядно представленную в «Атласе Мнемозины», подборке визуальных образов из разных эпох и культур, изначально имевшей вид 63 заполненных репродукциями панелей. Еще одна концептуальная подпорка – это знаменитая библиотека ученого, организация которой позволяет судить о его неиерархическом и междисциплинарном взгляде на исторический материал. Если говорить обобщенно, «формулы пафоса» – это повторяющиеся элементы изображения, которыми передается бурное движение или, согласно Варбургу, «наполненные страстью жесты». Такие элементы сходны в одном – в выражении интенсивности переживания, притом что содержание страстей может быть и прямо противоположным (например, радость и страх). Е...
This chapter discusses three basic intellectual tendencies that can be discerned in contemporary ... more This chapter discusses three basic intellectual tendencies that can be discerned in contemporary Russian thought regarding its approach to art. The first is exemplified in the original philosophical method developed by Valery Podoroga, namely, his analytical anthropology of literature and visual culture. It is based on a fresh reading of the Russian formalists, as well as of phenomenology. The second trend has to do with the understanding of art as a phenomenon of mass societies. This approach lays primary emphasis on collective affectivity and can be associated with the work of Oleg Aronson and Helen Petrovsky. The same perspective is shared by younger scholars such as Alexandra Volodina and Denis Larionov. Finally, the third tendency focuses on the different aspects of the philosophy of culture. It is represented by the writings of Alexander Dobrokhotov, Vladimir Malyavin, and the composer Vladimir Martynov, to name but a few. Here art is viewed as the object of philosophical reflection, although ways of constructing the object in question may significantly vary.
When Viktor Yanukovych, then president of Ukraine, went back on his own decision to join the Euro... more When Viktor Yanukovych, then president of Ukraine, went back on his own decision to join the EuropeanUnion inNovember 2013, no one expected that it would bring aboutmassive transformative protests. This was the beginning of a revolution that led, among other things, to his ousting from power. Indeed, the Ukrainian public was taken unawares by this move. For quite a while the local media had been giving favorable accounts of the prospects of becoming part of integrated Europe. Yanukovych’s political maneuvering, his sudden interest in a Russian loan bailout and refusal to sign the Association Agreement—all this immediately triggered a distinct response. Already on November 21 angered people filled Independence Square in the center of Kiev, demanding a closer integrationwith the EuropeanUnion. But it was not until November 30, when a group of students were violently attacked by riot police, that a storm of indignation seemed to sweep the entire nation. People appeared day and night on Independence Square, despite the freezing temperature, steadily growing in numbers. By the end of the first week of December an estimated 1million protesters filled the central square. This was the beginning of Euromaidan. If we take a closer look at this compound noun, we will discover a direct reference to the circumstances of time and place. Time here is expressed in the demand for European
Cet ouvrage est l'aboutissement d'un dialogue franco-russe en philosophie, qui a été déve... more Cet ouvrage est l'aboutissement d'un dialogue franco-russe en philosophie, qui a été développé pendant plusieurs années (2010-2015) sous la direction de Maryse Dennes dans le cadre d'un programme de recherche de la MSHA et à travers des séminaires et des colloques organisés à Bordeaux, Paris, Moscou, Jérusalem, et Cerisy. La participation assidue de François Laruelle à toutes ces manifestations scientifiques a conduit les chercheurs russes et français engagés dans ce dialogue à faire de son œuvre la pierre angulaire de leurs réflexions communes. L'ouvrage permet de présenter un panorama de la philosophie russe actuelle en y repérant les auteurs, les thèmes ou les orientations qui la rendent particulièrement apte à recevoir la pensée laruellienne. La non-philosophie vs Quantique se trouve présentée, par François Laruelle et ses plus proches collaboratrices, dans la dernière étape de son développement : à partir de l'epistemologie générique, elle s'ouvre sur la messianité et la musique, et offre ainsi un accès privilégié à la philosophie russe, en y trouvant d'étonnantes résonnances et de nouvelles voies d'interprétation
The Editorial Team of the Topos Journal addressed a range of foreign scholars with an inquiry to ... more The Editorial Team of the Topos Journal addressed a range of foreign scholars with an inquiry to reply to the questions concerning the new protest movement in Belarus. We thank everyone, who responded to our invitation. In this rubric we publish the received reactions. Some of them are outlined as interviews, other are written in the format of mini essays, reviewing separate issues from the list proposed by the Editorial Team.
The article is dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Russian philosopher Valery Podoroga (19... more The article is dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Russian philosopher Valery Podoroga (1946–2020). Although his rich legacy is still awaiting to be read in a careful and thoughtful manner, even now it is possible to discern those nodal points that allow us to conduct an ongoing dialogue with Podoroga. Among them is a philosophical approach that has been named “analytical anthropology”. One of its key elements is a kind of vindication of the sensible dimension in philosophy, which in Podoroga takes the form of his marked interest in the inner logic of a work defined by the play of psychomimetic forces. What is at stake is an encounter with the work on the corporeal level, when the reader is gripped by its energy, and it is the task of the analytical anthropologist to reconstruct the latter’s unique pattern in the work. However, this position seems to carry an inherent tension: although observation is defined as non-participant (a version of phenomenological reduction), the ob...
Las comunidades anónimas es una recopilación de artículos publicados por las autora en distintos ... more Las comunidades anónimas es una recopilación de artículos publicados por las autora en distintos medios desde principios de la década de 2000. La noción de comunidad, tomada sobre todo del pensamiento de J. L. Nancy, se emplea como instrumento para descifrar una serie de «textos» de la cultura moderna. Los temas tratados en los diferentes artículos incluyen las prácticas artísticas de vanguardia de principios del siglo XX, el impulso utópico en los productos de la cultura popular, la imagen en una cierta oposición a la representación, el trauma y el testimonio, la resistencia política o las contradicciones de la memoria histórica tanto en un sentido general como referida en concreto al pasado soviético. La comunidad, en este sentido, define un tipo de colectividad opuesta a las determinaciones sociales existentes y marcada por una vinculación afectiva huidiza que deja huellas legibles en los productos culturales.
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violence that are found in the contemporary visual arts. Although violence itself is thematized and elicits neither a sense of horror nor condemnation on the part of the viewer, the most sensitive artists cannot remain indifferent to its place and role in human interaction. Studies of this kind include the work of the Canadian photographer J. Wall created in the wake of the War in Afghanistan (1992) and two cinematographic statements, namely, G. Van Sant’s film “Elephant” (2003) and “Dau” (2019), a multimedia project by the Russian filmmaker I. Khrzhanovsky. By means of photography Wall creates an
allegory which suggests that there is no way the viewer can understand (i.e., apprehend, experience) war. The viewer is thus fully excluded from the event in question and can establish a relation to war only through this rupture. The American filmmaker G. Van Sant examines the events surrounding the Columbine High School massacre. His approach is characterized by a markedly depsychologized narration, an emptying out of time and even of
the content of the narrated events. In fact, the “Elephant” offers the viewer a gaze that he or she is basically incapable of adopting, be it the mechanical eye of the meandering camera or the mechanics of violence itself. Finally, the project “Dau”, consisting of a series of films, conducts an unprecedented anthropological experiment: nonprofessional actors-volunteers, coexisting on the film set, display violence in their everyday communication as a mode of their own socialization related to the Soviet and post-Soviet experience.
Inscribed on the surface of their bodies, violence keeps recurring and
Khrzhanovsky provokes its unintentional manifestation. What unites the three examples is the creation of such conditions of perception, where violence appears as a senseless act of trampling over life itself without any reasonable ground whatsoever.
violence that are found in the contemporary visual arts. Although violence itself is thematized and elicits neither a sense of horror nor condemnation on the part of the viewer, the most sensitive artists cannot remain indifferent to its place and role in human interaction. Studies of this kind include the work of the Canadian photographer J. Wall created in the wake of the War in Afghanistan (1992) and two cinematographic statements, namely, G. Van Sant’s film “Elephant” (2003) and “Dau” (2019), a multimedia project by the Russian filmmaker I. Khrzhanovsky. By means of photography Wall creates an
allegory which suggests that there is no way the viewer can understand (i.e., apprehend, experience) war. The viewer is thus fully excluded from the event in question and can establish a relation to war only through this rupture. The American filmmaker G. Van Sant examines the events surrounding the Columbine High School massacre. His approach is characterized by a markedly depsychologized narration, an emptying out of time and even of
the content of the narrated events. In fact, the “Elephant” offers the viewer a gaze that he or she is basically incapable of adopting, be it the mechanical eye of the meandering camera or the mechanics of violence itself. Finally, the project “Dau”, consisting of a series of films, conducts an unprecedented anthropological experiment: nonprofessional actors-volunteers, coexisting on the film set, display violence in their everyday communication as a mode of their own socialization related to the Soviet and post-Soviet experience.
Inscribed on the surface of their bodies, violence keeps recurring and
Khrzhanovsky provokes its unintentional manifestation. What unites the three examples is the creation of such conditions of perception, where violence appears as a senseless act of trampling over life itself without any reasonable ground whatsoever.