Since the turn of the century, there has been an explosive growth in the popularity of documentary theater all over the world. The reason is the dynamic change in reality, which requires the fastest possible artistic comprehension, including by means of theatrical art. And if initially documentary performances were the prerogative of drama theaters, then over time, documentary dance became widespread. Documents of various kinds can serve as the basis for choreographic documentary performances: texts, news, architectural and other artifacts, body, gesture, history, etc. The article considers the problem of the relationship between documentary and dance creativity. The purpose of the study is to identify the potential of documentary dance as a tool for recording, understanding and artistic experience of the challenges of modern reality, which must be taken into account when making management decisions in the field of culture. The object of the study is the verbatim performance “Freedom for the Statue!” - the first performance of this kind, staged at the theater of the MBUK "Ekaterinburg Theater of Modern Choreography “Provincial Dances”. It is shown that the documentary support of verbatim can be a variety of documents: text, body, gesture, artifact, history. The problem of the beginning of the performance is posed, which is especially important for choreographic productions. The study shows that careful, thorough work with profane texts of verbatim allows both authors and spectators to really deeply penetrate into the understanding of the posed problem of freedom, which in the course of the performance is transformed from permissible freedom into goal-setting freedom. The loss of freedom as a deep value leads to everyday, primitive escapism. The spread of documentary theatrical productions, including documentary choreography, is a stable trend in the development of modern theater, which must be borne in mind when making management decisions in the field of culture. The article is addressed to employees of state authorities and local governments in the field of culture, heads of choreographic groups, researchers of the current state of choreographic art, as well as everyone interested in the trends in the development of modern dance.
This article examines the genesis of art in the digital age through the evolution of the concepts of ready-mad and aura. Analyzing the ideas of Marcel Duchamp, Walter Benjamin, and contemporary media theorists, the author introduces a new concept—data-made—to denote an artistic form emerging in the context of algorithmic culture. It is shown that while ready-made affirmed the act of individual choice, data-made is characterized by distributed creativity, in which aesthetic value is formed through the circulation of data and networked attention. Using Maurizio Cattelan's work "Comedian" as an example, the transition from material object to digital process is revealed. The metaverse is conceptualized as a space of cultural diffusion, where data-made aesthetics becomes a new model for the interaction between art, technology, and humanity. The research methodology is based on an interdisciplinary approach: the analysis and interpretation of philosophical texts (Benjamin, Baudrillard, Groys, Manovich, and Rancière) as elements of a general theoretical system describing the changing nature of artistic experience; a comparative-historical method allows us to trace the development of key concepts in contemporary art, highlighting their logic and evolutionary principles; and structural-semiotic analysis is applied as the basis for interpreting Maurizio Cattelan's artistic statement Comedian (2019) within the framework of the metaverse and its specific rules. Additionally, contextual media analysis was applied to study online forms of representation of artworks and their digital replicas (memes, NFTs, and digital exhibitions). This comprehensive methodological approach revealed that the transition from ready-made to data-made represents not simply a technological but an ontological change in art, and the concept of the metaverse reflects its current state as a distributed cultural environment.
The article is devoted to the actual problem – the study of the audience of modern digital art. The problematics of the study of the audience of modern art in general, and the boundaries of the study of the audience of the digital art festival, are described. On the example of the Play DigitalArt Festival, the basic characteristics of the audience – visitors of festival events are investigated. The materials underlying the study were collected during 2024-2025. The methodological basis was the methodology of quantitative and qualitative sociology (survey on a formalized questionnaire, in-depth and expert interviews), as well as the methodology of cultural studies and general scientific methods (the method of comparative analysis, the morphological method). The article presents data for the first time in 2025 and provides a comparative analysis of a few indicators for 2024 and 2025. The audience portrait of the digital art festival is made up of both gender and age characteristics, as well as belonging to a specific field of activity. In addition, the article describes the motivations that led visitors of different age groups to the Digital Art Festival venues. An important aspect of the study was the examination of the changing perception of digital art in comparison with traditional art forms. One of the significant motivations for visiting digital art exhibitions is the interactivity of the presented works, which eliminates the static nature and limitations on interaction with digital art objects. The article draws conclusions about the core audience of digital art, the main characteristics of the audience, and provides promising areas for further research.
This article analyses a fundamental paradigm shift in contemporary art and perception under the influence of digital diffusion processes. Moving beyond a narrow technological understanding of diffusion as the mere introduction of computational power into creative industries, the author investigates it as an ontological and anthropological phenomenon leading to the emergence of a new type of aesthetic experience—a dialogical and event-based one. The theoretical framework for the analysis comprises the philosophical concepts of Gilbert Simondon on technology as a mediator and the process of individuation, Mikhail Kurtov on the operational nature of technical objects, Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson's theory of embodied cognition, and Yuk Hui's ideas on digital cosmotechnics. In the article, digital diffusion is considered as a transition from the classical model of art-as-representation to a model of art-as-event and art-as-life. In this paradigm, the artwork is not a static artefact but emerges in real time as a result of a dialogue between human subjectivity and algorithmic agency. Technology ceases to be a neutral tool, becoming an active co-participant in the creative act, capable of "seeing" the viewer and providing them with a personalised response. This process is interpreted as an act of psychotechnical individuation, in which the technological artefact helps the user resolve internal psychic tension by translating it into a unique aesthetic form. Particular attention is paid to how digital diffusion enables the effective actualisation of cultural code. The reference to the heritage of the old masters in the project is considered not as a quotation, but as an operation to include tradition in a living dialogue with the present, creating new digital rituals of self-knowledge. The author views digital diffusion not as a threat to traditional culture, but as an opportunity for its development and actualisation. Thus, digital diffusion is presented in the article as a "two-way process of cognition", where art, enriched by technology, truly "sees" the viewer and helps them see and understand themselves, actualising cultural heritage not in a museum, but in the very process of personal becoming.
The article is devoted to the analysis of the status of digital Humanities (DH), a rapidly developing field at the intersection of humanities and digital technologies. The author considers the question: is DH a tribute to the fashion for digitalization or is it a natural development of traditional humanities disciplines, forming an independent scientific field. Based on the analysis of scientific literature and historical review, the key stages of DH's formation are highlighted: from the first experiments with computerization of humanitarian tasks (1940-1960's) to modern projects using big data and machine learning. Special attention is paid to the evolution of terminology - from "humanities computing" to "Digital Humanities", which reflects the transition from an instrumental approach to the formation of a new research paradigm. The article presents the main interpretations of DH in Russian and foreign science.: as an interdisciplinary field, an instrumental superstructure, or as a critical reflection. The author checks the compliance of DH with traditional criteria of scientific character (object, subject, methods, theoretical base, institutionalization) and comes to the conclusion that DH is a "science in the making" combining interdisciplinarity, openness and new vectors of humanitarian research. In Russia, DH has been developing intensively in the last decade: centers and associations are being created (the ITMO University DH Center, the HSE Center for Digital Humanities, the Russian Association of Digital Humanities), master's degree programs in the field of DH. Using the example of modern projects (including those implemented at the Department of Applied Informatics of the Yekaterinburg Academy of Modern Art (Institute) Municipal Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education (hereinafter referred to as the Academy, EASI)), the practical significance of DH is demonstrated: from digitization of cultural heritage to analysis of the nature of DH's interaction with information. The author highlights such a key feature of DH as the transformation of the way data is handled: from passive reading to active analysis. This feature transforms the nature of humanitarian knowledge. The conclusion confirms the hypothesis that DH is a full-fledged scientific field integrated into modern humanitarian knowledge, with the potential to transform approaches to the study of culture and society. The author also notes the existence of methodological problems that have yet to be solved by DH.
