<abstract><title style='display:none'>Summary</title>This article deals with the Matrix theory of subjectivity, gaze, and desire by feminist scholar Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger. Matrixial framework is explored in comparison to Lacanian psychoanalysis. The essay denotes the differences between split Lacanian model of the subject and Matrixial subjectivity based on plurality and continuity. I argue that Lacanian model which grounds the subject in fundamental lack and loss of corporal reality is insufficient for explaining specifically feminine experience in terms of temporality and collective memory, whereas the Matrix theory provides a conceptual apparatus for positive female identification and alliances between the past and the present. Ettinger’s Matrixial model is applied in the analysis of the 2012 video <italic>The Meeting</italic> by contemporary Lithuanian artist Kristina Inčiūraitė. I claim that the mode of desire in <italic>The Meeting</italic> is based on Matrixial gaze, which allows to formulate memory as co-created by two partners who share archaic knowledge of the Real, grounded in common relation to female sexual difference and intrauterine condition. Therefore, the article interprets the imagery of the town of Svetlogorsk in the video as coemerged mental images that affect each of the partners. I conclude that the Matrix theory overcomes the phallocentrism of classical psychoanalysis, allowing to reformulate the subject in terms of connectivity, compassion, and abilities to process Other’s trauma through positive cultural change.</abstract>

An Inquiry into the Theory of the Matrix: Subjectivity, Gaze, and Desire in Kristina Inčiūraitė’s Video <italic>the Meeting</italic> (2012)

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Summary</title>The article is devoted to the analysis of chosen examples of counterfactual narratives which diverge from the typical alternative accounts of history written in the “what if” mode. It focuses on counterfactual representations of space flight and moon landing as crucial historical events of the 20th century. The point of departure for the text is provided by the New Historicist understanding of historical fact and historical event, with particular attention paid to Hayden White’s concept of metahistory. However, to identify the possible functions of the new counterfactuals, I go beyond the binary of past and present which lies at the core of White’s concept. To this end, I employ Jacques Derrida’s concept of artifactuality, which describes the process of the production of facts about current events. I apply this concept to analyse two examples of counterfactual films about space flight: the comedy <italic>Moonwalkers</italic> (dir. Alain Bardou-Jacquet, 2015) and a mockumentary <italic>First on the Moon</italic> (dir. Aleksey Fedorchenko, 2005). In these examples, I identify strategies of deconstruction of fact-making which Derrida recommended in his essay. In the concluding part, I introduce the third example of counterfactual narrative, which not so much deconstructs factuality but, rather, counteracts the process of cultural oblivion. In <italic>Hidden Figures</italic> (2016), Margo Lee Shetterly reconstructed the role that African-American women played in the space race, introducing them into the official historical narrative. In this case, I also compare the book with its cinematic rendition to argue that counterfactuals introduce a new model of thinking of collective relationship with the past.</abstract>

Counterfactual Histories of Moon Landing

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Summary</title>The process of questioning the authority of academic history—in the form in which it emerged at the turn of the 19th century—began in the 1970s, when Hayden White pointed out the rhetorical dimension of historical discourse. His British colleague Alun Munslow went a step further and argued that the ontological statuses of the past and history are so different that historical discourse cannot by any means be treated as representation of the past. As we have no access to that which happened, both historians and artists can only present the past in accordance with their views and opinions, the available rhetorical conventions, and means of expression.The article revisits two examples of experimental history which Munslow mentioned in his <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_mik-2018-0001_ref_009_w2aab3b7b1b1b6b1ab1ab9Aa"><italic>The Future of History</italic> (2010)</xref>: Robert A. Rosenstone’s <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_mik-2018-0001_ref_012_w2aab3b7b1b1b6b1ab1ac12Aa"><italic>Mirror in the Shrine</italic> (1988)</xref> and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_mik-2018-0001_ref_004_w2aab3b7b1b1b6b1ab1ab4Aa"><italic>In 1926</italic> (1997)</xref>. It allows reassessing their literary strategies in the context of a new wave of works written by historians and novelists who go beyond the fictional/factual dichotomy. The article focuses on Polish counterfactual writers of the last two decades, such as Wojciech Orliński, Jacek Dukaj, and Aleksander Głowacki. Their novels corroborate the main argument of the article about a turn which has been taking place in recent experimental historying: the loss of previous interest in formal innovations influenced by modernist avant-garde fiction. Instead, it concentrates on demonstrating the contingency of history to strategically extend the unknowability of the future or the past(s) and, as a result, change historying into speculative thinking.</abstract>

Politicized Aesthetics: German Art in Warsaw of 1938

The History of European Photography, Volume III. 1970–2000

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Summary</title><italic>Cruising</italic> can be defined as an activity where subjects look for sex in public spaces and is usually called cruising for sex. Authors like Humphrey and Delph emphasize that non-verbal communication, such as eye contact, body language, way of walking, etc., is used to make first contacts that eventually lead to sex. Despite the sexuality of cruising, authors like T. Dean or Turner note that besides public sex, cruising also defines a way of life or indicates a pastime. When discussing cruising, T. Dean emphasizes that contacts, superficial conversations and a playful relaxing atmosphere are characteristic to cruising. The context of cruising not only involves pleasing sexual impulses but also focuses on hospitality and friendliness towards strangers. It notes that this practise is used to establish contacts, engage in a meaningless conversation and start relations for the goal of pleasure, however the identity ego remains free. Furthermore, cruising for sex is often considered to be a negative activity for immoral behaviour in public and the risk to contract sexually transmitted diseases. Men who cruise often stigmatize themselves and assign deviational meanings to cruising. Contacts established while cruising as an open and an unregulated activity are managed entirely by pleasure produced by playfulness of randomness.</abstract>

Multiplicity of Cruising: Interactions with the Unknown and Realisation of Cruising for Sex in A. K. Campbell’S <italic>the Pride</italic>

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Summary</title>
Wabi Sabi is a Japanese concept that, despite lacking a universal definition, comprises three principles: nothing is perfect, nothing is finished and nothing lasts forever.1 While in 2018, an adapted version of Wabi Sabi started to become trendier in the Western world2, this Westernized concept accidentally starts to have parallels with the way in which contemporary circus artists experience their embodiment. The research showed that contemporary circus artists are constantly trying to focus more on what a body can do and how it can do instead of body appearance, they are accepting that bodies are not perfect and share an understanding of the importance of embracing this imperfection. Moreover, contemporary circus artists are having in mind constant bodily changes and reflecting it correspondingly by developing positive relationships with their bodies. This article will be a sociological outlook of interconnections among the already existing beliefs in the contemporary circus field and the new trend of Westernized Wabi Sabi ideas.
</abstract>

Perfecting the Imperfect: Parallels Between the Contemporary Circus Artist’s Embodiment and the Westernized Wabi Sabi Concept

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Summary</title>
The article reveals the features of the graphic language of coded information by identifying, systematizing, and combining QR-codes and AR-codes at the present stage of graphic design development. The analysis of coded information in different types of graphic design is presented: advertising, environmental, motion, print, packaging, set prop, web, mobile app, art, and illustration graphic design. The role of a graphic designer in the development of digital codes of various types for various fields of application is described. It is proved that the coded information is a trigger between the online and offline worlds. The article also reveals the importance of using coded information for the formation, development, and improvement of the brand.
</abstract>

Digital Code as an Object Graphic Design for Dissemination and Promotion of Brand

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Summary</title>
The Romanian Workers’ Party – the political party that led Romania from 1947 until 1965 – need for legitimisation led to the rewriting of history in a way that the history of Romania was presented as a linear progression finally leading to communism. In art history, art also became a linear phenomenon, progressively advancing towards Socialist Realism.
The tactics of constructing the new narrative in art history during the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s can be read as a form of the social history of art. Although the methodology could have led to remarkable results, ethical boundaries were violated: only some historical episodes and moments from artists’ biographies were selected.
Within this context, this study investigates whether papers and monographs about Romanian painters active in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century can be read as a form of social history of art.
</abstract>

Romanian Art History During the 1950s as a Form of Social History of Art

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Summary</title>
Michael Fried’s 1967 essay “Art and Objecthood” is one of the most well-known and influential pieces of art criticism ever written, and continues to generate novel interpretations. Its overtly theological cast, however, has never been the subject of close study. This article focuses on Fried’s decision to use a lengthy quotation from Perry Miller’s biography of the theologian Jonathan Edwards as his epigram, and contends that Fried’s essay is informed in significant ways by Edwards’ notions of history and grace, and characterized by wordings that reveal an active engagement with Miller’s text. Certainly, the contexts in which Edwards and Fried worked were irreducibly different. Nevertheless, an examination of the ways in which Fried drew on Miller’s text and Edwards’ ideas demonstrates that he was productively influenced by both in composing “Art and Objecthood.”
</abstract>

“Art and Objecthood,” Michael Fried and Jonathan Edwards

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Summary</title>
This article analyses the development of standard designs of primary school buildings in Lithuania during the 1920s and 1930s. This process aimed to create simple and comfortable standard school buildings and provide them to the primary schools operating in the country. The article presents the development of standard designs that took place at that time, explaining the circumstances of their emergence, and comparing the main designs of such buildings developed at that time. To reveal this process as best as possible, the influence of the then Ministry of Education of Lithuania, local former Lithuanian county municipalities, and various architectural specialists in the standardisation of buildings for primary schools and the development of standard designs are presented and analysed. This aims to introduce the readers to the still little-known process that took place in the architecture of Lithuania during the 1920s and 1930s.
</abstract>

The Development of Standard Designs of Primary School Buildings in Lithuania During the 1920s and 1930s

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Summary</title>
This paper constitutes a reflexive and theoretical approach to the study of iconographies from a cultural perspective. Its aim is to depict iconographies as the structural order which makes images representative of the social frameworks from which they stem. By analysing the stable principles which participate in the production of such representativity in any given iconography, and by considering the cultural agents which socially regulate them and make images culturally specific, it is possible to understand the cultural mechanisms by which the social construction of reality is projected onto images. Consequently, this approach favours a conceptualisation of iconographies as cultural systems through which the identity of social frameworks is conveyed thanks to the use of images.
</abstract>

Iconography as System. The Structural Principles of Representation in Visual Culture

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Art History & Criticism

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Vytautas Magnus University’s scholarly journal “Art History &amp; Criticism” is a publication in Humanities, the branch of Art History and Criticism, published since 2005. It is...

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Vytautas Magnus University’s scholarly journal “Art History &amp; Criticism” is a publication in Humanities, the branch of Art History and...