Abstract: The question about the sources of human's attitude to art has always been a nettlesome issue. However, numerous attempts to explain such complex phenomena as human's attitude to art or one's taste for art with simple causes as age, education and other measurable properties of the audience do not allow to explain consumer behavior but result in ignoring important potential determinants including motivation. In this article Ushkarev tries to answer the question about the influence of different kinds of motivation on one's attitude to art and the role of status motivation. The research is based on econometric tools and analysis of the results of surveys carried out at State Tretyakov Gallery as part of the project that is aimed at analyzing the audience of the Gallery and has been carried out by State Institute for Art Studies. The following results have been obtained as a result of the research. First of all, the researcher has described three basic kinds of motivation attributable to consumers of art: recreational, substantial and status motivations. The author has also managed to define and measure the relationship between cultural activity and the degree of cultural capital and respondent's motivation. The results of the research prove a significant positive influence of substantial motivation on the intensity of art consumption while recreational motivation turns out to be an essential factor of a negative influence on the intensity of cultural consumption. At the same time, the author has not discovered a conclusive evidence that there is a status effect of education as Pierre Bourdieu described it. For Moscow cultural audience the status effect of education is most likely to have a theoretical nature in terms of consumption of culture services. The author also demonstrates that despite a usual negative connotation of the term, status motivation plays a positive role for consumption of art. 

Keywords: Cultural Activity, Status motivation, Substantial motivation, Recreational motivation, Intensity of cultural consumption, The status effect of education, Cognitive competence, Econometric analysis of motivation, Abnormal consumer behavior, Consumption of art

Abstract: The object of the research is the decorative art, paintings, and installations that contain both phrases and words. Based on the analysis of the art work of an Ural artist Udmurt, American artist Barbara Kruger, and Chinese calligrapher Vand Gu, the author of the article describes stages in the evolution of the role of the word in the artwork of Russia, the USA and China. The subject of the research is the role of words in the overall canvas of an artwork in synchronic and diachronic aspects. The hypothesis of the research is that in terms of contemporary fine art, word plays an extremely important role which is not confined to the sphere of decorative arts but comporises the core element of the sense-making process in general. The methodology of the research implies the systems approach to cultural research. According to this approach, culture is a whole phenomenon that consists of individual mechanisms interacting with one another based on the general principle. In her research Zavyalova appeals to the studies of both Russian and foreign art experts, art critics and cultural researchers such as M. Vaymugina, M. Davydenko, V. Dyakonova, A.Zubareva, Vl. Lukov, V. Razakov, V. Woolf, Yu. Kharari, and R. Zajonc. The results of the research may be applied for cross-cultural description of contemporary art. The author's contribution is her statement that games with words, written symbols and phrases brings a new global meaning to contemporary fine arts. As a result of the research, the author has discovered important strategies of the Post Modernism such as citationality, collaging, and picturing objects as an artists sees them to the detriment of their realistic image, double actualization of meanings, mysteriousness, anonymity and deliberate play with the audience. 

Keywords: tradition, esthetics, culture, phrase, contemporary art, text, word, Russia, the USA, China

Abstract: The subject of the research is the changing image of the USSR / Russia as it has been reflected by the popular media franchise about James Bond during the period since 1962 till 2015. In his research Osipov traces back the intensity, viability and particularities of using Soviet / Russian themes over 50 years in terms of developing relations between the USSR / Russia and the West including political, social, cultural and other features. Osipov describes different periods of mentioning the Soviet Union / Russia in the movies about James Bond, with a different degree of the depth and criticism of the USSR / Russia image. This interdisciplinary research is devoted to the analysis of the global cultural phenomenon in terms of the political history of the second half of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century. The research is based on the initiative of Russian government to use the 'soft power' that uses quite a limited number of formats. The author pays attention to the success of the multimedia franchise format used by the Western pop culture. Bondiana is viewed as an example of a successful franchise with the political message. By analysing the image of the USSR / Russia in the movies about James Bond, the author of the article has managed to describe the mechanisms of the successful franchise and what image it offered. The author has also assessed the degree of its stereotype/originality. The author concludes that despite the opinion of Soviet film criticism, Bondiana did not create a negative image but was more included to a neutral or even positive image of the USSR. The negative image of Russia of the 90s was objectively founded. Then the image of Russia was replaced with the image of the world terrorism. The interest in Soviet / Russian themes falls on the second hlf of the 70s - mid 80s and mid 90s which was directly related to the political processes ongoing in the world back in those times. 

Keywords: détente, Ian Fleming, ideology, media franchise, movie industry, James Bond, cold war, image of Russia, soft power, mass culture

Abstract: The subject of the research is the cinematographic language and artistic features of Vladimir Mirzoev's cinematographic novels 'Tutors', 'Dangerous Man', 'Paradise' from the piont of view of stylistics of the Absurdist drama of the Western European (Samuel Beckett and others) and Russian (Vladimir Nabokov and Alexander Vampilov and others) traditions. The authors of the article analyze the structure of narration, artistic world model and secondary semantization (symbolic detail) of what is reflected in picture, intertextuality (references to the images of the social unconscious) and archetypic constructs. The authors have used traditional methods of semiotics and structuralism, in particular, analysis of the artistic model of the novel as a frame consisting of complete and incomplete slots referring to artistic traditions, archetypes, and social traditional constructs. The novelty of the research is caused by the fact that the authors carry out a scientific analysis of modern cinematographic language using the methodology of Russian structuralism and semiotics, and reconstruction of messages from Vladimir Mirzoev's novel 'Dangerous Man'. The authors pay special attention to the artistic space, time, and novelistic techniques of constructing the film narrative, images of heroes, symbolic details (including colour, material texture in picture, and etc.), audio-visual counterpoint (including music and speech in picture), separation in 'plans'. 

Keywords: sound-visual counterpoint, world model, narratology, symbolic detail, intertextuality, archetype, cinema novel, structuralism, semiotics, cinematic drama of the absurd

Abstract: The subject of the research is the problem of using mythological plots with philosophical connotations in contemporary motion picture industry. The object of the research is the development of contemporary motion picture industry. The researcher analyzes how the phenomenon of Scandinavian myth is reflected and transformed in collective consciousness. Paulyus focuses on fatalization of Scandinavian myth which can be traced through the development of contemporary pop culture. The author of the article describes specific features of the aforesaid process based on the analysis of the Vikings TV series and demonstrates an active synthesis of historical and mythological plots building a special cultural landscape with rich philosophical connotations. The author bases his research on comparative historical and chronological research methods allowing to trace back an active application of the destructive stereotype of how Scandinavian culture is perceived, namely Scandinavian myth. The scientific novelty of the research is caused by the fact that the author appeals to the practical inclusion of this mythological concept into the realities of a contemporary multicultural tradition as a special factor of the development of a new historical cultural space that creates the phenomenon of instrumentalization of previous cultural historical practices that are being transformed in the global discourse. With that being said, the author has made the following conclusions: 1. Active use of a set of cliches that create Scandinavian myth as a specific cultural phenomenon is an essential part of contemporary motion picture industry. This phenomenon is based on the principle of fatalistic providence and demonstrates a cyclicity of existence. 2. This philosophical concept has already turned into an independent archetype of collective consciousness, has gone beyond the borders of the Scandinavian Peninsula and has comprised a multicultural phenomenon today. 

Keywords: philosophical aspects, raids, instrumentalization, archetypal constructions, providentialism, scandinavian myth, cultural landscape, stereotype, fatalism, mythologism

Abstract: The object of the research is the phenomenon of the artificial reality. The authors of the article analyze theoretical and practical aspects of the nature of the artificial reality. They interpret these factors as the factor of transformation of collective consciousness based on instrumentalization of one's previous experience which relates to an intensive use of basic mythologemes in contemporary pop culture. Scandinavian myth is an example of such mythologemes. The subject of the research is the mythologemes and various archetypical constructs as these are presented in the Gothics gaming universe interpreted by the authros as a specific marker of the gaming industry development. The authors base their research on using chronological and semiotic methods as well as the method of historicism. The novelty of the research is caused by the fact that the author analyzes gaming universes (based on the analysis of one of them) as a mechanism of transformation of collective consciousness in terms of contemporary pop culture development. For several decades computer industry has used the phenomenon of Scandinavian myth that is based on provinciality with a feelable fatalistic tendency which has become one of the factors of popularization of the Nordic archetype and all its attributes in a modern multicultural global society which is the result of both conscious and unconscious use of this image. 

Keywords: instrumentalization, providentialism, the Scandinavian myth, spatial-temporal localization, archetypal design, cultural landscape, the Gothic, gaming universes, paradigm, Khorinis

Abstract: The article is devoted to the problem that has been raised lately by Internet discussions, memory posts, and studies of famous writers' and poets' biographies. Based on the analysis of biographies and creative works of Marina Tsvetaeva and Anton Chekhov, Rozin considers two hypotheses of the relationship between the author and his or her everyday life. Vadim Rozin tries to prove that special reconstruction of both would allow to understand essential features of the author's creative life. In his research Vadim Rozin has applied his own methodology that implies problem statement, comparative and situation analysis, schematization and interpretation of literary texts, and generalisation. As a result of his research, Rozin has managed to compare two opposite interpretations of the relationship between the author's creative life and his or her everyday life as well as to demonstrate that the analysis of the author's personality and his or her creative life casts the light on peculiar features of his or her creative life and allows to understand essential moments thereof. 

Keywords: reality, choice, life, poetry, art, interpretation, personality, work, creativity, author