The research workshop was held on July 22, 2019, where the project’s members presented the interim results of their research and discussed the general methodology of the project.
The workshop’s participants discussed in detail the understanding of time in art. Tatiana Kruglova presented on the topic «Contemporary classics, or eternal modernity: comparing two versions of temporality in fine arts during the interwar period in fascist Italy and USSR». She showed that at the heart of different interpretations of modernity lie its own temporal regime, which includes such characteristics of time, as directedness, speed, and intensity. The concept of modernity, in her opinion, is a construction, an invention, at the basis of which is the combination of elements. Kruglova’s analysis of discourses on contemporary art in Fascist Italy and in USSR helped clarify the essence of contradiction in theories of modernity, especially concerning temporal structures of society that are on different stages of the project of modernity.
Sergey Purgin presented the speech about the interpretation of time in Paul Klee’s art. He tried to explicate the main question in studying the temporal structures — universal and individual time — in Klee’s works. Purgin offers to seek the solution of that question in the romantic tradition that influenced the artist. The classical dialectics of the part and the whole and the notion of destiny as the life principle of the organic whole does not work anymore in his works. With all integrity of the master’s art world, we see a strange divide between cosmic and deeply intimate individual self-. As a result, Purgin suggests that time in Paul Klee’s works can be understood as the time of artistic act (the time of creation) and at the same time as «childish point of view». In the latter, we face the reconsideration of his own position regarding self-representation: the artist refuses to present his «academic» skill and deliberately spontaneous, naive action of a child. What conclusion follows concerning Klee’s comprehension of time? This is the question Purgin is planning to work on further.
The theme of time in art was continued by G.P. Khaziev. He considered the work of Scriabin as a point of intersection of temporal trajectories. At the same time, he proceeded from the hypothesis that not only creativity, but also the personality itself is of interest for the study of the consciousness of time and the problematization of temporality. In his report, he presented two interesting discussions about Scriabin, namely: a mismatch of times in the life and work of Scriabin and an analysis of the question of “how Scriabin sees himself as a god” through the prism of temporality. In the first case, Khaziev showed that when studying Scriabin’s heritage, a contradictory picture of the multidirectionality of time lines develops: he is simultaneously in three historical times - “past”, “present” and “future”. When considering the second question, he came to the conclusion that with his synthetic musical art, Scriabin intends to act directly on time (“enchant the time with the rhythms of music”), thereby controlling world processes, slowing down or accelerating them, bringing the desired end of the world closer. All this is peculiar only to a powerful creature, habitually called by us by the god. Thus, the self-deification of Scriabin stems from his understanding of time.
No less interesting was Anton Sysolyatin’s presentation on the theme "The problem of «human» time in the treatises of L. Lipavsky." In his cycle of «text-treatises», Oberiut Lipavsky develops a peculiar “experimental science” of time. He poses two questions. First question: is the human world possible in the form as it is given to us only in the experience of time, and if so, then what is time for man? And does time itself exist? The second question: if the world is possible in some “inhuman” sense (Lipavsky uses the concept of “neighboring world” for this case), then how is it possible and possible for a person to have objective knowledge about it? The combination of these two questions becomes interesting in order to outline the boundary between the human world and the world of abiding things and to indicate the “place” of time in relation to the modes of existence of these worlds.
Evgeny Emelyanov presented his work «The problem of periodization of world history in the Soviet social sciences of 1920s». Emelyanov holds that 1920s occupy a unique place in the history of Soviet humanities. A radical break with the traditions of pre-revolutionary science was combined in this time with the active search of ideas that was not bounded by established ideological cannon yet. In the 1920s social science replaced the history in the Soviet school, and the “history of social forms” was introduced at labor and technical schools. New names corresponded to the new content of objects. Instead of the traditional division of world history into Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Modern times, several new variants of periodization based on the economic factor were proposed. These periodizations are of interest in the context of the temporal turn in the European intellectual space of the first third of the 20th century. They clearly show that historical time in Soviet social science loses its traditional chronological character and receives meaningful content. Although in the 1930s. the traditional division of history into ancient, middle and new was restored, but the idea of the class nature of historical time was preserved in Soviet historiography until the very end of the 1980s.
The next research seminar will take place in December 2019. It will discuss methodological questions related to the preparation of research articles.
On April 25, 2019, the project’s presentation took place in Piotrovsky bookstore, where the research group members participated. The meeting’s moderators were M. Soboleva, the head of the project, E. Cherepanova, project’s chief researcher, and A. Pertsev, professor at the Department of Philosophy of Ural Institute for Humanities, Ural Federal University.
During the presentation the project members presented their interpretation of how it is possible to study the languages of time using philosophy, music, literature and cinema as examples. Among the questions discussed one was about the possibility of speaking about any common vision of time in case of dissynchronization languages describing time. The questions whether it is possible to depict, to photograph time and how it is represented by various symbolic means at all were discussed as well. There was also a question whether it is possible today, relying on the experience of reflection on temporality, to agree that time belongs to a human or we merely try to «grasp» it in our perception.
The first research workshop titled «Methodological foundations of the analysis of temporality» was held On April 26, 2019. The group members discussed approaches to the understanding of time, which were formed in the beginning of the XX century, and organized a common strategy of research that can be schematically presented as transformation of time from a mere physical fact of human’s life to an individual issue. This allows to put various explorations within the project to the concept of dissynchronization of time and explore such aspects of time, as personal experience, indeterminacy, the meaning, the freedom of time, temporality as the aspect of time, etc.
On May 22-23, 2019, within the international scientific conference «Mania/Magic of History: past instead of present and future» the project participants organized a section «Temporality structures in philosophy and culture in the first third of the XX century», where the approaches to the solution of the problem of time were outlined and the first results of the studies were presented. Participants demonstrated multidimensionality of the discourses of time: from the physical comprehension of time in Vienna circle (A. Davletshina) to the structures of time in Paul Klee’s art (S. Purgin), or construction of chronotope in German cinematic expressionism; from the problem of the social time (A. Menshikov), to eschatological perception of time in musical experiments of A. Skryabin (G. Haziev), as well as from time’s influence on ethical values of A. Meinong (E. Cherepanova) to organization of history classes in soviet school in 1921-1934 (E. Emelyanov).
To develop a collective strategy of accomplishing the tasks set in the project, the virtual laboratory was organized. It provides a mutual discussion of research progress and its results achieved by individual project members. For instance, there has been already discussed forthcoming publications of M. Soboleva (Time as meaning and meaning as time: on transcendental foundations of time), A. Sysolyatin (Catalepsy of time: aesthetization of horror in L. Lipavsky «treatises»), A. Yakimov (Peculiarities of constructing chronotope in German Expressionist cinema), and S. Purgin (The transformation of romantic tradition in Paul Klee’s art: the temporal turn).
Created / Updated: 27 June 2019 / 12 November 2019