POST-APOCALYPSE VISUALIZATION STRATEGIES IN MODERN POPULAR CULTURE

Abstract

Relevance. Total expansion of screen culture creates new trends that cause the emergence of a new anthropological situation. Modern man ceases to enjoy the familiar images that connect his fantasies with reality. He deliberately and demonstratively seeks to surround himself with destructive images, each time emphasizing the increasing severity of the problems of modern civilization. Therefore, the emergence and rapid development of the post-apocalypse genre serves as a visualization of the fantasies of the average person about the urgent need to end the suffering of man and nature within the established forms of civilizational communication. The aim: to analyze the peculiarity of post-apocalyptic plots in contemporary art and cinema, based on the theoretical heritage of modern times. Methods. The research is based on comparative, psychoanalytic and semiotic methods of interpretation of a wide field of modern mass culture. Results. The idea of the end of history became particularly relevant at the beginning of the twentieth century, when a comprehensive socio-cultural crisis broke out in Europe. Outstanding minds have tried to answer the most complex contradictions that humanity has faced for the first time. The growing social contradictions are increasingly seen as signs of the coming end of a civilization that is mired in unification, the irresponsibility of power and the passivity of the masses. Such reflection prepared the formation of the artistic experience of visualizing the fundamental contradictions of civilization, which were especially aggravated at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries. Despite the predominantly recreational nature of modern mass art, it chooses this theme as the main direction of its development. Literature, music, painting, comics, animation, and computer games actively use the plots of the end of history to recreate the tense expectation of the imminent reckoning of humanity for its irresponsible attitude to nature and man. The modern film industry occupies a special place in solving this problem, because it has at its disposal exceptional means of expression and the most mass audience. Findings. The fantastic popularity of the post-apocalypse theme goes beyond the usual cultural industries and confidently turns into a form of ideological visualization of the key socio-cultural contradictions of the era. Such management technology is regarded by the authors as a propaedeutics of a new quality of modern civilization, forcibly severing genetic ties with nature, culture and tradition.

Keywords

• post-apocalypse
• ideology
• art
• mass culture
• cinema
• crisis of civilization
• end of history