Novosibirsk Contemporary Art in 2009-2019

The work examines the contemporary art scene of Novosibirsk from 2009–2019. In the first part of the article we carry out a sociological analysis of the artistic life of the city and highlight such features as: the prevalence of self-organized forms of art presentation over institutional forms, non-publicity and “diffusivity” of a significant part of art practices. We also analyse the influence of these factors on the perception of art and discuss what kinds of methodological challenges they provoke. Further we give a brief overview of some significant exhibitions of the past decade (such as “Siberian Underground. 20 Years Later”, “Repetition of the Untrodden” etc.), examine artistic circles of the city and their transformation from 1990 to our time, discuss principles of their formation and the nature of interactions among them. We also propose a schematic representation of the artistic circles under consideration, their interactions and attractions from a historical point of view. The second part of the article examines the aesthetic features of contemporary art in Novosibirsk from 2009-2019. The transition from the art of the 00s and early 10s to the art of younger generations of the late 10s is characterized by a change in the emotional tonality: from vitality and expressivity to fragile and melancholic sensitivity, from political irony and grotesque to ethical complexity and vulnerability. When considering art of individual artists of the specified period we outline two possible ways of their analysis based on the allocation of a common motive: neo-expressionist and post-conceptual. The first of these is united by the motive of “toys” as a way of working with corporeality and doubleness (for example, in the works of Konstantin Skotnikov, the Cosmonauts art group, Denis Efremov, Alexei Grishchenko, Mayana Nasybullova, etc.). The post-conceptual line is presented through the works of such artists as: Alexander Limarev, Mikhail Karlov, the BERTOLLO art group, Irca Solza. Here we propose a unifying motive of “a game” as a dichotomy of rule systems and their failure that is viewed as an opportunity to conceive another world. In the conclusion of the article, we suggest that such an integrated approach to the analysis of regional art of the last decade is promising.

Junior doctors and conscientious objection to voluntary assisted dying: ethical complexity in practice

In jurisdictions where voluntary assisted dying (VAD) is legal, eligibility assessments, prescription and administration of a VAD substance are commonly performed by senior doctors. Junior doctors’ involvement is limited to a range of more peripheral aspects of patient care relating to VAD. In the Australian state of Victoria, where VAD has been legal since June 2019, all health professionals have a right under the legislation to conscientiously object to involvement in the VAD process, including provision of information about VAD. While this protection appears categorical and straightforward, conscientious objection to VAD-related care is ethically complex for junior doctors for reasons that are specific to this group of clinicians. For junior doctors wishing to exercise a conscientious objection to VAD, their dependence on their senior colleagues for career progression creates unique risks and burdens. In a context where senior colleagues are supportive of VAD, the junior doctor’s subordinate position in the medical hierarchy exposes them to potential significant harms: compromising their moral integrity by participating, or compromising their career progression by objecting. In jurisdictions intending to provide all health professionals with meaningful conscientious objection protection in relation to VAD, strong specific support for junior doctors is needed through local institutional policies and culture.

The People's Paving Stones: The Material Politics of International Human Rights in the Baldosas por la Memoria of Buenos Aires

Baldosas por la memoria are memorial paving stones handcrafted by loosely networked activists. Produced continuously from 2006 to an informally established protocol, they memorialize “the disappeared” and others murdered by the state terrorism of the Argentinian dictatorship (1976–1983). As a synecdoche of the “down and dirty” everyday pavements, they function as a metonym for democratic struggle and popular sovereignty. Aesthetically, they work against the “forgetting” and kitschification to which conventional memorials become subject. Through remediation into books and a DVD documentary, they participate in controversies within the international politics of human rights. Using a “material turn” within visual analysis, yet distinct from the “new materialism,” this article explains how they function within familiar genres of memorialization but in wholly novel ways. Baldosas create ethical complexity and moral ambiguity by troubling collective memory. Thus, we examine their relation to guilt, complicity, trauma, and affect.

Contemporary realities of communication ethics in the educational space

The article discusses the current ideas of the foreign scientific school about the specificity of the ethical filling of the educational space in conditions of multiple uncertainty. The destructive factors of modern times, including the pandemic, have created a living environment of increased moral and ethical complexity and new challenges to the education system. Ethical changes in the educational space, both traditionally present and new, lead to a decrease in the quality of education, dehumanizing and dissocializing the student who finds himself in impelled isolation. The working hypothesis of the review is that the spatial separation of participants in the educational process is especially dangerous for the ethical integrity of the educational environment. The problems of ethical deficits of the teacher and the student are deduced: bullying, destructive leadership, academic dishonesty (cheating). The article regards several conditions for creating an ethically normalized learning process that might appear helpful in distance learning of students and regular utilization of social networks.

Barthes and ‘Subtle Forms of Living’

A life cannot be dissociated from its forms (its ways, regimes, spaces, and rhythms) for these forms are also ideas of what life should be. This question is keenly felt today, especially in our ways of experiencing politics: we need ‘other sorts of life’, ‘other ways of living’, other rhythms and connections. Yet these phrases are often emptied of their meaning: they are the stock-in-trade of advertising, which allows us to dream of passing from one lifestyle to another without regard for the ethical complexity of what Pavese called ‘the business of living’. Roland Barthes helps us here. Right from his sanatorium years, and all that it cost him to become aware, so young, of the life made for us by daily routines, food, the weather, our ways of relating to others, and through to La Préparation du roman (which reflected on how everyday life must be organised to lead to a literary work), Barthes was always conscious of the seriousness of what the forms of living entail, in all their precision and detail. This chapter tracks the constancy of this conviction in Barthes’s trajectory, from the early sanatorium correspondence to Comment vivre ensemble and Journal de deuil.

The Collective Aestheticization of Farming as Participatory Civic Engagement

This chapter is a case study that traces the life of a young artist farmer who developed a community-based educational farm. The case study illuminates networked connections between small-scale farming, a revitalized interest in handmade production, and a burgeoning desire for a living ethics rooted in direct engagements. This chapter reveals the breadth of the handmade revolution, tracing a singular example to investigate the desire to become a small-scale farmer; the network of apprenticing makers, farmers, and artists; the necessary participatory aestheticization of the farm as a marketing strategy and mode of cultural consumption; and the ethical complexity of sustaining the life of a young farmer in the current organic and locally-grown marketplace.

Animal Welfare and Animal Rights

Veterinarians routinely position themselves as the professionals who are most knowledgeable about non-human animals, and the public turns to them for guidance in matters of animal health and welfare. However, as research indicates, there is a considerable gap between what the public thinks veterinarians know and the actual veterinary curriculum. This study investigates the perspectives of veterinary students towards issues of animal welfare and animal rights, based on the results of a 2012 survey. Results indicate that veterinary students have limited and narrow understandings of both concepts, and that their knowledge is shaped by their professional socialization in veterinary education. Despite the enormous ethical complexity and diversity of philosophical perspectives that are inherent to both animal welfare and animal rights positions, veterinary students typically are not adequately prepared for a career that is located at the very center of these debates.

The Representation of Oriental Others in Haydn’s L’incontro improvviso

This paper examines the musical Orientalism and representation of Oriental Others in Haydn’s seraglio opera, L’incontro improvviso. In seraglio opera, one of the Turkish-themed musical genres of “Turcomania” that swept Europe in the eighteenth century, Oriental Others were defined by their supposed negative human traits such as slyness, crudeness or irrationality. Alla turca topos in L’incontro, as in other seraglio operas, are extensively used to accentuate the inferiority of Others, their customs or religions. The representation of Others demonstrates little ethical complexity, exhibiting a stark dichotomy between morally upright Westerners and unsophisticated Others with dubious morals. I argue that despite presenting no European characters dueling with Others and thus foregoing such a narrative format as “East meets West on stage,” Haydn’s L’incontro is, nonetheless, more diminishing in its portrayal of Others than in most seraglio operas: even the male protagonist is among the degraded Others who are usually subplot characters from a low social echelon. No “rescuer,” the protagonist in L’incontro is rendered as an incompetent figure. Ali’s unmanly stature is further highlighted by the active, counter-stereotypical Oriental heroine, Rezia, who is presented as a foil to emphasize the inadequacy of Ali. The ultimate male Other, the Sultan, suffers equally from a weak stage presence despite fulfilling his role as a conveyer of Enlightenment ideals in a typical lieto fine of Turkish opera.