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The experience of iconological interpretation of Internet memes (based on the material of "quarantines" from the collection of social cartoons of the Center for Social and Political History of the State Public Historical Library)

Pushkareva Tatiana Vitaljevna

ORCID: 0000-0002-9139-6121

PhD in Philosophy

Associate professor, Department of Design and Architecture, Synergy University

125190, Russia, Moscow, Leningradsky ave., 80, G

ap-bib@yandex.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 
Shemyakina Elena Mihajlovna

PhD in Philosophy

Associate professor, Department of Culturology, Moscow State Pedagogical University

119991, Russia, Moscow, Malaya Pirogovskaya str., 1/1

simbaplus@mail.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 
Yushchenko Natalia Sergeevna

ORCID: 0000-0002-8911-5765

PhD in Pedagogy

Associate professor, Department of Art and Folk Art, Russian State Social University

129226, Russia, Moscow, Wilhelm Peak str., 4, building 1

n.yushenko@list.ru
Derzhavina Ol'ga Anatolyevna

ORCID: 0000-0002-1986-0938

Senior Lecturer, Department of Design and Architecture, "Synergy" University

125190, Russia, Moscow, 80 Leningradsky Ave., building G

arte-accordo@mail.ru

DOI:

10.25136/2409-8744.2023.3.40674

EDN:

TVCAMS

Received:

03-05-2023


Published:

10-05-2023


Abstract: The object of the research is Internet memes as a product of modern mass culture and art. The subject of the study is the iconological interpretation of an Internet meme as an art object. Internet memes dedicated to the lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic - "quarantine" from the collection of social cartoons of the Center for Socio-Political History of the State Public Historical Library, which was collected during the lockdown of 2020, and also relevant Internet materials were selected for interpretation. The purpose of the article is to conduct an iconological interpretation of selected Internet memes from the collection of social cartoons of the Center for Socio–Political History of the State Public Historical Library. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time an Internet meme was considered as an art object, and the possibilities of iconological interpretation of this phenomenon of modern culture and art were investigated using the example of several "quarantine" sites. The article shows that the construction of "quarantines" went both along the path of creating new memes and by transforming old memes based on recontextualization – using well-known plots, images, heroes to discuss new realities. The iconological interpretation of the "quarantines" made it possible to identify the features of the reflection of the pandemic in the public consciousness (the feeling of the "inversion" of the world, the catastrophic nature of changes, new security conditions) and to deepen knowledge about the nature of artistic self-help of society in conditions of social extremum (the use of the healing effects of the tragicomic).


Keywords:

Internet meme, iconology, web culture, quarantine, pandemic, popular culture, digital folklore, interpretation, recontextualization, social caricature

This article is automatically translated. You can find original text of the article here.

 Introduction

            

With the development of digitalization of society and mass communications, the phenomenon of the Internet meme is becoming increasingly important, turning into a kind of cultural universal of modernity and forcing researchers to turn to the study of the nature and features of the functioning of this phenomenon. The synthetics, variability, intertextuality, interactivity, compactness and capacity of this form of mass communication and at the same time folk art require an interdisciplinary approach. The existing tradition of studying the phenomenon of Internet memes covers mainly the field of linguistics and communication studies: the Internet meme is considered as a unit of network communication, as a polymodal media text requiring special decoding skills. The artistic component of this phenomenon of modern culture remains largely outside the scientific focus. Meanwhile, the Internet meme as a creative product is typologically close to such artistic forms as social caricature, splint, and thus can be considered as a special art object.

The article offers an innovative experience of artistic, iconological, interpretation of the Internet meme, which will partially compensate for the existing research "media trend" and thus contribute to a comprehensive interdisciplinary study of this phenomenon.

The empirical material of the study was Internet memes from the collection of social cartoons of the Center for Socio-Political History of the State Public Historical Library, which was collected by employees of the Department of Non-traditional Printing of the CSPI GPIB during the lockdown period of 2020. In total, the collection contains 3082 storage units, each find is described, systematized, prepared for scientific analysis [1, 2]. The thematic generality of the Internet memes offered here for analysis will allow us to optimize the process of artistic interpretation.

The object of research is Internet memes as a product of modern mass culture and art.

The subject of the study is the possibilities of iconological interpretation of an Internet meme (using the example of "quarantine").  

The aim is to conduct an iconological interpretation of selected Internet memes from the collection of social cartoons of the Center for Socio–Political History of the State Public Historical Library.

Tasks: to consider the Internet meme as a phenomenon of modern culture and to trace the main approaches to its study and interpretation; to adapt the strategy of the iconological method of interpreting a work of art to the material of the Internet meme; to demonstrate the possibilities of the iconological method in the description, analysis and interpretation of representative examples of Internet memes from the collection of "quarantines" of the CSPI GPIB.

 

 

Literature reviewFor the first time, the word "meme" was used by the American biologist and popularizer of science Richard Dawkins in his book "The Selfish Gene", which was published in 1976.

 The word "meme" (from the ancient Greek ?????? m?m?ma, "imitated things") is actually used by the author as a metaphor to describe the copying and dissemination of information in culture by analogy with copying and dissemination of information in nature using a gene [3]. After the rapid rise of Dawkins' memetics, its decline quickly began. New technologies, social networks and the "culture of participation" developing on their basis have led to the fact that the concept of meme has become narrower and more specific. And currently, the use of the concept of "meme" has only one property in common with Dawkins' term: the unconscious nature of the dissemination and copying of information.

A meme since the 2000s is more commonly referred to as "funny photos and videos that ply the Internet, they ridicule or imitate famous people and situations that previously caused a stir in the media." (Meme (Kulturph?nomen). URL: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme_(Kulturph%C3%A4nomen)).

Attempts to conceptualize this phenomenon are being made continuously, the volume of literature on web culture and on Internet memes as part of it is continuously growing [4, 5, 7,75] But it is difficult not to agree with one of the authoritative researchers of memes S.A.Shomova that "meme today only replenishes a cohort of concepts, the theoretical understanding of which does not keep up for their practical dissemination." [8, p.4]

Linguists show the greatest interest in studying the phenomenon of the Internet meme [9, 10, 11, 12, 13], Increasingly, we are talking about the formation of cyberlinguistics as a field that studies the specifics of electronic texts. [11] A detailed typology of Internet memes is proposed, including the following groups: 1) text (word, phrase); 2) image (recognizable image, "photojab"); 3) video; 4) creolized text integrating text and image into a single whole. [12, p.164] Moreover, it is likely that the creolized text has become one of the mass types of memes, which is clearly visible from the collection of "quarantine" of the CSPI GPIB. [14, p.71]  The term "creolized text" itself was proposed by Yu.A.Sorokin and E.F.Tarasov to denote texts consisting of two inhomogeneous parts, verbal and nonverbal (more often visual), and the information capacity of the nonverbal part is more often than textual. [15, pp. 180-181] In addition to memes, posters, cartoons, comics, advertising. Since the Internet meme acts as a synthetic phenomenon, most often combining verbal and visual forms, researchers talk about the polymodality of the meme and that special iconic literacy is required to decipher it. [14, 15, 16]

Researchers are also analyzing the media nature of the meme. [6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 23, 24] It is noted that the meme as a kind of synthetic joke, thanks to electronic replication, spreads almost instantly and thus forms a common virtual communicative field. Moreover, the spread of a meme usually takes from several days to several years, after which the replication process slows down or stops. [12] Anonymity, the rapidity of distribution, the mass character of the Internet meme allow a number of researchers to interpret the Internet meme as a genre of digital folklore. [14, 25, 26]

Political memes are of particular research interest. Thus, L. Shifman developed a semiotic methodology for analyzing an Internet meme to identify the "supporting" and "undermining" social order functions of Internet memes. [6, 27, 28] An example of an original sociological analysis of Internet memes is given by V.V.Shcheblanova, L.V.Loginova, I.Y.Surkova, who studied Internet memes of virtual urban communities of Saratov to assess the civic activity of the city's youth. [29] L.V.Moiseenko analyzes the deliberate creation of Internet memes on key political events in order to manage public opinion and also the use of memes as a marketing tool. [30] The works of S.A.Shomova are devoted to the study of political memes. [31, 32]

Recently, there have been more and more works devoted to Internet memes of the pandemic era - the so–called "quarantines". K.L.Ryzhkov notes that coronavirus infection and its socio-political consequences have led to the emergence of a new thematic group of Internet memes. [33] Spanish researchers have shown how "quarantines" contributed to the normalization of public well-being during the pandemic. [34] E.Aslan demonstrates, based on data from the American digital portal that collects and systematizes Internet memes, how during the COVID-19 pandemic, users around the world used Internet memes to cope with their negative psychological reactions. The intertextuality of "quarantines" has become a productive resource in this sense, helping to comprehend the absurd reality through familiar images and texts [35] Smirnova O.V., Denissova G.V., etc. we compared Russian and Chinese memes on the topic of covid, showing the cultural specifics of this global phenomenon. [36]

Earlier, based on the analysis of the collection of the CSPI GPIB, we concluded that quarantines have become "an artistic method of self-help of society in a situation of dramatic challenges and changes in the usual order." [14, p.64] And the effectiveness of this method was undoubtedly associated with the artistic nature of the Internet meme, which makes it possible to interpret the Internet meme as an art object. To do this, we propose to use one of the dominant art criticism strategies of artistic interpretation developed within the framework of the iconology of Erwin Panofsky.

The digital response of society to the pandemic crisis was carried out both by creating new memes and by transforming old memes.  In both cases, it was about recontextualization – the use of well-known plots, images, and heroes to discuss new realities, which makes it possible to consider an Internet meme a good object for iconological interpretation, since the role of heroes and mythological plots that were previously discovered by E.Panofsky in classical painting, Internet memes are played by heroes and plots of popular culture.

 

 

            The algorithm of iconological interpretation: from classics to memeThe iconological method of Erwin Panofsky assumes a three-step interpretation of an art object. [37, pp. 43-48] Panofsky himself used this method to analyze works of classical painting, but his method is now used to analyze works of modern abstract art.

[38] The extension of the application of this method to artistic creolized texts, including Internet memes, is somewhat complicated by the fact that it is necessary to analyze the visual and verbal parts, which (and this property of the genre) often contradict each other, but these difficulties are not only surmountable, but also heuristically fruitful.

The first step is a pre–iconographic description of a work of art. This is an analysis of the primary, natural, or explicit plot, which is divided into factual and expressive. The actual plot is comprehended through the identification of certain configurations of lines and colors representing natural objects, such as people, animals, plants, houses, tools, etc., by identifying their mutual relationships, events. An expressive plot is identified through the qualities of objects, such as, for example, a mournful pose, a peaceful atmosphere of the hearth. This is the world of pure forms, perceived as carriers of primary, natural meanings, Panofsky calls the world of artistic motifs. The enumeration of these motifs is the essence of the first step – a pre-iconographic description of a work of art.

            The second step is a secondary, or conditional, plot, iconographic description of the work of art. Identification of stories, allegories with their specific themes, concepts that Panofsky himself associated with the identification of mythological plots. And when analyzing our object, most often it is the establishment of quoted works of culture, as well as a number of previous and subsequent variations of memes.

            The third step is to identify the inner content, the meaning that makes up the world of "symbolic" values. "... we approach a work of art as a manifestation of something else that expresses itself in an innumerable variety of other manifestations, and interpret its compositional and iconographic features as more concrete evidence of this something else. The discovery and interpretation of these symbolic values (which are often unknown to the artist himself and may even be strikingly different from what he wanted to express consciously)." [38, pp. 43-48] 

          The archive of the collection of social cartoons of the CSPI GPIB with numbered objects is used here as a kind of map for studying the entire digital array of "quarantines". According to the visual and verbal characteristics recorded in the collection, there is a Google search for analogues that are present on the current Internet, a link to this current image is provided. Since Internet memes differ in variability, the example given may contain differences in details from the image recorded under the specified number in the collection.

            In our work, we use works without the consent of the author and without payment of royalties, but with an indication of the actual source of the image, since according to paragraph 1 of Article 1274 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (part four) of 18.12.2006 N 230-FZ "it is allowed without the consent of the author or other copyright holder and without payment of remuneration, but with mandatory indication of the name the author whose work is used, and the source of borrowing ... quoting in the original and in translation for scientific, polemical, critical, informational, educational purposes, in order to disclose the creative intent of the author of legitimately published works to the extent justified by the purpose of quoting" (Civil Code of the Russian Federation, 2006). At the same time, it must be recognized that the field of Internet creativity currently remains vulnerable to copyright, since it is often not possible to establish the authorship of works, the legality of publications and electronic replication of works, as well as due to the rapid change of electronic addresses of the works themselves on the Internet.

           

 

Iconological interpretation of the Internet meme "The hedgehog came out of the fog"(No. 605 in the collection of the CSPI GPIB)

"Quarantine" from the collection of the CSPI GPIB "The hedgehog came out of the fog" (Fig.1 and 3) is a work of tone graphics, there are two plans – the first is clear (grass and an anthropomorphic image of a Hedgehog in the image of a child) and the second is blurred (light background with tree contours).

The blurred background makes up about two-thirds of the image, and a poetic text without punctuation marks is placed on it in light letters:  "The hedgehog came out of the fog, took the mask out of his pocket and stands all alone because of quarantine." An anthropomorphic image of a hedgehog standing like a man in a white hygienic mask covering his nose, mouth and cheeks. The hedgehog's gaze is fixed on the viewer, eyes wide open. In his left raised hand, the hedgehog holds the stem of a plant with a glowing ball at the top.

Èçîáðàæåíèå âûãëÿäèò êàê Âåá-ñàéò  Àâòîìàòè÷åñêè ñîçäàííîå îïèñàíèå

The image of the "quarantine" in Figs.1 and 3 is a visual static quote from the classic cartoon by Yuri Norstein and Francesca Yarbusova (1974), which received 35 awards (Fig.2). The story of a Hedgehog who went to visit his friend Bear, and on the way, getting into the fog, experiences a lot of real and imaginary adventures: a meeting with an Owl, a Snail suddenly turning into an Elephant, a Bat, a Dog returning a lost bundle of jam to the hero, a fish that carried him down the river, as well as an image of a white Horse. Having suffered a lot of worries and discoveries, the Hedgehog gets to his friend, and they count the stars and drink tea with raspberry jam. The frame used in the Internet meme, in "quarantine", refers to a fragment of the beginning of the maximum panic of the hero, when he loses a knot with jam for a friend in the fog (at some of these moments the Hedgehog even gets up on all four paws, losing anthropomorphism), tries to find a knot with the help of a firefly on a flower (6.20), a little further loses the firefly and plunges into fears. In this version of the Internet meme, the image from the cartoon is supplemented with only one element - a white mask, which looks organic here, as it resembles a knot with jam in shape and color (in variations of this Internet meme, there is also another fragment of the cartoon, where the knot in the Hedgehog's hand looks like a mask).

 Table 1, "Recontextualization of the image in the Internet meme "The hedgehog came out of the fog", thus presents a visual comparison of the Internet meme ("quarantine") and the primary text from which the image was borrowed.

The text accompaniment of the visual image of the "quarantine woman" "The hedgehog came out of the fog" is associated with a children's reading (which perhaps explains the absence of punctuation marks), which appeared in the post-war period and sounded as follows: "A German came out of the fog, / Took a knife out of his pocket. / I will cut, I will beat, / You will drive anyway." Further in the 70s, "German" was replaced by "month". And in the 1980s, after the release of Norstein's cartoon, a new version of the counting began to spread: "A hedgehog came out of the fog, / Took a knife out of his pocket, / Took out pebbles and chalk, / Smiled as he could ..." [39, pp. 219-240] and other options, one of which was "quarantine", in which, however, the ominous taste of post-war counting is preserved.

In the Internet meme, "quarantine", "The hedgehog came out of the fog", if we consider it in the context of the original source – the cartoon by Norstein – a static moment of increasing panic is depicted, which already in the next frames of the cartoon breaks up into many chaotic movements. The text accompaniment of the image actually stops the plot at this point ("and it's all alone because it's quarantined"): further, in this way, neither a meeting with the dog who returned the knot to the hedgehog, nor a meeting with the Fish that ferried the hero across the river, nor actually a long-awaited meeting with the Bear Cub is expected. Thus, a kind of tragicomic effect is achieved, which is accompanied by a mood of fragile balance, which can only be preserved by freezing. The contrast of the two plans – a clear image of the hero himself, the surface of the meadow and the overwhelming vague foggy background complements this effect. Not only social isolation, but also the fragility of the world, the loss and cardinal interruption of the usual plot, as well as the scale of a new problem that turns a person into a child, becomes the "inner meaning" of this quarantine. The catastrophism of the plot is removed, however, by using a cartoon form, a quote that presents this plot as playful, cute, poetically designed. The combination of these two opposite qualities gives rise to comedy and relieves the tension set by the referent (isolation) and the plot of the classic cartoon stopped in this image. The ability to like, repost or transfer a meme, share the experience of loneliness in a foggy forest, also allows you to partially resolve the tragic situation.

The "quarantines" "The hedgehog came out of the fog" (Fig. 1, 3, 4) became a continuation of the doc-shaped version of the meme of the same name (Fig. 6, 7, 8) and also, in turn, gave rise to many variations. It can be noted that the recontextualization of the image takes place here on the basis of the docoid tradition being created, but with the preservation of references to the original source, and ultimately with the enrichment of meaning compared to the docoid Internet memes of this template. A visual comparison of the variations of the "quarantine" "The hedgehog came out of the fog" with the doc-shaped variations of the meme of the same name is presented in Table 2.

Èçîáðàæåíèå âûãëÿäèò êàê Âåá-ñàéò  Àâòîìàòè÷åñêè ñîçäàííîå îïèñàíèå

 

 

Iconological interpretation of the Internet meme "How the removers see themselves" (No. 2835 in the collection of the CSPI GPIB)

In the image of the "quarantine" from the collection of the CSPI GPIB "How the removers see themselves" (Fig.9 and 12) there are three rectangles with photos and captions arranged in two rows: two at the top and one at the bottom in the middle.

The first rectangle contains a square black-and-white photograph of sculptures – three Atlanteans in classical poses (holding bent arms behind their heads and supporting the ceiling of the building), accompanied by a signature on a white background in sans-serif font "How the removalists see themselves." On the second rectangle, a second photograph of the Atlanteans is placed next to it, identical to the first, but rotated ninety degrees to the right in such a way that the Atlanteans look reclining on a bed with their arms thrown over their heads, and the ceiling becomes a supporting wall. The image is accompanied by a caption on a white background in sans-serif font "How their superiors see the remoters". The third rectangle represents the same photo itself, but rotated 180 degrees relative to the first one in such a way that the Atlanteans look standing on their heads. The photo, unlike the first two, has a somewhat elongated vertical shape, forming a rectangle. The photo is accompanied by a caption on a white background in sans-serif font "Removers really".

Table 3, "Recontextualization of the image in the Internet meme "How the removers see themselves", thus presents a visual comparison of the Internet meme ("quarantine") and the primary text from which the image was borrowed.

 Èçîáðàæåíèå âûãëÿäèò êàê òåêñò, ãàçåòà, ñíèìîê ýêðàíà  Àâòîìàòè÷åñêè ñîçäàííîå îïèñàíèå 

         One of the first images of "Atlanteans resting" (Fig. 11), which was obtained by unfolding a photo of standing Atlanteans by 90 degrees (Fig.10), refers to 2016. Then this modification was presented as a non-trivial view of classical works (see Atlanteans. An alternative view. 2016. URL: https://neteye.ru/admin/2016/03/23/atlanty-alternativnyy-vzglyad.html). Then this image begins to be used in psychological texts (see: The power of the subconscious, or Why you should not fight with yourself. URL: https://welemudr.mirtesen.ru/blog/43764940525/Sila-podsoznaniya-ili-Pochemu-ne-stoit-borotsya-s-soboy?nr=1). And finally, the juxtaposition of classical and "resting" Atlanteans is beginning to be used in Internet memes to joke about professional groups/departments in companies (Fig. 14, 15).

With the beginning of the lockdown, this plot was transferred to workers working remotely from home ("remoters"), which led not only to repeated copying of the meme with a new opposition "remoters-bosses" (Fig.13), but also to its fundamental creative addition with a third image "Remoters actually", where the Atlanteans they turned out to be standing again, but already upside down (Fig. 9 and 12). The theme of the punishment of the Olympian gods who forced the Atlanteans to hold the firmament on their shoulders, reflected in the sculptural group, was thus also developed: the punishment was replaced by another, obviously more sophisticated, although outwardly lightened. The third image, which appeared during the lockdown period, thus logically completed the visual interpretation of the theme with the Atlanteans, offering a version of the Atlanteans standing in one of the complex yoga poses – a headstand.

The idea of the physical impossibility of being in such a position for a long time, despite the absence of a burden, is obviously supplemented here with a new symbolic meaning – the idea of the inversion of the world. Due to the central location of this image and a different form in comparison with the first two photos, it is on it that the emphasis falls, which together with the signature "actually" indicates the symbolic meaning of the image. The latest version of the Internet meme is thus characterized by a high level of abstraction, an attempt not only to describe, but also to visually comprehend what is happening. At the same time, the placement of inverted Atlanteans in a single visual complex with classical and resting Atlanteans can be interpreted as the establishment of a new norm, and here we can also talk about a kind of artistic way of normalizing the anomaly.

A visual comparison of the "quarantine" variations "How the removers see themselves" with doc-like variations of the meme of the same name is presented in Table 4.

Èçîáðàæåíèå âûãëÿäèò êàê òåêñò, ñíèìîê ýêðàíà, ãàçåòà  Àâòîìàòè÷åñêè ñîçäàííîå îïèñàíèå

 

Iconological interpretation of the Internet meme "Wipe the door behind me, I'm leaving" (No. 1160 in the collection of the CSPI GPIB)

The image of the "quarantine woman" from the collection of the CSPI GPIB "Wipe the door behind me, I'm leaving" (Fig. 16 and 18) contains a color photograph in black and green with a portrait of a man aged about 25 years against a wooden fence.

In the upper part of the quarantine on a light blue background, the inscription "Wipe the door behind me, I'm leaving" is printed in sans-serif font. The man's expression is tragically enlightened, his gaze is directed far to the left.

Èçîáðàæåíèå âûãëÿäèò êàê Âåá-ñàéò  Àâòîìàòè÷åñêè ñîçäàííîå îïèñàíèå

The photo is a visual static quote from the classic film "Needle" (1990) directed by R. Nugmanov, where a close-up portrait of the main character Moro performed by Viktor Tsoi is shown. The film became the leader of the Soviet film distribution in 1989, belongs by a number of experts to the cult films of the world level. The plot of the film begins with the fact that the hero of Viktor Tsoi goes from Moscow to Alma-Ata to return the money owed to him by an acquaintance, stops at his old girlfriend. Understands that she has become a drug addict, her apartment has turned into a place for selling drugs. The hero of Choi is trying to help his girlfriend get rid of addiction, he has to enter into a confrontation with drug suppliers who send a killer to him. The hero of Choi gets stabbed, the film ends with the fact that the seriously wounded hero rises and with difficulty goes into the darkness.

The photo is a frame from the film, where the hero Tsoi for the first time reflects the attack of drug dealers. This photo became an element of the cult of the figure of Viktor Tsoi and was used by fans outside the humorous context before the quarantine. The text part of the quarantine paraphrases the famous line from Viktor Tsoi's song "Close the door behind me. I'm leaving" (1986) and also became part of the cult of Choi, but became the material for memes even before the lockdown (Fig. 21, 22, 23). During the lockdown period, it was this line that was paraphrased and received a new humorous interpretation both in the form of the text itself and accompanied by a picture, including in the humorous context a photo image of Tsoi from the cult film "Needle".

When analyzing the inscription that complements the visual image, it turns out that this is a slightly modified first line of V. Tsoi's song "Close the door behind me", dedicated to the lyrical juxtaposition of the house and the street, and the space outside the house is interpreted as more free, attractive and preferable. Thus, in the "quarantine" "Wipe the door behind me", an important antithesis for the pandemic is latently present: a house and a street.

The contrast of the climactic tragic frame from the film and the "reduced" paraphrasing of a line from the song creates an ambivalent feeling of the tension of the moment and also the possibility of neglecting this difficult situation.

 

 

ConclusionWith the development of new technologies and means of communication, the Internet meme is turning into a new cultural universal, the comprehension of which requires an interdisciplinary approach.

Until now, the Internet meme has been considered as a manifestation of a new language of modernity within the framework of linguistics, communication studies, as well as sociology and political science, while the artistic component of the phenomenon has remained ignored by researchers. The consideration of the Internet meme as an art object, undertaken in the article on the basis of the iconological method of Erwin Panofsky, showed the heuristic value of the chosen approach and generally contributes to the interdisciplinary understanding of this new phenomenon.

  For the selective analysis of "quarantines" (Internet memes created in response to the conditions of the pandemic lockdown), the method of iconological interpretation of the artistic work of Erwin Panofsky was used, which allows to "unpack" the hidden meanings, values, norms that are transmitted by the work often bypassing the consciousness of the creators and recipients. The production of "quarantines" went both along the path of creating new memes and by transforming old memes. In both cases, it was about recontextualization – the use of well-known plots, images, and heroes to discuss new realities, which makes it possible to consider an Internet meme a good object for iconological interpretation, since the role of heroes and mythological plots that were previously discovered by E.Panofsky in classical painting, Internet memes are played by heroes and plots of popular culture.

Based on the iconological analysis of the three "quarantines" "The hedgehog came out of the fog", "Wipe the door behind me" and "How the removalists see themselves", new social coordinates of human existence brought by the pandemic are fixed: the fundamental and not fully realized "inversion" of the world; the omission of the catastrophic nature of changes; new security conditions that at the beginning of the lockdown, the main risks were associated with being on the street, and later with confined spaces.

It is also possible to draw some preliminary conclusions about the nature of the artistic impact of the Internet meme and "quarantine", in particular: a tragic visual image is accompanied by a deliberately "reduced" signature, which gives rise to a tragicomic effect and helps to relieve tension.

Thus, the iconological interpretation of the "quarantines" allows us to deepen knowledge about the mechanisms of reflection of the pandemic in the public consciousness and about the nature of artistic self-help of society in conditions of social extremum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In the journal "Man and Culture", the author presented his article "The experience of iconological interpretation of Internet memes (based on the material of "quarantines" from the collection of social cartoons of the CSPI GPIB)", in which a study was conducted on the nature of the artistic impact of the Internet meme and "quarantine" (an Internet meme created in response to the conditions of the pandemic lockdown) in particular. The author proceeds in the study of this issue from the fact that the Internet meme, with the development of new technologies and means of communication, is turning into a new cultural universal, the understanding of which requires an interdisciplinary approach. The essence of the artistic impact of the Internet meme and "quarantine", in particular, lies, in the author's opinion, in the fact that the tragic visual image is accompanied by a deliberately "reduced" signature, which gives rise to a tragicomic effect and helps to relieve tension. The iconological interpretation of "quarantine" allows the author to deepen his knowledge about the mechanisms of reflecting the pandemic in the public consciousness and about the nature of artistic self-help of society in conditions of social extremum. The relevance of the research is due to the fact that the existing tradition of studying the phenomenon of Internet memes covers mainly the field of linguistics and communication studies: the Internet meme is considered as a unit of network communication, as a polymodal media text requiring special decoding skills. The artistic component of this phenomenon of modern culture remains, as the author believes, largely outside the scientific focus. The author refers the Internet meme as a creative product to such artistic forms as social caricature, splint, and thus considers it as a special art object. The scientific novelty of the research is the experience of artistic, iconological, and interpretation of the Internet meme, which allowed the author to partially compensate for the established research direction and thus contribute to a comprehensive interdisciplinary study of this phenomenon. The research methodology is based on the iconological method of Erwin Panfosky, which assumes a three-step interpretation of an art object: a pre-iconographic description of a work of art (analysis of the primary, natural, or explicit plot, which is divided into factual and expressive); iconographic description of a work of art (identification of stories, allegories with their specific themes, concepts); identification of internal content, meaning, which makes up the world of symbolic values. The empirical material of the study was Internet memes from the collection of social cartoons of the Center for Socio-Political History of the State Public Historical Library, which was collected by employees of the Department of non-traditional printing of the CSPI GPIB during the lockdown period of 2020. The object of research is Internet memes as a product of modern mass culture and art. The subject of the study is the possibilities of iconological interpretation of an Internet meme (using the example of "quarantine"). The aim is to carry out an iconological interpretation of selected Internet memes from the collection of social cartoons of the Center for Socio–Political History of the State Public Historical Library. Analyzing the scientific validity of the problem, the author notes the variety of works of linguistic, political science, and sociological fields devoted to the problem of interpretation and the socio-cultural function of the Internet meme. The author notes his own works devoted to this issue, in which he concludes that quarantine has become "an artistic method of self-help for society in a situation of dramatic challenges and changes in the usual order." Applying the iconological method of Erwin Panfosky, the author analyzes the following memes in his research: "The hedgehog came out of the fog" (No. 605 in the collection of the CSPI GPIB); "How the removers see themselves" (No. 2835 in the collection of the CSPI GPIB); "Wipe the door behind me, I'm leaving" (No. 1160 in the collection of the CSPI GPIB). The author gives a detailed descriptive, semantic and semiotic analysis of memes, compares the original images with their versions converted into memes. The comparative analysis data are presented by the author in the form of tables. Summarizing the studied material, the author states that the production of "quarantine" went both along the path of creating new memes and by transforming old memes. The author defines this process as recontextualization – the use of well-known plots, images, and characters to discuss new realities. The author, based on the results of the study, fixed new social coordinates of human existence that the pandemic brought: a fundamental and not fully realized inversion of the world; a sense of the catastrophic nature of change; new security conditions, which at the beginning of the lockdown associated the main risks with being on the street, and later with confined spaces. In conclusion, the author presents the conclusions of the study, including all the key provisions of the presented material. It seems that the author in his material touched upon relevant and interesting issues for modern socio-humanitarian knowledge, choosing a topic for analysis, consideration of which in scientific research discourse will entail certain changes in the established approaches and directions of analysis of the problem addressed in the presented article. The results obtained allow us to assert that the problem of studying Internet memes as a new socio-cultural phenomenon is of undoubted theoretical and practical cultural interest and can serve as a source of further research. The conclusions drawn by the author allow us to state that such an experience can serve as the basis for further research. The material presented in the work has a clear, logically structured structure that contributes to a more complete assimilation of the material. An adequate choice of methodological base also contributes to this. The bibliographic list of the study consists of 39 sources, including foreign ones, which seems sufficient for generalization and analysis of scientific discourse on the studied problem. The author fulfilled his goal, received certain scientific results that allowed him to summarize the material. It should be noted that the article may be of interest to readers and deserves to be published in a reputable scientific publication.