Conceptualization of the "image of the future" and the "image of the city" and their mutual heuristic potential

Zheltikova Inga Vladislavovna PhD in Philosophy Associate professor, Department of Philosophy and Culturology, Turgenev State University of Oryol 302025, Russia, Orlovskaya oblast', g. Orel, ul. Burova, 26 inga.zheltikova@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction

As a kind of epigraph to this article, I think about the exhibition "ARCH Moscow" in Gostiny Dvor, which I happened to visit this spring. In every second exposition there was an application for the design of the future. The future is bright, conscious, ecological, open, innovative… Lots and lots of wood, starting from the basis of stands and exhibition models, ending with the presentation of wood as a material for architecture and design of the future. And the Black Sail, of course, is an installation by the Civil Bureau with a visual metaphor of "a gloomy and often frightening sail that, developing in the wind, rapidly carries us to a bright future" and should serve as "a symbol of personal challenges, overcoming which we are moving towards the necessary changes" ^[1].

The exhibition actively emphasized the connection between urban planning and the future. This connection is almost always present when it comes to urban planning and just architectural projects. This indicates that the perception of the city and the idea of its development are connected with the awareness of the future, the question is – how exactly are they connected?

The subject of this article will be the process of forming the conceptual certainty of such stable phrases as "the image of the future" and "the image of the city". I consider this article as a kind of introduction to the study of images of the future with the help of images of the city. Its purpose is to determine what new can be given to the study of society by the use of these concepts in their conjugacy.

In connection with such a purely formal aspect of this stage of research, hermeneutic analysis will act as its leading method, aimed at identifying the meanings in which the analyzed phrases are used and determining the variants of their definitions. Comparative analysis will help to establish the heuristic potential of the concepts "image of the future" and "image of the city" functioning in the field of social philosophy.

We attribute the relevance of this consideration, on the one hand, to the fact that with the active use of the phrases under consideration, they continue to function both in general publicistic and scientific discourse, without proper definition and indication of possible meanings. On the other hand, we believe that not only the idea of the future is able to concretize the idea of the prospects of cities, but also vice versa, considering the image of the city can help in studying the image of the future. Having established the mutual heuristic potential of the concepts "image of the future" and "image of the city", we hope to further use specific models of cities of the future to clarify the contours of the images of the future.

Formation of the concept of "image of the future" as a scientific concept

The phrase "image of the future" in Russian humanities is actively used by political scientists, historians, psychologists, teachers, literary critics. Political scientists and political analysts under the "image of the future" mean a picture of the desired perspective created by the ruling elite or other political force to consolidate the population ^[2], attract the electorate, promote a certain political attitude ^[3]. In this sense, the image of the future is of interest to researchers mainly from the position of the possibility of forming ^[4] its specific configuration and using it to solve current political problems ^[5].

Historians use the concept of "image of the future" in the meaning of a complex of ideas about the future of certain social groups of the past, localized in time and space ^[6]. For them, the image of the future acts as an element of the worldview of certain groups of the past, along with their value system, motivational attitudes and behavioral stereotypes. The image of the future is also considered within the framework of historical imagology, being concretized in such variants as, say, military expectations ^[7] or the communist future ^[8].

Psychologists and educators define the "image of the future" as subjective pictures of an individual future ^[9] and use it as a synonym for a "life project" ^[10]. In literary studies, the "image of the future" is a description in artistic ^[11], most often fantastic, works of what will happen tomorrow ^[12].

As a theoretical scientific concept, "The image of the future" was first proposed and developed by the Dutch researcher Fred Polak, who so designated a promising picture of social reality created by individual thinkers and supported by contemporaries ^{[13, p.10-11]}. The philosopher believed that the introduction of this concept into the social sciences would give them the opportunity to trace the mindset of society in more detail and eventually act as a parameter that allows them to diagnose emerging development trends ^{[13, p. 22]}. Since the end of the last century, the "image of the future" has been one of the central concepts of such a scientific field as Futures studies, and captures the form of the presence of the future in the present. In this philosophical meaning, the image of the future is defined as a holistic picture of the life of society in the unity of its various spheres (economics, ecology, politics, social relations, spiritual practices).

Finnish researchers A. Rubin ^[14], S. Ahvehnaryu ^[15], H. Lenturi ^[16] and their colleagues (Seyedeh Akhgar Kaboli, Petri Tapio ^[17], Sanna Ahvenharjua, Matti Minkkinena ^[18], Kathrin Komp-Leukkunen ^[19]) working at the Center for Future Studies at the Turku Institute indicate the fact that the study of images of the future allows us to determine the maximum possible options for future development, identify current motives, decisions, choices of people within certain social groups, better understand the value orientations of previous eras, realize the ideals and comprehend the fears experienced by our predecessors. A similar approach to the study of images of the future is present in other foreign (Tezanos J.F. ^[20], Guillo M. ^[21], Bas E. ^[22], Angheloiu S., Sheldrick L, Tennant M. ^[23]) and domestic (A.I. and N.G. Sherbinins ^[24], E.B. Shestopal ^[25], O. Kravtsov ^[2], S.I. Belov ^[26], E.V. Rochnyak ^[27]) researchers. These authors are interested in the general trends of attitude to perspective found in certain social groups, their work is aimed at studying the relationship of ideas about the future with the behavior of the studied groups in the present.

From a philosophical point of view, the image of the future is considered as an element of public consciousness, fixing generalized pictures of tomorrow, common to certain social groups. It combines ideas about the future in the form of a holistic thinking model, in which the mutual influence of various spheres of society's life is recorded. In this sense, the image of the future is a phenomenon of social reality, a factor influencing the behavior of both individuals and social groups.

Most researchers agree that images of the future contain not only cognitive elements, i.e. thoughts about tomorrow or the day after tomorrow ^[28], but also emotional attitudes: hopes, fears, expectations, fears, indifference, which characterize the general attitude towards the future ^[29]. The attitude to modality is also included in the images of the future – an assessment of a particular picture of the future from the standpoint of its probability, the degree of inevitability of the onset of a certain prospect, the possibility and necessity of influencing it.

This idea also belongs to F. Polak, who drew attention to the fact that the future can be seen as "guaranteed" or as "possible". In the first case, no matter how beautiful or terrifying the future may seem, we experience a passive state towards it, being confident that our efforts can neither bring closer nor avert the onset of "predestined" events. In the case of the attitude to the image of the future as a possible prospect, it is assumed that its onset depends on the actions of the living generations ^{[13, p.7-12]}.

Very interesting, but little studied is the visual component of the images of the future, which is present not only in the images of the future, but also in its descriptions and largely determines the holistic character in the representation of the future.

The formation of the concept of "image of the city" as a scientific concept

In contrast to the "image of the future", the phrase "image of the city" in a scientific context has even less categorical accuracy. It is used, often without proper definition, by architects and urban planners, art historians, philologists, geographers, political scientists.

Most often, the phrase "image of the city" is used in the meaning of the image of a real city, in which the uniqueness of urban space is fixed ^[30]. Researchers turn to the study or construction of the image of the city of Kuibyshev ^[31], Eagle ^[32] or Bratsk ^[33]. An example of defining the image of a city in this sense is the definition of the concept proposed by M.V. Perkova and A.S. Gorozhankina: "the image of a city can be defined as a relatively stable and reproducible in the mass and/or individual consciousness set of emotional and rational ideas about the city, formed on the basis of all the information received about it from various sources, and also their own experience and impressions" ^[34]. In this sense, the synonym of the phrase "image of the city" is "urban environment".

Approaching the interpretation of the image of the city from this position, the authors distinguish between the "image" and the "appearance" of the city. Meaning by the first a speculative model of a real city, its subjective interpretative schemes, and by the second – the appearance of the city, its architectural complexes, streets, buildings significant to citizens ^[35]. Speaking about the image of a particular city, researchers also distinguish between the "inner" and "outer" image of the city, the first one characteristic of city residents, the second one for tourists ^[36].

The second meaning of the concept "image of the city" refers us to a certain type of artistic image. For example, T. G. Goranskaya writes: "The image of the city is a manifestation of the spiritual essence of the material urban space, an expression of common features and unique features inherent in cities, a reflection of historical and cultural memory, ethno–cultural identity" ^[37], thereby pointing to the image of the city as an artistic image in the field of fine arts ^[38], verbal ^[39] or visual arts ^[40].

The third type of definitions of the "image of the city" arises as a result of abstracting and creating a generalized normative representation of a certain city. In this sense, "the concept of the image of the city includes an idea of the role it plays in the life of this region and the country as a whole. The city carries an image constructed by its history, spatio-temporal parameters, meanings embedded in it by its creators" ^[41], writes S. S. Kasatkina.

In this sense, the image of the city includes a geographical description, a list of attractions, and an economic perspective. But more importantly, the abstract image of the city is not concretized temporally. The image of Paris in this sense combines the ideas of modern Paris, Paris as the center of Art Nouveau culture, Paris during the French Revolution and Paris of the future (for example, on postcards by Marc Cote). In contrast to the image of a real city, in this sense, the concept of "image of the city" indicates images that function at the level of collective consciousness and give rise to the "illusion of animateness of the city" – "academic" St. Petersburg, "hospitable" Moscow, "fashionable" Paris, "elegant" Milan, "hardworking and serious" Yekaterinburg ^[42]. Synonyms for the image of the city in this sense are such terms as: "cultural landscape", "geopoetics" and "geopoetic image".

Finally, the fourth, philosophical definition of the "image of the city" defines it as a speculative model of the city as such, the result of a mental procedure of idealization, abstraction from an infinite number of real cities, their signs and features. The image of a city in this sense is a set of ideas about a specific place and way of life, different from natural and rural. In this sense, E. Soya writes about the image of the city: "human society and, in fact, all forms of social relations and social life arise, develop and change in the materially real and socially imaginary context of cities" ^[43], it is this imaginary context endowed with the essential characteristics of the city that corresponds to the philosophical concept of "the image of the city".

N. G. Shcherbinina in the article "The image of the city as a symbolic construct" ^[44] identifies the types of such mental models of the city: the first is the "great city" as a kind of axis of the world, the Promised Land; the second is the dream city, the "ideal city", the image of which is "constructed, as a rule, on the basis of one symbolic positions" – the center of education or trade, a defensive fortress or port; and the third – "an ordinary city" embodying "the realities of everyday life without any symbolic mediation", the image of which is not always positively colored and therefore often "represent places of mass exodus" ^{[44, pp.51-52]}.

This philosophical context of the definition of the concept of "image of the city" is the result of understanding and studying its more specific images. Unlike the previous images, the "image of the city" in the philosophical sense does not arise as a "result of reflection of individuals inhabiting" a specific urban space ^[45], but in the process of understanding the social reality of which the city is a part ^[46].

One of the first theoretical works devoted to the image of the city, published in the 60s of the 20th century, is indicative in this regard ^[47]. Its author, Kevin Lynch, begins his research with the image of a particular city, distinguishing in it the individual and public image of the city ^{[47, p. 7]}, then moves on to generalized normative ideas about the city and its characteristic such as "imageability" (imageability) ^{[47, p. 15]}, associated with visual characteristics of the city. Finally, introducing programmatic characteristics for all subsequent studies of the image of the city – "paths", "borders", "districts", "nodes" and "landmarks", Lynch moves on to the philosophical level of work with the concept of "image of the city".

The use of the concept of "image of the city" in its philosophical meaning indicates a speculative model of human settlement, the main parameters of which are socially, and not naturally conditioned.

Conclusions

The emergence of the concepts of "image of the future" and "image of the city" in scientific discourse occurs at about the same time, in the second half of the 20th century. In our opinion, this may indicate a new perspective or approach to the study of human society, in which the comprehension of everyday experience occurs through parameters that were previously outside the scientific discourse. The presentation of variable models of power, social interactions, gender relations, spiritual, labor and family practices, the future, urban space, as well as many other things, allows us to fix not only the visible and rationally comprehended side of social relations, but also the deep, emotional, partially unconscious components of these processes.

The conceptualization of the concepts of "image of the future" and "image of the city", the isolation of their philosophical content indicate that the corresponding parameter of social reality is being comprehended. After analyzing the contexts of the use of these concepts, we have identified their meanings, the most common in scientific research. For the image of the future, this is 1) an attractive ideological construct created by politicians to attract the electorate, 2) a complex of ideas about the future of certain social groups of the past, 3) subjective pictures of the individual future, 4) a description of tomorrow in works of art. In the image of the city we have distinguished the meanings: 1) the image of a real city, in which, based on personal impressions, a generalized representation is formed that captures the uniqueness of a particular urban space, 2) the artistic image of the city captured in painting, literature, cinema, music, 3) the stereotypical image of the city as a generalized normative representation of a well-known, historically significant city.

As a result of working with the categorical apparatus, we came to the conclusion that for socio-philosophical research, it is especially useful to use the most theoretical meanings of these concepts – the image of the future as a holistic picture of human life in perspective, the interaction of various social spheres, and the image of the city as a speculative model of human settlement, the main parameters of which are socially conditioned.

We believe that the image of the city can be considered as an element of the image of the future, capturing ideas about society, its structure, economy, politics, spiritual practices, social expectations of the time in which it is created.

The image of the city as a visual image is largely irrational, it reflects intuition about the future, feelings of optimism or pessimism, the experiences of actual generations caused by the expectation of tomorrow. An illustrative example of the "paradox of visuality" can be the installation "Black Sail", already mentioned at the beginning of this article. The black cloth on the flagpole, swayed by the directional flow of air, contrasted with most of the exhibitions of the ARCH of Moscow, making a reference at the same time to pirate ships and mourning flags. The text comment, at first glance, was intended to explain why the installation should be perceived positively. However, it was from the accompanying explanations that it became clear that the authors associated the proposed image with the future. Saying that the "gloomy sail" carries us to a bright future, they actually admit that they see the future as frightening and in order to overcome this irrational fear, it is necessary to reinterpret the image, connect it on a rational level with the positive message of "overcoming difficulties". This example shows well that the visual image in general and the image of the city in particular can convey a split perception of the future, in which the feelings associated with it contradict the rational layer of understanding the future.

We want to offer the study of the image of the city as one of the methods of studying the images of the future. When thinking about the future, we often imagine the cities of tomorrow. In this regard, the image of the city visualizes ideas about the future. So, for example, in book illustration or cinema, the image of the future is often conveyed precisely by urban space, unprecedented structures, multi-tiered skyscrapers connected by traffic flows, flying cars, the digital environment inside the house.

But the reverse process is no less productive – imagining the cities of the future, we unconsciously build their images based on the idea of the future as a whole. The city with the buildings-trees of Benjamin Seyelstad and Reginald Vilensky, the city-combine of Le Corbusier, the flying cities of Ivan Leonidov and Georgy Krutikov are not only urban utopias, but also a certain view of the social relations of the future, the organization of production, interaction with the natural environment. In this regard, the study of the image of the city and, first of all, the image of the city of the future is able to detect unconscious layers in the ideas of the future, genuine emotional experiences in relation to the future, if you will, subconscious fears of what we can expect.