KukArt Magazine as a Cultural Project

Abstract

The present research raises a question on functioning of magazines in the digital era. The author of the paper addresses the KukArt magazine (1992–2006) which used to be a hallmark in the Russian intellectual life at the turn of the century and has not lost its relevance at present. The research proposes a discursive analysis to identify features of the KukArt magazine strategy. According to the author of the paper, the KukArt longevity phenomenon can be explained by the fact that the magazine became a testing ground to try some mutually exclusive ideas, and the place where different discourse practices coexisted. The article formulates the idea that the purpose of the magazine was to form a new cultural space which synthesizes various fi elds of art. The author gives a detailed description of all issues of the magazine in the synchronous and diachronic aspects. The main feature of KukArt is absence of a unifi ed framework (making features which were based on objectives set and problems solved: the puppet and the avant-garde, the puppet and literature, the puppet and folklore, the puppet and the masquerade mask, the puppet and home theatre, the puppet and the mannequin, etc.) Originally targeted at the puppet, the magazine shifted gradually towards an anthropological pole trying to answer the question: ‘What is a human?’ Due to such an editorial strategy KukArt drew a wide reading audience attention and went beyond theatre environment bounds. Limited edition and absence of a digital format led to the rise of the magazine ‘aura value’, for the unique and non-reproducible things only have had the greatest value in human culture system.