THE CULTURAL POLICY OF GENDER EQUALITY

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Our time, no matter how modern and liberal it seems, still raises the question: Does cultural policy of gender equality in the 21st century really exists or gender discrimination still prevails, both in some cultures and in business? Women advance slowly in the business world, they are paid less than their male counterparts and they need more time and effort to reach the desired positions. In business, especially a global one, women in high positions are very rare. The prejudice is that women are not “cast” for leadership, that they are too emotional, and that they lack the power… Is this really the case? Why don’t more women reach top management positions? The aim of this paper is to answer such questions, to indicate the position of women in global businesses, the opportunities, challenges and obstacles that women face in business, their ability to balance work and family and finally, to give directions how to use cultural policy in removing barriers for advancement of women. 

GLOBALIST ASPECTS OF NEW MEDIA EXPАNSION: FROM SILENT TO SPOKEN (MOBILE) PAINTING

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Today, globalization cannot be observed as a separate phenomenon which, by the way, causes various consequences in many segments of social development. It is a general phenomenon that also has its positive effects, although they remain invisible and often insignificant to the common man. The primary vehicle of its spread are the media. Nowadays, the screen has become an instrument of the ubiquitous media, but also a window we use to observe and interpret contemporary art. Since this instrument is available to almost anybody in this or that form, it is the most massive tool of art analysis and exchange. This, however, carries a certain danger since its accessibility to population at large questions the authenticity as well as evaluation of any piece of art. A traditional painting is being progressively replaced by film. The way it observes the world and connects various experiences offers the modern viewers widest cultural information in one place. Such developments are greatly affected by the link between the film and other media that is growing ever stronger. Globalization, but also new media technologies, influence the film narrative which then influences the issue of forming and development of modern man’s personal identity. The computer, unlike television, still manages to be faithful to the strictly aristic forms of expression. This is achieved thanks to video works as one of the latest forms of artistic expression. Still, question is raised if these video works can reflect artistic principles and ideas as successfully as the film.

CYBER-PERFORMANCE AS A NEW MEDIA ART: PRAXIS AND ONTHOLOGY

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This text analyses the relation between the world of reality and the world of illusion in the frame of global dominance of cyber culture through transformation of one of the forms of performing arts praxis into a new media art praxis. Classical theatre has gone a long way from breaking traditional forms through introductions of new technologies into live performances to a total transformation on the Internet. This opened up the problem of the theatrical performance happening here and now and the performance using only the human body i.e. the live image (separating this praxis from all other art forms). After the key intervention has been made with essential determination of the theatre by transferring the theatre as a means of communication into a cyber space, this theory has found itself in a slippery field of interpretation and critical approach to its new ontology. This text just opens some of the questions without offering explicit convictions, and it does not give a rounded opinion on the topic since the modern art problematics, whose specific sphere enables introduction of polemics about the new media, develops like an IT network without a possibility for a reliable foundation or casting full light onto its functioning.

CULTURAL NOMADISM AS A DEFENSE OF HETEROGENEITY

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One of the important issues addressed in post-colonial studies is the antagonism that exists between the cultures of colonizers and indigenous peoples, i.e. the antagonism that divides the “worlds” into the civilized and the savage, developed and backwards, sophisticated and primitive, rich and poor, and so on. Focusing on the post-colonial deconstruction of these binary oppositions imposed by Western culture, the text explores how such discourses have left the dominant structures untouchable, and have almost reified the otherness of “subordinates”. On the other hand, the text shows how cultural nomadism, which is not concerned with the origin but the destination and the becoming, potentially creates a new heterogeneous culture. Through nomadic strategies, stable and conventional cultural codes are modified and inserted into new contexts – assemblages, producing an alternative space and time, as well as a multiplicity of meanings within the closed circles. Furthermore, the essay explores how the post-colonial deconstruction can be applied to the visual arts of the last few decades. In parallel to the new world division, destabilisation of the center, globalization and, finally, fragmentation of identity, changes have occurred in the visual arts as well, in terms of some new artwork organization and production models. With the specific way of functioning, nomadic artists give a new paradigm for alternative culture that respects cultural diversity without hegemonies, superiors and subordinates.

INTERFUSION OF FASHION AND ART AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURIES

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With the pop culture which penetrated all aspects of human life in the sixties and the rapid development of new media and technology, social sciences, fine arts and related disciplines in the field of applied and performing arts have entered a period of exceeding boundaries and abandoning earlier paradigms of knowledge. Arts opportunities are expanded, leading to interaction and combination of codes and media, different cultures and modern design. Liberation of old forms and introduction of new practices in creating fragmented hybrids in which culture and art disciplines communicate globally produce a fusion of the heterogeneous and the homogeneous. Globalization, conceived as a process of social and cultural integration of different cultural values, has nowadays become the basic structural feature of the re-configuration of cultural patterns. Contemporary artists are searching for a different creative practice and they are more inclined to multi-disciplinary contents. Interfusion of artistic disciplines opens interactive options that encourage experimenting in all areas of cultural production, stimulated by development of new technologies featuring new ideas through the communication of motion pictures. In the field of fashion design these changes in approach inspire fashion designers to re-evaluate the role of clothing, which should contribute to finding alternative practices. The relationship between fashion and art begins to emerge as a field of theoretical debate in which the fashion scholars explore the intersection and the relationship between these disciplines while questioning the former division. By drawing parallels and taking inspiration and techniques from a variety of artistic disciplines, fashion designers examine new communication contexts and transcend traditional categorization of art disciplines, raising new questions about the work of art and about the function and use of clothing. The once clearly set boundaries of artistic disciplines have already been blurred and a new generation of artists is expressing itself through conceptual approach and by symbolic interpretations while moving away from industrial capitalism and entering trans-modern globalism.

GLOBAL FASHION – FASHION WITHOUT BORDERS: SAVAGE BEAUTY OF ALEXANDER MCQUEEN

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Today’s democratic society is characterized by neo-liberalism, globalization and multiculturalism. Is this society really free and open as it presents itself, or can we still find there western centrism – and hence the Other – but in а veiled form? In this ‘liberal’ society and its globalization, fashion is also globalized. But can we call this fashion, such as fashion lines of Alexander McQueen, ‘global’, and if we can, how is it expressed? Is this fashion ‘a fashion without borders’ – an amalgam of equally mixed world fashions, or is it something else? Who decides what fashion is going to be declared global and enter the global archive? Historically, arts and applied arts including fashion, have always spoken from the context of their culture, society, political discourse etc and have consciously or unconsciously always played an active role in constructing and maintaining social order and values. So, global fashion also has a role in maintaining the system it works in – the neoliberal order.

SERBIAN PUBLIC, JAPANESE ANIME, FILMS AND COMICS

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In Serbia, appearance of the first anime concurred with their appearance in the rest of Europe. However, reception of the Japanese popular culture was dramatically slower due to the long time Serbia had spent in isolation and under sanctions. Unfortunate regressive consequences of this isolation have even affected reading habits. With the closure of this dark period, Serbian public was left alone and forced to fight for its preferences. Today, the situation is much better since new generations have the opportunity to learn about the Japanese popular culture thanks to growing internet and the work of Sakurabana Association and other individuals. Young people show great interest in Japanese comics since the nature of this media is to convey massages in a very easy and efficient manner. Fact is that there is already a considerable number of people in Serbia who share their love for the Japanese popular culture, which promises even wider acceptance and a growing audience.

VISUAL FRAMING OF RED MARTYRS: SOVIET AND YUGOSLAV PARTISAN PROPAGANDA COMPARED

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This paper compares the Soviet propaganda of the Second World War with that of Yugoslavia, focusing on the visual image of partisan martyrs. As for the wartime communist propaganda in Yugoslavia, since Yugoslav Partisans were an ill-equipped resistance movement, it had only restricted resources and networks for agitation. Yet it does not mean that the wartime mobilization of Yugoslav Partisan movement was an ephemeral one, because the method of agitation did not radically change in socialist Yugoslavia. While nations involved in the Second World War tended to organize massive propaganda (especially through visual representations such as films, newsreels, posters, paintings and pictorial magazines), Yugoslav Partisans could not afford to conduct such large-scale propaganda. In addition to the Theater of People’s Liberation, a performer’s group which played a significant role in the newly liberated territory, memorization through a photographic image exerted significant agitating effect in the Yugoslav Partisan propaganda.

MATSUO BASHO: THE NARROW ROAD TO THE DEEP NORTH

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The Serbian edition of The Narrow Road to Deep North (Uske staze ka Dalekom severu) by Matsuo Basho has a specific feature – the illustrations by Yosa Buson, the greatest haiku poet in the history of this poetry next to Matsuo Basho. He used to be a popular painter. As a great admirer of Basho’s work, he has made a dozen versions of illustrations for his Narrow Road, out of which one screen wall and two scralls remained. This book shows all fourteen pictures and one drawing (Stone Pillar Cubo) from the scrall dating back to 1779. Such a concept of Basho travels is novel even to Japan. The Narrow Road to the Deep North is said to be the most read piece of classical Japanese literature. For many Japanese it is a cult book. What is it about this Basho work written in the 17th century that attracts so the Japanese people living in the 21st century? Is it the free spirit of an eternal traveller liberated from everyday constraints? Or is it the author’s sincere, almost naive, relation to history which is sometimes welcome in the uncertain world we live in? Or, maybe, his infinite philantropy that radiates from every page of the book? In all probability it is a bit of everything.