The article discusses the theater directing and producing activities of the famous Ukrainian director Andriy Bilous in the independent and state theaters. The stylistic and genre features of the created productions are analyzed; the figure of the theater director as one of the first in Ukraine to have a successful experience in creating joint projects in both state-owned and independent theaters in Kyiv is reviewed. Theater repertoire policy with a variety of themes, styles, and forms of productions is reviewed and analyzed.

The practices of contemporary art artists, who work with a social networks as an instrument in their creative activity are considered in the article The artistic projects, Ukrainian and foreign ones, which include social networks are analyzed. The role of leading social networks in contemporary society is shown, as well as how the artists reflect on it.

The semantic narrative of Boris Lyatoshinky’s 1910’s works has been analyzed in the article. Resulting from the communicative and information interrelation of musical and extra-musical senses of cultural space, this semantic narrative advances the expansion of the hypertext space of culture. I.e., it reconstructs the view of Lyatoshinky’s live and work as a determinant of development for the whole Ukrainian musical culture of the 20th century. Within this framework, communication and, consequently, communication and information processes form a matrix of sorts that urges us to study a musical text as an aggregate of communicative strategies, adapted to the boundaries set by musical culture and society. In this process it is important to take into account such communication lines as: space-time of the creative activity, physical and symbolic planes within which artist’s innovations are manifested; artist’s environment and environment of the researcher, who engages into interpretation; and, as it was stressed, the communicative space of semantic signs, including ideas, images, concepts, emotions, produced by the author’s creative consciousness and reconstructed by an interpreter, that are concentrated within those signs. Using the categorial approach to define the system of the artist’s musical legacy, we, striving to comprehend the immanence of the author’s concept, enrich the routine theoretical components parts of analysis of the musical text with the new areas of values and senses, with the conceptualized communicative interpretation of the text and of artist’s personality.

This paper researches and analyses specifics and problems of transferring the creative experience by genial Ukrainian film director O. Dovzhenko to students of the Kyiv Cinema Institute in an informal setting. We discovered that Dovzhenko had several meetings with students of the Kyiv Cinema Institute in an informal setting; we reconstructed his informal lectures that took place in the hotel room and during walks around Kyiv; we discovered the possibility of finding the transcripts of these lectures by O. Dovzhenko in the main Ukrainian and Russian archives.

The author examines the media art practices of contemporary Ukrainian media art, theater and music as a space of anthropological experiments; she concludes that the polymediality in the projects of contemporary Ukrainian media artists, directors and composers allows to comprehend transformations of communication in the culture of mediavariety. The significant themes of contemporary Ukrainian theatre are revealed, being subduing a man to the network communications as a digital agent, compensating for the lack of subjective integrity through intensifying network contacts, and dialogue between contemporary media and retro media.

The history and main purpose of the creation of the private French theater Rive Gauche are explored. The activity of the Rive Gauche theater and its organizational and creative peculiarities are considered. The repertoire policy is analyzed, i.e. the period of performances, since the founding of the theater until 2017, as well as the operation and pricing policies.

The online platforms, specializing in representing art content in the Internet, are outlined in the article. An attempt to classify the web-pages forming the information field in Ukraine was made. The educational potential of such platforms is emphasized. Their typological characteristics, the specifics of visual aesthetic and conceptual aspects are analyzed. The features of representation of fine art on the web-pages of institutions of higher education, galleries and museum institutes, specialized online media, etc. are described.

The use of sound in contemporary audiovisual culture is explored, as the issue is topical for Ukraine, especially after the introduction of digital television broadcasting. Emergence of high definition television and the general development of multimedia technologies quickly became popular and outshadowed the traditional television. Therefore, the research is aimed to study creative experiments in the audio field that are faced by professionals in the industry while working on the audiovisual projects. The main objective of the study was to reveal and unfold the specific features of the use of sound in contemporary television and multimedia platforms. The specifics and contemporary state of digital television, its features and characteristics were considered as a basis for the application of sound in audiovisual works; a brief historical review of the establishment of digital television in Ukraine and in the world was made. The possibilities of using sound in modern television are analyzed in detail, their parameters presented in the official documentation of the digital television standard and the spectrum of variants of the use of sound on television and in multimedia are studied, based on examples from the world practice of broadcasting audiovisual projects and work on them. The theoretical basis for the creation of sound canvas in contemporary television and multimedia projects is demonstrated; the importance of development of methods for the use of sound on television, which enhances the overall expressiveness of the work, is outlined. The most vivid examples of the functioning of audio on foreign digital television that can be adapted for Ukrainian realities and used as a visual guide for the implementation of new opportunities for sound engineers while working with audiovisual projects, are presented; the main ways of interaction of the viewer with sound in contemporary audiovisual culture are discovered.

Cultural heritage is a strategic resource based on the democratic, ethical, aesthetic and ecological values of society. The European Year of Cultural Heritage emphasized the cultural heritage issues at the level of European structures, as well as at the national and regional levels. An important task of the strategic approach was the development of long-term models of cultural heritage policy and strengthening its role in sustainable development, analysis of its economic and social impact, as well as the role of scientific research on cultural heritage. The European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Program from 2014 to 2020 provides for an investment of 500 million euros in cultural heritage. The aim of the article is to analyze the formation and implementation in 2018 of the European Year of Cultural Heritage as a strategic tool for sustainable development to preserve the cultural heritage of Europe and the formation of European identity in times of large migration waves. The article analyzed the goals and strategic objectives of the Year, considered the initiatives of European governmental and non-governmental organizations on this issue. It is noted that in practice it was the Year of the cultural heritage of the European Union rather than the Year of cultural heritage of the whole Europe. The theoretical and methodological basis of the article are the documents of European institutions on this issue, as well as researches on cultural heritage within the framework of the preparation and implementation of the EYCH, followed by long-term strategy.

The specifics of the architectural and plastic organization of Ukrainian iconostases of the first half of the 17th century as resulting from a certain symbolic concept is researched in the article. It was discovered that architectural frame of iconostasis emerged and was developed as an attempt to present the Kingdom of God embodied in the image of New Jerusalem. The composition and decorative elements of iconostases are formed within the context of eschatological moods that strengthened in Ukraine during the first half of the 17th century (prior to the year 1666). Influenced by the Book of Revelation, the iconostases of the period usually resemble walls with three entrances, decorated with the images of precious stones, just like the walls of the New Jerusalem were described in the book. Also, iconostases are decorated in a manner, similar to the buildings’ facades, and gold-plated that should have been communicating the idea of the New Jerusalem as a city of gold, full of heavenly palaces.

The start of the artistic relationship between contemporary Ukrainian artists and foreign entities that operated in Kyiv during the first years of Perestroyka is outlined in the article. I.e., emergence of the BBC News Ukrainian. In commemoration of such outstanding political and cultural event the major art exhibition was invited (with the invitation being financed by the British party) to be presented in United Kingdom. The article includes the comment of the BBC Ukrainian first Head on the founding of the latter and appraisal of the art collection, made by sir John Tusa, then-managing director of the BBC World Service. The exhibition that was displayed in London and Nottingham aided contemporary Ukrainian artists in entering the broader European context.

The paper is focused on the cultural aspects of the interaction of contemporary art practices with the digital technologies under hybrid conditions of post-culture information spaces. The risks of the commodification processes of visual practices and cultivation of historical and cultural amnesia, which deform the cultural memory of the public consciousness and level the essential identification of art, are clarified. The reasoning of the paper is based on a substantive body of analytical considerations by well-known Western and domestic experts.

The interaction of the classical painting tradition and the new technologies within the contemporary art process is considered in the article. The renewed area of Ukrainian contemporary art is explored, its aesthetic, ethical and communicative coordinates are specified. Formation of visual culture is considered as a creative platform for the new virtual practices and innovative forms of the art existence. Among the topical trends of the media art the special emphasis is made on the tendencies and features of development of Ukrainian video art.

The topical issues of mutual influence of the newest technologies and the ecological trend in contemporary art are researched. The historical overview of the relationship between scientific and technological progress and the evolution of artistic practices in the art of the twentieth century is made. It was found that these processes were synthesized. The concept of ecological art is outlined, as well as contemporary art projects representing this art trend. The influence of the newest technologies on the strengthened dynamics and the establishment of eco-style is analyzed. In particular, the tendency of cooperation of large corporations and artists for the implementation of greate environmental art projects is described. In general, the issues are considered from the two main perspectives: eco-style as counteracting technologies and digital technologies as the means of creating environmental projects with a powerful social message.

The characteristics of visual culture in the context of the hyperreality phenomenon are researched in the broad sense; also, an overview of particular works of art is made. The topics developed by the artists are explored in the review of the works of art. The complexity and future of digital society regarding the universal surveillance and security of our data is analyzed, which is an urgent challenge for scientists, artists and cultural researchers. The paradigm shift of the world existence is emphasized, with society insensibly turning into an algorithmic one. It is found that digital forms of communication, which have recently been seen as a hope for new opportunities of democratic participation, became a mechanism for transcoding the humanity. The lack of understanding and awareness of the threats posed by the algorithmic society is revealed, which causes the dear peer artists to remain playful frolicsome fellows in the allotted ghetto of the art world, ignoring such dark closed fields and avoiding analysis of the abovementioned circumstances and their fatal consequences. A palette of art practices that interact with the hyperreality phenomenon has been identified; the means of attacking the mutations of modern society by the artists today are described. It is stated that intellectual experiments with forming various senses in order to build a dialogue with society are crucial for the art world, so the prospects for further research are promising, since the identified topics of the hyperreality phenomenon and simulacrum have not been developed yet in Ukrainian contemporary art.

Despite the fact that there are many scientific works devoted to various cultural and historical aspects of the formation of world theater, in particular, acting, the philosophical and anthropological basis of performative practices still remains completely unexplored. Addressing the topic of the anthropology of world theater allows us to open new pages in the study of theater art and performative practices, suggesting not only a philosophical and anthropological analysis of the phenomenon of theater art, but perhaps anticipating his future. It can be argued that theatrical performance is orientation not only to the direct viewer, but also the direction of communication, taken out of the theatrical space, to the polylogue in the speculative sphere. Thus, throughout its history, performative practices are connected by the communication of the triad “performer — spectator — invisible opponent”, where the “invisible opponent” is the invariant addressee of performative practices—divine power, church/government, monarch/society, sociocultural context of life, etc. The performer cannot always turn to the viewer who is directly watching the action. And the viewer cannot always be prepared for the perception of the presented philosophy and ideas. The theatrical word aims further than the stage, and the performer unconsciously represents the addressee of the performative practice—his imaginary opponent. The philosophical and anthropological perspective reflects the addressee of performative practices that are “invisibly” included, that is, that subject, phenomenon, institution, to which the “man of the game” appeals unconsciously in his performative practices and which he unmistakably determines with the power of his mind.

The article deals with the art project by two famous Ukrainian artists—Larysa Pisha and Valeria Trubina. The project was built on work with the unconscious. By the power of the artists art becomes the domain of the intellect, gains awareness and is eventually assimilated by means of the color, of the formal solution, by word and sound. Art makes the transition from the category of the unconscious into the conscious and rational. Monolithic potency of the Universe is split and divided into the fragments convenient for comprehension that manifest the symbols of four elements: Water, Air, Earth, and Fire. In their project the artists created the picturesque world of archetypes, gave shape to the idea, providing the viewers with aesthetic joy, developing a sense of taste, evoking the Elemental Feelings.

This article considers sacral painting by Mikhail Vrubel (1856–1910), a well-known Russian artist of Polish descent (on his father’s side) during so-called “Kyiv period” (1884–1889). This period is one of the most important in Mikhail Vrubel’s creative activity, when not only the main themes were determined and unique Vrubel’s style was developed but a number of outstanding sacred monumental works were made. This paper studies Mikhail Vrubel’s sacral painting in the context of canon and typical features of Russian church painting of the second half of the 19th century.

The development of art and craft of blacksmithing in the Eastern region of Ukraine, specifically in Poltava, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Donetsk oblasts has been analysed. The study of the blacksmithing in Donetsk city and Donetsk oblast was limited to the second half of the 19th century and up to the 2014. The progress of blacksmithing at the temporarily occupied and uncontrolled territories of Ukraine has not been researched by the author. The article focuses on the unique piece blacksmithing art of the national and global scale — Mertsalov palm tree. In 1900 Mertsalov palm tree was displayed at the 1900 Paris Exposition in the pavilion of the coal society. In 1999 the first copy of the Mertsalov palm tree was mounted in Donetsk. This latter palm tree was forged by the Donetsk-based smith Serhiy Kaspruk along with his son Oleh. Mertsalov palm tree became the first contemporary art piece turning the public attention not only to the artwork itself, but to the producing enterprise as well. From the contemporary marketing viewpoint the forged palm tree on display was an event of unprecedented global scope. Mertsalov palm tree was a starting point for the development of blacksmithing art in the Eastern Ukraine that survived the decay during the harsh 20th century and was revived during the early 1980s.

Typical mirrored interiors of Iran of the 18th through the early 21st centuries are discussed in this article. Aesthetic, plastic, architectural and design particularities of existence of such places in Persian tradition are researched on examples of Golestan and Saadabad royal complexes at Tehran, religious sights of Qazvin (the holy place Hossein Imamzadeh grave mosque and Friday mosque); mausoleum of Abraham descendant, the prophet Keydar at Zanjan province; Sayed Alaeddin Hussein mosque, Shah Cheragh mosque (Blue or Mirrored mosque), Ali Ibn Hamzeh mausoleum in Shiraz. Particularities of addition to amalgamated glass of mirrored sculptural elements, precious stones and silver plates in such complexes are clarified.

The article covers the landscape paintings by Valentyn Zakharchenko, an Odesa-based artist, on the late 20th through the early 21st century. The main features of his individual manner are outlined. The methodology of the research is based on the application of complex, biographical, comparative methods of art study analysis. Valentyn Zakharchenko’s creativity is based on the quintessence of impressionistic and realistic features in the manner, as well as the undeniable influence of teachers, first of all, Valery Geghamyan, along with the other Eastern Ukrainian painters of the late nineteenth century. But, despite the presence of many components that influenced the formation of the creative person of the artist, his artistic language was reborn in a completely independent, individual style, which is inherent in diversity: Zakharchenko’s portrait, narrative painting differs significantly in the manner of performance from the landscape painting, in which lyricism as a component that defines an emotional state, mood, and color choice is the keynote.