Title of the article:

SCREEN ENVIRONMENT IN THE MOSCOW SUBWAY (METRO)

Author(s):

Violetta D. Evallyo

Information about the author/authors

Violetta D. Evallyo — PhD in Culturology, Senior Researcher, Mass Media Arts Department, State Institute for Art Studies, Kozitsky lane, 5, 125009 Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4531-4922. E-mail: amaris_evally@mail.ru

Section

Theory and history of culture

Year

2021

Volume

Vol. 60

Pages

pp. 8–20

Received

June 18, 2020

Date of publication

June 28, 2021

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37816/2073-9567-2021-60-8-20

Index UDK

008+7.067

Index BBK

71+39.81

Abstract

The Moscow underground (Metro) today is showing active development: new series of trains appear; stations are being built. Apart from material-plastic medium, the screen, virtual reality also emerges. It plays the key role in establishing a new metro mythology. This paper attempts to trace new perspectives of the underground’s virtual life and the points of their interfacing with the objective, material environment. One can loosely specify three types of screen media in the Moscow Metro: information panels (located above the doors in cars), interactive structures (Info-SOS at stations and screens with sockets in “head” and “tail” parts of modern trains), “television” screens” (In the lobby and built-in between car`s door and window, where the Moscow metro lines were traditionally located, and small screens at the eye level of standing passengers). They have different semantic content and types of communication with passengers. There are a number of evident trends in providing video sequence on screens of the Moscow metro in the second half of 2019. The headings broadcast on the screens went sequentially, from more socially significant subjects to quizzes and announcements. The alternation of short stories gave the impression that it took less time to travel. The entire block of on-screen information worked on the effect of “accelerating” time, creating the illusion of greater rapidity of the subway. The Moscow metro today is not so much about the architectural environment but rather a virtual communicative one, which, in addition to entertaining, calming, distracting from problems and uplifting, also represents a function of  animating the metro, informing it with a temperament and intonation component. In the process of immersion in a simulated media of the Moscow metro, one finds out that it turns to be a virtual organism with a complex system of “organs”, its own nervous system and its own needs. The first and foremost of which is to preserve, strengthen the love of their passengers, perhaps even make them addicted to the metro environment and inspire them for continuous improvement and modernization of the world.

Keywords

visual culture, Moscow subway, city, urban environment, screen, content.

References

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