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Arts & Communication Bakhtin and Groys: Pop culture and hieratic senses

Boris Groys, too, is subject to this enduring Bakhtinian is required for this analysis. Therefore, this article will
influence. As a thinker who is difficult to categorize and further explore the contemporary relevance of Bakhtin
an art critic shaped by the intellectual tradition of Peter and Groys by translating their theories into the current
Sloterdijk, Groys has devoted his scholarly life to the cultural language in phenomenon such as social media,
study of the avant-garde, media, and public intimacy – a digital communities, and pop culture trends.
network of phenomena in which the relevance of Mikhail One possible resolution to this issue lies in considering
Bakhtin inevitably emerges. This article aims to elucidate how Bakhtin appears to propose a secularized conception
how Bakhtinian hypotheses inform the theory developed of popular culture, wherein meaning-making retains
by Boris Groys, positing that the dialog between these two elements of a religious dimension. Groys seems to
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thinkers may yield new insights into definitions of popular recognize this as well, particularly in his theorization of
culture. contemporary media culture, which exhibits ritualistic
One preliminary comment is in order. This writing and cultic imagery. More specifically, Groys identifies in
adopts a conception of popular culture that, unlike Bakhtin a particular survival of a hieratic dimension that,
traditional conceptions, does not shy away from the whether as a fetish or a cult practice, becomes a distinctive
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influence of market forces, consumer society, and mass feature of pop culture. This critical approach – which also
media – a cultural landscape that can be aptly defined accounts for the migration of Bakhtinian epistemology
as “pop culture.” This concept, which encompasses both into contemporary thought – is explored by Groys in a
musical genres and pop art – the art movement that, at selection of works, which this article will analyze in terms
the threshold of postmodernity, creatively combined of their most significant contributions.
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consumption and transgression – enables us to describe a With this reservation, through a contrapuntal approach
semiotic framework in which the massive and the popular to these two thinkers, I suggest that the ecstatic dissolution
mutually define each other, contributing to the production of individuality and the persistence of sacredness in icons
of meaning in global circulation. While not disregarding are two tendencies that could characterize the subjectivity
traditional conceptions of the popular as rooted in national celebrated by pop culture, though both respond to a
territory and folklore, engaging with this notion of pop primordial semiotic function within cultural systems.
culture allows us to move beyond the typical disdain The following sections will develop this hypothesis by
for consumption practices and objects, identifying in examining the role Bakhtin occupies in Groys’ thought
them a valuable terrain for foundational inquiries into and Groys’ appropriation of Bakhtin’s concept of
contemporary societies, as explored in greater detail carnivalization: a celebration of Dionysian exaltation
elsewhere. 9 expressed both as a total loss of control and as the survival
Moreover, it has been suggested that grappling with of meaning through repetitive loops. It is essential to
this broad conception of pop culture necessitates complex remember that carnivalization is a concept proposed by
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analytical operations to liberate mass-appeal products from Bakhtin to explain the artistic appropriation of that moment
their apparent simplicity. In other words, as Slavoj Žižek of spontaneous celebration and collective humanism
argues in his seminal work Everything You Always Wanted that cultures have experienced since time immemorial.
to Know about Lacan (but Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock) However, the following pages aim to demonstrate that,
(1992), there is an “interpretive pleasure in ‘estranging’ in his book dedicated to Rabelais, Bakhtin offers a more
the most banal content.” 10 p.2 In this book, the philosopher comprehensive theorization of popular culture – one in
dedicates extensive narratives to cinema and television, which dissolution and iconicity appear to accompany
urging us, through critical theory, to defamiliarize what is the development of cultures, irrespective of the historical
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commonly recognized in mass culture. Similarly, one aim period in which they exist.
of this article is to extend Žižek’s project by contributing to To substantiate this hypothesis, the research will employ
the definition of certain features of pop culture, recovering a qualitative methodology, specifically a documentary
suggestive variables that emerge from the dialog between analysis, through which key texts by these two authors will
Bakhtin and Groys – two thinkers for whom culture, in be examined, connecting them through shared thematic
both its folkloric and mass manifestations, preserves traces premises. In addressing key points that problematize
of deep memory. the relationship between culture and the hieratic senses,
Although media and mass society were not central Bakhtin’s seminal work Rabelais and His World will be
concerns for Mikhail Bakhtin, whose theory primarily critically contrasted with selected documents by Groys,
addressed the history of the European novel and the particularly his book Introduction to Antiphilosophy and
transition to modernity, a different interpretive approach his artistic intervention Thinking in Loop. This framework

Volume 3 Issue 1 (2025) 2 doi: 10.36922/ac.3978