Clown as an artistic image vs clown as a sign of gaming self-denial

Semenova, Elena Alexandrovna
PhD in the pedagogical sciences, non-commercial partnership "Teatre-EX", Moscow, Russia
semenova05@list.ru


Abstract
The author of this talk observes the problem of limited potential of the aesthetic theories of the comic in the analyzing the clown figure. This theories based on axiomatic statement on the laughter as the weapon against the world imperfection.The study's focus is moved away from this aesthetic paradigm. We look at a clown in the broader biocultural context of the game of disorder, which is going back to the prehuman past. In modern theoretical studies, no distinction is made between the perception of a clown as an artistic image in art works and the mechanisms of perception of a clown as a gaming sign of self-denial. As a result, the semantics of clownery, being a prisoner of subjective representations, overshadows it pragmatics.
According to the research hypothesis, evolution theories of humour have an ontological potential for studying the clown laughter.This theories are having the richest historical and factual ethology, neurobiology, linguistics data on the evolution of human laughter as a metacommunicative signal of friendliness and play. Among these theories, can be single the theory of sexual selection based on the humorous feature by G. Miller, the theory of the aggressive roots of humor by K. Gruner, the theory of the role of humour in the evolution of hominid cognition and the emergence of language by K. Molineux, interdisciplinary theory of laughter and humour by A. Kozintsev.
Conclusions. The metasemantic theory of humour by A. Kozintsev has the most convincing arguments for radical change views of aesthetic and art psychology on the clown figure. Such theoretical definitions of humour by Kozintsev as "the world of the third reference"; "unconscious parody"; "a safe aestheticized form of anti-behavior"; “reaction of innate negatisim to symbolization” allow us to look at the clown phenomenon as a pure aesthetic form of the voluntary gaming self-denial of homo sapiens, which need in temporary regression to his earlier evolution stagerson on the behavioral (laughter) and psychological (humorous) levels.
The results of the study can be useful in the theoretical and practical study of the playful nature of the clown in theatre and circus art, in the analysis of the features of the psychological perception of the content and form of comic works.

Keywords: artistic image, aesthetics of the comic, evolutionary theory of laughter and humor A.G. Kozintsev, clown, laughter behavior, gaming of self-denial, psychology of perception of comic images, game of chaos