UDC

130.2+51-7

Authors

Nikolaeva Elena Valentinovna
Institute of Social Engineering, Moscow State University of Design and Technology (Moscow, Russia)

Abstract

The article analyzes the basic concepts of postmodern philosophy – rhizome and fold – from the fractal approach perspective. The author compares the description of the rhizome and the fold in G. Deleuze’s and F. Guattari’s works with the characteristics of the fractal and proves that postmodernism in its philosophical concept of the world had anticipated the theory of fractality. The rhizome and the fold turned out to be not just metaphors but specific linguo-philosophical concepts, a kind of a verbal cover for digital, mathematical – fractal – algorithms enabling one to reveal holistic formations of a higher complexity level behind the visible “chaos” of cultural artefacts and phenomena and the whole culture in general. The mathematical and sociocultural concept of the fractal, which combines the properties of the rhizome and the fold, turns into а general descriptor of the digital era culture. The fractal is a demonstrable and operable visualization of the idea of “chaotic” complexity, infinite becoming, incompleteness, procedurality and immanently “programmed” dynamics of many sociocultural phenomena.

Keywords

cultural concepts, rhizome, fold, fractal, postmodernism, digital cultural paradigm

References

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