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Pastangos suteikti vaizduotei kūną, pabėgti į kitą, kitokią, geresnę, kontroliuojamą realybę per amžius skatino technologijų raidą bei nuolatinę pažangą. Šiandien virtualios realybės įranga jau sudaro sąlygas juslinę patirtį įtraukti į vis virtualesnes tikrovės formas. Supažindindami su šia dar gana nauja sritimi, siūlome virtualios realybės kilmės ir svarbiausių bruožų aptarimą bei svarstymus, kas kūniškumo prasme yra virtuali realybė ir kokios dar tikrovės formos egzistuoja šiandien. For long centuries the efforts to embody the imagination and to escape to a different and controllable reality have promoted technological development and progress. Today the virtual reality equipment grants the possibilities to include corporeal experiences into increasingly virtual forms of reality. The paper employs the semiotic approach in order to reflect on the descent of virtual reality, its links to imagination, mimetic art and its techniques. The semiotic concept of the effect of reality is used in an attempt to understand how a disembodied reality might be treated as a real one. These reflections upon the efforts to grant corporeality to imagination, construct a controllable reality and find the ways of operating within it, as well as the relations of different forms of reality to corporeality are summarised in the semiotic square of the forms of reality. Since submersion and interaction are intrinsic to all forms of reality, each type is described in terms of substance, corporeal perception and the kind of space in which the body acts. The corporeal reality is the reality of presence, the experience taking place here and now and related with the dimension of the world perceived by the senses. Both the subject and the space are physical, and any activity is possible to the extent the limits and potential of a body permit. This kind of reality is self-contained, unmodelled and uncontrollable; imagination is the incorporeal dimension of this reality that can be exteriorised by material artistic means. This corporeal reality is the source, foundation and starting point for all the other forms of reality. [...]

This paper analyzes the narrative of the Lithuanian Independent Movement (Sąjūdis) in the history textbooks. The question is proposed whether the truth telling in such a narrative is based only on the representation of the historical truth, or it is organized to meet other criteria presupposed in the narrative of educational discourse, such as forming an identity, representing democratic and humanistic values, that are treated as the basis of the modern democratic republic. Veridiction and historiality terms are used to interpret historical-educational narrative and find such values in the text.

The aim of the following paper is to analyze the rewriting of the plastic features between Alan Moore's and David Gibbons’ graphic novel and Zack Snyder's film adaptation of the same title. Thus, the analysis addresses in what specific ways the medium affects the plastic dimensions of the graphic novel and the film adaptation. Applied theoretical basis allows to define the concept of media within the semiotic discourse and to highlight the causes of different plasticity between the graphic novel and the film adaptation. These differences are described as changes in the expression of identical plastic features, due to the change in media, which implies the assignment of different values in the communication process.

The aim of the following paper is to analyze what happens when fashion brand chooses to oppose itself to the conventional idea of beauty. Thus, at the same time, it attempts to raise a question about how the image of such fashion brand is constructed and how imperfection becomes a positive aesthetic value. The corpus consists of four different types of texts produced by “D.efect”: brand logotype, videos (created in 2014 and 2015), digital platform and photo shoots of fashion collections dated from 2013 to 2016. In the first part of the paper, the notion of aesthetics is being determined by examining some works of semioticians as well as in broader philosophical context. The second chapter of this part focuses on the phenomena of alternative aesthetics in Western culture in order to reveal the cultural context in which “D.efect” fashion brand as a cultural product exists. The second part is dedicated to the notion of fashion. First, some works of fashion theoreticians are being reviewed. Then, it is being attempted to define the possibilities of semiotic analysis of fashion discourse by examining the fashion-related works of semioticians. It is concluded that fashion can be defined by some substantive oppositions such as individuality vs universality, extravagancy vs tradition, innovation vs imitation, new vs old, aesthetic vs practical values, constant change vs established standard. It is specified that it is extremely important to examine fashion brands and products not only from the visual semiotics’ perspective but also focus on sociosemiotical approach while analyzing fashion utterances. The third part is devoted to the analysis of the texts produced by “D.efect”. First of all, the beauty of imperfection is declared on the verbal level. Second, on the visual level, imperfection or defect is associated with gap, interruption or deficiency. Moreover, the aesthetics of imperfection is constructed through openness or honesty on all possible levels: plastic as well as figurative and narrative. By this motive, the specific way of being is being established. This way of being is related to being honest to oneself and Other. Paradoxically, the clothes don’t become the main communication object. Minimalistic shape and cut are complemented by unexpected details which strengthen the value of uniqueness communicated by brand. The composition asymmetry which is noticed on plastic level matches the asymmetry of clothes. When the beauty or aesthetics of imperfection is declared, it is possible to talk about the change of beauty standard but not about denying it. In the case of “D.efect“ brand, the change is being established through its relation with existing standard. However, this change becomes a particular requirement, because communication receiver gets clear message about what is beautiful. Fashion brand reflects fashion definition itself through the opposition between change (which is figuratively expressed as a gap) and standard establishment. On the basis of typology offered by Jean-Marie Floch, it seems that the image of “D.efect” aims to propose the fact of style and not the fact of fashion. The image is based on “preserving oneself”-identity. Nevertheless, the analysis revealed that individuality and uniqueness also are universal qualities that can be in fashion.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse two constituents of a literary book, namely, the book cover and the literary work within a book, and to examine how they interact with one another. This is done by using semiotic theory of modalities to analyse a specific object: Balys Sruoga’s memoir Dievų miškas and covers of twenty-three books of this memoir. Semiotic modal theory has barely been used for a visual text analysis. Therefore, this thesis is also aimed at expanding the possibilities of modalities in semiotics. A hypothesis is raised that modal structures can reveal links between the two constituents of a book. Another hypothesis suggests that modal structures can also show the differences of distinct cultures. This is argued by comparing various book covers that represent translated versions of the same literary work. The first chapter of the thesis examines a book in the context of book publishing and marketing, especially when a book enters foreign markets. It also explicates the interaction between cultures in a translated version of a book. The two following chapters deal with theoretical problems related to the book as a semiotic object. The second chapter presents correlations and differences between visual and written texts, examines the ways such texts comprise a book as a single work of art. The third chapter introduces the main points of semiotic modal theory and how it will be used in analysis. The fourth and fifth chapters of the thesis present the actual analyses of Dievų miškas and the book covers, respectively. The analyses reveal that a literary work and a book cover representing it do not necessarily convey the same meaning. The diversity of semiotic subjects discovered in the literary work was not found in any of the book covers. Therefore, it is concluded that book covers represent literary works very briefly not only in figurative, but also in a modal level. It is then stated that such representation in book covers allows to shape ideology that might not be directly related to the literary work and affects the interpretation of it. Previously mentioned hypotheses are confirmed as modal structures were indeed helpful in comparing both the two constituents of a book and the different versions of the same book in different cultures. All this leads to a conclusion that the theory of modal structures can be used more often and in a much wider context than it has been used so far.