Autocommunication and Puppet Theater

The article explores the role of autocommunicative practices, tracing shame as cultural intuition, such as puppet theater, buffoonery, and holy foolishness, in Russian culture as elements of carnival tradition, subverting social norms and exposing hidden mechanisms of interactions. The puppet, the jester, and the holy fool act as mediators, unmasking societal vices and transforming worldviews. Puppet theater creates distance between the viewer and the performance, triggering self-reflection – the puppet’s mask reflects the audience’s own contradictions. Autocommunication emerges through the "gap" (Obraztsov’s term) – a space where the viewer, confronted with the artifice of performance, turns inward. The puppet, devoid of its own voice, acts as a mirror: its silence is filled by the viewer’s interpretations, forcing them to reconsider their assumptions

Aesthetics · Art · Shame · Visual arts · Psychology · Social Psychology · Theatre and Performance Studies