Metamorphoses of things in culture: features of symbolic communication

The symbolic nature of a thing predetermines it for mimicry and metamorphosis - it is both here and there, in the past and the future, nothing and something, necessity and possibility, inviolability and changeability. A thing is the objective embodiment of the readiness to make direct contact with the outside world, to create a new reality, to recode entities. The ambivalence of the sign properties of a thing puts it in a borderline position - contact with it is motivated by human needs and the need to clarify, define, change something. The immobility of the very physical essence of a thing serves as a support and impetus for the transformation and doubling of the surrounding reality. The world of things appears to the world of people as a kind of stage for constructing the so-called augmented reality. In this regard, an ordinary thing can be not only an art object, but also a motivator and designer of new subject connections in artistic modeling. Moreover, the dual positionality of a thing makes it a convenient tool for all kinds of objective transformations and imitations, especially in ritual and sacred cultural practices. The author tries to clarify in this article some features of the transformation of the objective world of culture in the context of the symbolic and communicative properties of a thing.