Although the title of this volume includes the term âAestheticsâ, its chapters are not mainly devoted to the question of art. The reader should not be surprised nor suspect an error due to âclumsyâ editors. Nowadays, aesthetics is no longer only a theory of art, it but has recovered its original vocation: to be a general theory of perception (from Baumgartenâs baptism in 1750) conceived of as an ordinary experience of pre-logical character. Indeed, even the most art-oriented aesthetics deals with art as an immersive object of our sensorial and felt-bodily perception. In this broader context, our purpose is to show whether atmospheres could take the prominent and paradigmatic position previously held by art in order to make sense of such pre-logical experience of the world.
In the last twenty years, the ordinary concept of âatmosphereâ has been more and more subsumed by human and social sciences, thereby becoming a technical notion. This book has been conceived and compiled to give an account of this increasing popularity, which comes with a general reassessment of affective life as a proper tool to understand the human being. In many fields of the humanities affectivity is now considered crucial, and the concept of atmosphere has been adopted exactly because of its peculiar understanding of this side of our lives. In this sense, one may speak of an âatmospheric turnâ. With this book we aim at providing the first wide-ranging state-of-the-art knowledge on this phenomenon in English.
Speaking of âatmosphereâ does not simply mean focusing on human emotions. Indeed, âatmosphereâ also implies a certain affective quality of (lived and non-geometrical) space. Put in general terms, an atmosphere is an emotional space that involves oneâs body conceived of more as felt (Leib) than as physical (Körper): accordingly, the body that plays a key role in an atmospheric approach is not the body that we see in the mirror but the one we feel, and whose atmospheric resonances we can describe only from our first-person perspectives. The idea of atmosphere can undergo different degrees of radicality: it may imply a full independence of the emotional space from the subjective life (as suggested by Hermann Schmitz, see Chap. 3), or some dependence on the personal subject (as posited, e.g., by Gianni Francesetti, see Chap. 13). Whatever the case, the conceptual framework presupposed by the concept of âatmosphereâ suggests that our affective life goes beyond the interior and subjective one. This approach proposes a solution to understand why our emotions and feelings can be (at least) intersubjectively shared.
Every chapter of our book addresses these questions from the peculiar standpoint of a specific discipline: from architecture to literature and music, from law to sociology, from pedagogy to philosophy and psychology. Of course, we were not able to gather scholars from all the disciplines in which the topic of atmospheres has been dealt with. For instance, we have collected contributions neither from anthropology nor from design, or economics, or the theories of organizations and management. This is not only due to the fact that not all invited scholars could take part in this project, but also, and mostly, due to the fact that our choice was to edit a book on âatmosphereâ but also, as stated previously, a book on âaestheticsâ.
We divided the book into four parts. The first one, âAtmospheric Turn?â , deals with the theoretical framework behind the concept of âatmosphereâ. Tonino Griffero, in his essay âIs There Such a Thing as an âAtmospheric Turnâ?â , asks whether the theme of atmosphere is only a short-term cultural trend, or whether it hides something deeper concerning our lives as human beings. Griffero notices that the humanities use the notion of atmosphere as a heuristic device to empirically research affects whenever it is necessary to pay attention to the vague and qualitative âsomething-moreâ that one experiences. He then traces a history of the emergence of the concept of âatmosphereâ. Lastly, he sums up his personal âatmospherologicalâ perspective on the topic.
Hermann Schmitzâs âAtmospheric Spacesâ offers a short history of the concept of space, from which he derives a differentiation of spaces. He claims that it is necessary to consider the felt body as the object that lives âinâ and âthroughâ the spaces. The felt body is something that a human being can feel as belonging to them in the region of their body without resorting to the five senses. Furthermore, the chapter shows that human beings as felt bodies have developed techniques to design spaces according to their emotional and atmospheric needs. In this sense, habitation is the culture of emotionsâwhich are atmospheres with a tendency to fully expand within the space of felt presenceâin enclosed spaces.
JĂŒrgen Hasseâs Atmospheres and Moods compares âmoodâ and âatmosphereâ. He claims that these forms of emotional state are closely related. While basic moods are rooted in a personal situation, atmospheres often affect the individual from spatial and social environments. However, it is too easy to understand moods as feelings coming from the inside and atmospheres as feelings that affect us from the outside. Both have internal and external references and in both circumstances a person is confronted with their own (temporary and long-lasting) emotional states. The threshold from which an atmosphere becomes a mood corresponds to the power of a feeling that generates subjective involvement. This is what constitutes the difference between the two: there are distinct forms of subjective âbeing-withâ, one with emotional distance and one without.
Finally, Lorenzo Marinucciâs Japanese Atmospheres aims at introducing three fundamental atmospheric notions deployed by Japanese culture, observing them both in their original context and through a neophenomenological lens. The three concepts are that of kĆ« âskyâ, fĆ« âwind â, and ki âair â and âbreathâ. These apparently simple terms, however, show an impressive complexity and a wide array of meanings (which, after all, are highly coherent). Despite the risk of exoticizing non-European sources as âtotally otherâ, this essay clarifies the potential of a cross-cultural phenomenology of atmospheres, also presenting the work of modern Japanese philosophers that have already retraced the heritage of these concepts in a philosophical perspective.
The second part of the book, Senses and Spaces, collects chapters concerning the manifold and multi-layered experience of space. Pallasmaaâs chapter on The Atmospheric Sense provides a historical, ecological, and evolutionary perspective on the meaning of atmospheric experience. Atmosphere and mood are a central concern in various art forms, including painting, literature, theatre, cinema, and music. Our capacity for spatial, situational, and atmospheric imagination when reading a fine literary work is quite astonishing. Western culture has emphasized the separate functions of the five Aristotelian senses, but our most important sensory experience is the interaction of the senses, which creates the experience of âthe flesh of the worldâ, to use Maurice Merleau-Pontyâs notion. We grasp entities before details, singularities before their components, multi-sensory syntheses before individual sensory features, and emotive existential meanings before intellectual understanding. Besides, precision needs to be suppressed for the purpose of grasping large entities.
David Seamonâs âAtmosphere, Place, and Phenomenologyâ focuses on a phenomenology of atmosphere as related to places. By âatmosphereâ, the author refers to a diffuse ineffability that regularly attaches itself to particular things, situations, spaces, and environments. By âplaceâ, he refers to any environmental locus gathering experiences, actions, events, and meanings both spatially and temporally. Seamon assumes that place and the experience of a place are an integral part of human life. In considering the lived relationship between atmosphere and place, he draws on three works by British-African novelist Doris Lessing, who in her writings regularly offers lucid accounts of place atmospheres in London, the city she emigrated to from Southern Rhodesia shortly after World War II.
Michael Hauskeller and Tim Rice examine the importance of atmosphere in understanding our experiences of zoos. Their chapter, Jungly Feeling , focuses in particular on the role played by sound in the production of atmospheres in the zoo context. Zoos often work hard to generate atmospheres which are appropriate to their purpose as sites for entertainment, education, and conservation, and the encouragement of environmentally responsible behaviour. Drawing on first-hand experiences of zoo visits, the chapter considers some of the different types of atmosphere created by zoos. The authors argue that zoos are atmospherically heterogeneous and complex, and face continual challenges as they try to design and maintain atmospheres in line with institutional aims and visitorsâ expectations.
Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulosâs chapter, Atmospheric Aestheses, deals with the affective value of law. Traditionally, the most easily recognizable forms of law (state law, private law, corporations law, etc.) have always been associated with an economic value, which, albeit with some unease, lies next to both the functional value of the law, as the order provider in society, and its more idealized value as provider of justice. Lawâs commodity value, however, is increasingly superseded by its affective value, namely, lawâs ability to stage itself and communicate to the world that it and nothing else is the law. It has to stage itself in a consumer-oriented way, to market itself in a...