Pathicity: Experiencing the World in an Atmospheric Way

AbstractIs there really an atmospheric turn? The concept of "atmosphere" as a qualitative-emotional prius of sensory experience seems today to have encouraged the convergence of many interdisciplinary studies focused on the qualitative aspects of our "surroundings". Based on the neo-phenomenological theory of atmospheric perception as a first pathivc impression and a felt-bodily communication, this paper explores and synthesises the relationship between atmospheres and expressive qualities. It thus clarifies the key features of a general "pathic" aesthetics. It considers perceivers as beings who are touched by atmospheric feelings in emotional and tactile ways. These are widespread and vary in their modulation of lived space. They are also ontologically rooted in things and quasi-things of the lifeworld. By realising how they (especially in an unintentional way) expose themselves to what happens, perceivers turn out not to be "subjects of something" but rather "subjects to something": that is, human beings who are only "sovereign" when they are free, at least in their daily experience, from the dogma of rational and methodological autonomy imposed by Western Modernity

Well-being as a Collective Atmosphere

A neo-phenomenological and atmospherological approach, mainly based on a first-person perspective, seems perfectly entitled to consider subjective and collective well-being as the starting point for a (non-quantitative) philosophical reflection. The question is, however, whether and how well-being, also as an atmosphere, can be really investigated and verified. The paper examines many traditional roblems hindering the research (difficulty in investigating it directly, degree of extent, intensity, comparison-dependence, temporal development, consistency, and continuity) and suggests to analyze well-being from a pathic-atmospheric point of view. It therefore focuses especially on the idea of “flow”, wonders how much our well-being depends on the felt-bodily resonances triggered by atmospheric situations, considers the probable parallels between the aesthetic-phenomenologic notion of “atmosphere” and the sociological one of “climate”, finally, underlines the (also political) need of an atmospheric competence that is able to partly immunize against today’s widespread manipulative atmospherization

Dwelling Means Cultivating Atmospheres

The paper addresses the issue of dwelling as a powerful way of cultivating atmospheric feelings without the risk of suffering their disturbing aggressiveness, and deals with inclusiveness or immersivity that true dwelling arouses. To avoid the widespread trend to consider every space a dwelling place, it proposes that only a really “lived” place, in so far it radiates a specific and particularly intense-authoritative atmosphere (in kinetic, synesthetic, felt-bodily sense) affecting the perceivers and finding in their body its precise sounding board, makes dwelling in the proper sense possible. Just as there are different types of atmosphere (prototypical, derivative, spurious), there are therefore different types of dwelling and inclusiveness. However, contrary to the today’s projectivistconstructionist explanation and globalized orientation, for a “pathic aesthetics” only a lifewordlyqualitative-emotional experience based on an atmosphere of intimacy-familiarity really turns a house into a home

Wirkende Bilder

The belief in the plastic power of imagination and of imagine is a fundamental part of human Psychology’s History. A look to the ground of this belief could clarify the cohabitation of science and superstition at the beginning of the Modern Age. Although in modern treatise from the field of subjectivity and unreality, imagination does not always enjoys the benefit of science. The power of imagination, as a faculty or as magical Medium between thought and being, allows belief to consider what is imagined as fundamental part of the processes of universe

Atmospheric habitualities: aesthesiology of the silent body

The paper examines the notion of habits from the perspective of a pathic aesthetics based on the neo-phenomenological theory of Leib (felt body) and its ubiquitous communication. By questioning whether experience should be considered as a confirmation or a failure of expectation, it shows the inextricable intertwining of the unexpected and routine in our involuntary life experience and delves into a well known phenomenological crux: is the lived or felt body what is subject to self-affection and proprioception or rather the “absent” body, which is always transcended in its being-for-other (transitivity)? The assumption then that felt-bodily habits are formed through a motor scheme depending on its being a perfect pre-reflective resonance (especially thanks to its more or less stable “felt-bodily islands”) of outside atmospheric feelings and affordances that also becomes a true “style”, is finally examined by showing the points of both contact and discrepancy between a New Phenomenology (Hermann Schmitz) focused above all on the rediscovery (in a critical function) of the archaic dimension of the Leib and a melioristic Somaesthetics (Richard Shusterman) pragmatically interested in a more creative individual self-stylisation

Buone regressioni. Meità e impersonalità alla luce della nuova fenomenologia

Through an atmospherological approach, primarily inspired by the so-called New Phenomenology (Hermann Schmitz) which construes atmospheres as transmodal and sinaesthetic affordances that permeate the lived space, namely as «ecological» and affective invitations or meanings that are ontologically rooted in things and near-things, the paper defines personal identity with what is perceived, i.e. not with an inner and closed pysche sphere but with what outer and impersonal affects actually produce on the perceiver.Through an atmospherological approach, primarily inspired by the so-called New Phenomenology (Hermann Schmitz) which construes atmospheres as transmodal and sinaesthetic affordances that permeate the lived space, namely as «ecological» and affective invitations or meanings that are ontologically rooted in things and near-things, the paper defines personal identity with what is perceived, i.e. not with an inner and closed pysche sphere but with what outer and impersonal affects actually produce on the perceiver

Atmospheric habitualities: aesthesiology of the silent body

The paper examines the notion of habits from the perspective of a pathic aesthetics based on the neo-phenomenological theory of Leib (felt body) and its ubiquitous communication. By questioning whether experience should be considered as a confirmation or a failure of expectation, it shows the inextricable intertwining of the unexpected and routine in our involuntary life experience and delves into a well known phenomenological crux: is the lived or felt body what is subject to self-affection and proprioception or rather the “absent” body, which is always transcended in its being-for-other (transitivity)? The assumption then that felt-bodily habits are formed through a motor scheme depending on its being a perfect pre-reflective resonance (especially thanks to its more or less stable “felt-bodily islands”) of outside atmospheric feelings and affordances that also becomes a true “style”, is finally examined by showing the points of both contact and discrepancy between a New Phenomenology (Hermann Schmitz) focused above all on the rediscovery (in a critical function) of the archaic dimension of the Leib and a melioristic Somaesthetics (Richard Shusterman) pragmatically interested in a more creative individual self-stylisation

The atmospheric “skin” of the city

What is an urban atmosphere? Through an atmospherological (aesthetical-phenomenological) approach, primarily inspired by the new aesthetics (Böhme) and the new phenomenology (Schmitz), the paper investigates what creates the overall impression (imageability) of a city, if its atmosphere must necessarily be that of familiarity and how our dwelling-house can be understood as a real culture (or cultivation) of immersive atmospheres.Qu’est-ce qu’une atmosphère urbaine ? A partir d’une approche atmosphérologique (esthétique-phénoménologique), inspirée principalement par la nouvelle esthétique (Böhme) et la nouvelle phénoménologie (Schmitz), l’article enquête sur ce qui crée l’impression d’ensemble (imagibilité) d’une ville, si son atmosphère doit nécessairement être celle de la familiarité et comment l’habiter peut être compris en termes d’une véritable culture des atmosphères immersives

Atmosphere(s) for Architects: Between Phenomenology and Cognition

Interfaces 5 was born to home the dialogue that the neuroscientist Michael A. Arbib and the philosopher Tonino Griffero started at the end of 2021 about atmospheric experiences, striving to bridge the gap between cognitive science’s perspective and the (neo)phenomenological one. This conversation progressed due to Pato Paez’s offer to participate in the webinar “Architectural Atmospheres: Phenomenology, Cognition, and Feeling,” a roundtable hosted by The Commission Project (TCP) within the Applied Neuroaesthetics initiative. The event ran online on May 20, 2022. Bob Condia moderated the panel discussion between Suchi Reddy, Michael A. Arbib, and Tonino Griffero. The RESONANCES project was responsible for developing the editing and publishing process. This volume collects nine essays: the main chapter is “A Dialogue on Affordances, Atmospheres, and Architecture” by Michael A. Arbib and Tonino Griffero; there are four commentaries to this text by Federico De Matteis, Robert Lamb Hart, Mark Alan Hewitt, and Suchi Reddy; Michael A. Arbib and Tonino Griffero have independently responded to the commentaries, emphasizing the opportunities and challenges of their respective approaches: cog/neuroscience and atmospherology applied to architecture; Elisabetta Canepa offers “An Essential Vocabulary of Atmospheric Architecture,” developing an atmospherological critique of the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art on the Kansas State University campus to evaluate the accuracy, coherence, and adaptability of her lexicon. Bob Condia and Mikaela Wynne provide an introduction entitled “On Becoming an Atmospherologist: A Praxis of Atmospheres.”https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1051/thumbnail.jp