Image Credit: Bernault Smilde, Numbus Visual (2013) at the VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland
The concepts of atmosphere and place denote concrete material-geographical domains as well as spheres of affect or ambience. One may speak of a place or the atmosphere, but one also has a sense of place; a room is charged with an atmosphere of anticipation; revolution is ‘in the air.’ Considered in a phenomenological register, atmosphere and place are dimensions of experience modulated by architecture, technology, politics, history, and social practice. At the same time, they are scientific objects delimited and defined by the sciences of geography, geology, ecology, meteorology, climatology and atmospheric physics. In the context of climate change and growing understanding of the profound impact of human activities on Earth systems, the material properties of the atmosphere and the geosphere are urgent matters of concern (cf. Latour 2004). In light of these concerns, a contemporary humanistic approach to atmosphere and place must comprehend how these physical systems simultaneously operate as social, aesthetic and political spaces.
As part of a three-year inquiry into the theme of Atmosphere and Place, the Synthesis Center will explore how we enact and engage environments from the quotidian to the theatrical, the constructed to the wild and the local to the global. In keeping with the center’s transdisciplinary methodology of embedding empirical investigation and philosophical reflection in experimental aesthetic and technological practice, the projects collected under this theme explore how to create, transform and moderate our senses of atmosphere(s) and place(s). The center will cultivate ongoing conversation and creative activities, integrating approaches from conceptual analysis to cultural geography, the construction of computational models and responsive media environments to policies and technologies designed to intervene in the unruly real world. Drawing together practices from responsive media, film and dance, scientific modeling and public deliberation, our research is informed by an ethos of sustainability, minimax design (maximum experiential impact with the minimum engineering necessary) and agential responsibility (cf. Barad, 2007) for our entanglements with/in the environments that we build and study. Atmosphere and Place will bring together local and international artists, humanists, social and natural scientists whose interests bear upon the theme to share their work through seminars, workshops and studio visits and a planning workshop April 16-19th, 2015.
The concepts of atmosphere and place denote concrete material-geographical domains as well as spheres of affect or ambience. One may speak of a place or the atmosphere, but one also has a sense of place; a room is charged with an atmosphere of anticipation; revolution is ‘in the air.’ Considered in a phenomenological register, atmosphere and place are dimensions of experience modulated by architecture, technology, politics, history, and social practice. At the same time, they are scientific objects delimited and defined by the sciences of geography, geology, ecology, meteorology, climatology and atmospheric physics. In the context of climate change and growing understanding of the profound impact of human activities on Earth systems, the material properties of the atmosphere and the geosphere are urgent matters of concern (cf. Latour 2004). In light of these concerns, a contemporary humanistic approach to atmosphere and place must comprehend how these physical systems simultaneously operate as social, aesthetic and political spaces.
As part of a three-year inquiry into the theme of Atmosphere and Place, the Synthesis Center will explore how we enact and engage environments from the quotidian to the theatrical, the constructed to the wild and the local to the global. In keeping with the center’s transdisciplinary methodology of embedding empirical investigation and philosophical reflection in experimental aesthetic and technological practice, the projects collected under this theme explore how to create, transform and moderate our senses of atmosphere(s) and place(s). The center will cultivate ongoing conversation and creative activities, integrating approaches from conceptual analysis to cultural geography, the construction of computational models and responsive media environments to policies and technologies designed to intervene in the unruly real world. Drawing together practices from responsive media, film and dance, scientific modeling and public deliberation, our research is informed by an ethos of sustainability, minimax design (maximum experiential impact with the minimum engineering necessary) and agential responsibility (cf. Barad, 2007) for our entanglements with/in the environments that we build and study. Atmosphere and Place will bring together local and international artists, humanists, social and natural scientists whose interests bear upon the theme to share their work through seminars, workshops and studio visits and a planning workshop April 16-19th, 2015.