Atmospheric Things

In Atmospheric Things Derek P. McCormack explores how atmospheres are imagined, understood, and experienced through experiments with a deceptively simple object: the balloon. Since the invention of balloon flight in the late eighteenth century, balloons have drawn crowds at fairs and expositions, inspired the visions of artists and writers, and driven technological development from meteorology to military surveillance. By foregrounding the distinctive properties of the balloon, McCormack reveals its remarkable capacity to disclose the affective and meteorological dimensions of atmospheres. Drawing together different senses of the object, the elements, and experience, McCormack uses the balloon to show how practices and technologies of envelopment allow atmospheres to be generated, made meaningful, and modified. He traces the alluring entanglement of envelopment in artistic, political, and technological projects, from the 2009 Pixar movie Up and Andy Warhol’s 1966 installation Silver Clouds to the use of propaganda balloons during the Cold War and Google's experiments with delivering internet access with stratospheric balloons. In so doing, McCormack offers new ways to conceive of, sense, and value the atmospheres in which life is immersed.

In Atmospheric Things Derek P. McCormack explores how atmospheres are imagined, understood, and experienced through experiments with a deceptively simple object: the balloon. Since the invention of balloon flight in the late eighteenth century, balloons have drawn crowds at fairs and expositions, inspired the visions of artists and writers, and driven technological development from meteorology to military surveillance. By foregrounding the distinctive properties of the balloon, McCormack reveals its remarkable capacity to disclose the affective and meteorological dimensions of atmospheres. Drawing together different senses of the object, the elements, and experience, McCormack uses the balloon to show how practices and technologies of envelopment allow atmospheres to be generated, made meaningful, and modified. He traces the alluring entanglement of envelopment in artistic, political, and technological projects, from the 2009 Pixar movie Up and Andy Warhol’s 1966 installation Silver Clouds to the use of propaganda balloons during the Cold War and Google's experiments with delivering internet access with stratospheric balloons. In so doing, McCormack offers new ways to conceive of, sense, and value the atmospheres in which life is immersed.

In Atmospheric Noise, Marina Peterson traces entanglements of environmental noise, atmosphere, sense, and matter that cohere in and through encounters with airport noise since the 1960s. Exploring spaces shaped by noise around Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), she shows how noise is a way of attuning toward the atmospheric: through noise we learn to listen to the sky and imagine the permeability of bodies and matter, sensing and conceiving that which is diffuse, indefinite, vague, and unformed. In her account, the “atmospheric” encompasses the physicality of the ephemeral, dynamic assemblages of matter as well as a logic of indeterminacy. It is audible as well as visible, heard as much as breathed. Peterson develops a theory of “indefinite urbanism” to refer to marginalized spaces of the city where concrete meets sky, windows resonate with the whine of departing planes, and endangered butterflies live under flight paths. Offering a conceptualization of sound as immanent and non-objectified, she demonstrates ways in which noise is central to how we know, feel, and think atmospherically.

Combining ideas of sustainable development, strategic marketing and branding with space design and architecture, this volume offers contemporary perspectives on the development and impact of 'atmospheric quality' in tourism and hospitality service situations. Topics discussed include: silent airports, ambient odours and, co-created atmospheres.

There is fast-growing awareness of the role atmospheres play in architecture. Of equal interest to contemporary architectural practice as it is to aesthetic theory, this 'atmospheric turn' owes much to the work of the German philosopher Gernot Böhme. Atmospheric Architectures: The Aesthetics of Felt Spaces brings together Böhme's most seminal writings on the subject, through chapters selected from his classic books and articles, many of which have hitherto only been available in German. This is the only translated version authorised by Böhme himself, and is the first coherent collection deploying a consistent terminology. It is a work which will provide rich references and a theoretical framework for ongoing discussions about atmospheres and their relations to architectural and urban spaces. Combining philosophy with architecture, design, landscape design, scenography, music, art criticism, and visual arts, the essays together provide a key to the concepts that motivate the work of some of the best contemporary architects, artists, and theorists: from Peter Zumthor, Herzog & de Meuron and Juhani Pallasmaa to Olafur Eliasson and James Turrell. With a foreword by Professor Mark Dorrian (Forbes Chair in Architecture, Edinburgh College of Art) and an afterword by Professor David Leatherbarrow, (Chair of the Graduate Group in Architecture, University of Pennsylvania), the volume also includes a general introduction to the topic, including coverage of it history, development, areas of application and conceptual apparatus.

The Atmospheric City explores how people make sense of the feelings they get in and of urban spaces. Based on ethnographic fieldwork of everyday life in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm, it focuses on the atmospheric power of people, places, and phenomena. While the predominant focus of current urban planning tends to rest on economic growth, sustainability, or offering housing, transport, and activities to an increasing number of city residents, this book offers a different take, based on recent discussions in the social sciences about how cities feel. It calls attention to the mundane ways in which urban dwellers adapt and adopt their surroundings. It argues that atmospheric cities are characterised by a fundamental porosity that affects how people relate to places. This highlights why some places are sought after while others are avoided. Through concrete examples of people being in and moving through the city, the book shows how people attune and are attuned by designed urban spaces, often at the margins of attention, when they find comfort in the familiar and seek out the unexpected. This book is aimed at researchers, postgraduates, and practitioners interested in urban design and how people make sense of the feelings it evokes. It will be of interest to those in the fields of urban studies, urban design, planning, architecture urban geography, cultural geography, cultural studies and anthropology.

The report is a complete compilation of the papers presented and the Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on Atmospheric Contamination in Confined Spaces, sponsored by the Aerospace Medical Research Laboratories and held in Dayton, Ohio on 9, 10, and 11 May 1967. Major technical areas discussed by the invited speakers, members of the Open Forum and Conference attendees included toxicological evaluation of atmospheres and contaminants, histopathological evidences of toxicity, evaluation of cabin materials, instruments and detection techniques, measurement of behavioral responses, and life support systems. Included as an Appendix, but not presented at the Conference, is a status report on oxygen toxicity prepared by Dr. Harold Kaplan.

An aesthetic and phenomenological account of feelings. In this book, Tonino Griffero introduces and analyzes an ontological category he terms “quasi-things.” These do not exist fully in the traditional sense as substances or events, yet they powerfully act on us and on our states of mind. He offers an original approach to the study of emotions, regarding them not as inner states of the subject, but as atmospheres, that is as powers poured out into the lived space we inhabit. Griffero first outlines the general and atmospheric characters of quasi-things, and then considers examples such as pain, shame, the gaze, and twilight—which he argues is responsible for penetrating and suggestive moods precisely because of its vagueness. With frequent examples from literature and everyday life, Quasi-Things provides an accessible aesthetic and phenomenological account of feelings based on the paradigm of atmospheres. Tonino Griffero is Full Professor of Aesthetics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and the author of many books, including Atmospheres: Aesthetics of Emotional Spaces, translated by Sarah De Sanctis. Sarah De Sanctis is General Manager of the UK branch of Labont (Laboratory for Ontology). She is the translator of Manifesto of New Realism, by Maurizio Ferraris, also published by SUNY Press.