ADV 09128 On Atmospheres and Design GSD Spring 2013 Landscape Department Instructor: Silvia Benedito Office Hours:

Thursdays 9.30 am-12.30pm (room 503) Seminar: 4 credits Limited enrollment to 15 students Monday: 10am-1pm, Gropius Room TA Raquel Fernandez

Imaginary Icicles, over the Charles River, Boston Friedrich St. Florian, 1971

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Description What is atmosphere? Is it air and weather? Or is it the in-betweeneffect, matter, immaterial, space, ephemera? How is atmosphere(s) designed when it seems to start where design stops? Within these questions lay implicit issues of time and material presence, scientific inquiry and description, space, phenomena and the body. The seminar will be examining definitions and investigations of atmosphere in the context of history, philosophy, art, film and photography, science, design, and the cultural imagination. Also, it will investigate built works that inform conditions of atmosphere. Our experiences are shaped in spaces that are not only of a visible and measurable reality, but also of the immaterial and ephemeral conditions that affect what we see, register, and experience. What is memorable that affects our imaginative experiences of the places we visit and live? What are the immersive qualities we collect when moving through the in-between? Many travelers have registered their impressions of landscapes and buildings based on the rhythm of natural phenomena and spatial experiences induced by the atmospheric conditions such as of light and humidity, reflection and sound, wind or temperature. Atmospheres are because we perceive them. We are both part of the atmosphere and part of different atmospheres climatic atmospheres, acoustic atmospheres, emotional atmospheres, kinetic atmospheres, material atmospheres, polluted, energetic, etc. Atmospheres are the bodily relationships that assert the presence of the world around us and are connected to us, while reminding us that atmosphere is also a lethal base for our existence and pleasure. Atmospheres are the immediate perception of the invisible (that get revealed) and the actual relation to our own natureness. These are the atmospherestheir conditions, agents, and sourcesthat we will be examining in the seminar, treated as matter for inquiry in the built environment, while projecting further ways of constructing and imagining the discipline of design. The seminar will be structured through discussions of selected writings and philosophical investigations as a means to position concepts of the atmosphere(s) as a design tool. Also, there will be an analysis of sensory mediainstallation, photography, and filmand design projects that explore concepts of atmosphere. Guest speakers will be invited to discuss their work and to engage in the conversation within the context of the seminar. The Seminar will be dedicated to: 1) Expanding the concept of atmosphere beyond the mood or subjective impression (what is the most prevailing and also constraining to the term itself); 2) Projecting a position on how atmospheres can operate in the contexts of the poetic and imaginative constructs; 3) Raising the claim that atmospheres constitute a fundamental concept of material presence, invention and craft in design. Therefore, the seminar will be structured by 9 categories of research on how to approach atmosphere(s) as it claims distinct constituencies and relevant bodies of knowledge: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) On Atmospheres and the Body On Atmospheres and Space On Atmospheres and Matter (wind, sound, light, temperature, humidity, etc)* On Atmospheres and Science On Atmospheres and Art On Atmospheres and Aesthetics On Atmospheres and Environment On Atmospheres and Politics On Atmospheres and Design

* This session will be developed in 2 classes Matter I and Matter II

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References The seminar explores 3 positions to guide the discussion and research on Atmospheres and Design. One is that of Gernot Bhmes claim in his essay Atmosphere as the fundamental concept of a new aesthetics. Here, Bhme, foregrounds atmosphere as a space of condition(s), independent from both object and subject. Atmospheres are re-positioned as an autonomous entity but have ? a co-presence within the space of subject and object. In this description, atmosphere is independent from the subjective interpretation and generative of a new field of ontological reasoning focused on the material qualities of atmospheres, its agents and entropic processes. Second, the course will investigate the concept of appearance as developed in Martin Seels The Aesthetics of Appearing. Here, Seel foregrounds the moment of perception and awareness in the receiver while acknowledging artwork. As he claims Attentiveness to what is appearing is therefore at the same time attentiveness to ourselves.1 Appearance and disappearance are part of a dynamic process of phenomenological awareness as one implies the other within a certain time frame. Here, importantly, time is implied as an agent in the perceptual choreography. The third, probably most familiar, position is that of James J. Gibsons description of the world at the level of ecology i.e the environment. Gibson offers a structural analysis of the environment by describing it in terms of a medium, substances, and surfaces as operational interfaces between different material conditions. Gibsons theory of affordances emphasizes dynamic structures (process) and properties, which reciprocally establish a dynamic relation between perceiver-environment. This position is particularly relevant in the context of the seminar as it focuses on structures that are dynamically recognized as perceptual information intrinsic to the environment, instead of being intrinsic to sensation in the perceivers mind.

Requirements Discussion - The seminar will be structured through the discussions of the selected writings as means to position concepts of atmospherics. These concepts will be further explored through the analysis of photography, film and design projects that explore concepts of atmosphere. Lastly, select invited guest lecturers will come to discuss their work in relation to the content of the Seminar and to engage in the thematic conversations.

Research Students may work individually or in pairs. The research work will be gathered as a booklet entitled The Atmospheres Project. The research will be developed in 2 research documents developed by the students: 1- The Chart The measuring and describing each of the themes and its agents. a. The student(s) will be tracing the genealogy of the concept in its ontological (material), intellectual and operational implications and values, by the identification of parallel key authors and applications. The study will culminate in the work of cartographic representation across time and concepts. 2- The project/manifesto The projective and speculative position informed by the findings in : a. In a foldable A2 panel each student will assembly a projective and speculative position on the future role of Atmosphere in the discipline of design. This may focus may be on particular constituencies, agents, properties, etc, specific to the theme.

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Seel, Martin, Aesthetics of Appearing, translated by John Farrell, Stanford University Press, 2005, p. xi 3!

Grades: - Reading and discussion (participation, leading discussion, content of discussion) - Research - The Chart - The project/manifesto - Final deliverables

20% 35% 25% 20%

The last 2 classes, April 22nd and April 29th will be dedicated to the further development of both research documents - Chart & project/manifesto. Each student / pair of students will work with the instructor and will adjust the chart accordingly to common observations, facts and events from the other themes. The goal of these 2 classes is to find consistency and common premises in the overall definition of the themes. Discussions and planning on the research documents are highly encouraged to be discussed with the Instructor during the class and office hours (Thursdays 9.30-1pm). The presence in the class is mandatory.

Submissions Interim submission: March 25th (Monday) iSite submission & Pin-up in class There will be an interim review of the structure of each research document (Chart & project/manifesto). Here, each student should submit to the iSite and pin-up both research documents (Chart & project/manifesto). Final submission: May 10th (Friday) - iSite submission Both research documents should be submitted to the iSite by 4pm.

All readings will be available on the Seminar iSite as PDFs organized by theme/class.

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SCHEDULE

1- On Atmospheres and perceived conditions (Intro) January 28th ! 2. On Atmospheres and the Body February 4th Guest: Iaki Abalos Readings: Hellpach, Willy, Geopsique (1911), translated by Jos Ortega y Gasset (1940), Chapter I-B Explicatin de los effectos del tiempo,p.45-81; Chapter III Theora del efecto del tiempo, p. 93-117 (in SPANISH)

Dettelbach, Michael. The Stimulations of Travel: Humboldt's Physiological Construction of the Tropics, (2005), In Tropical Visions in an Age of Empire, edited by Flix Driver and Luciana Martins, p. 53-58 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice The intertwining - The Chiasm,(1968), In Maurice Meleau-Ponty: basic writings, The Visible and the Invisible, ed. Thomas Baldwin, Routledge (2004), pp. 130-55 Blume, Anna.Hermann Schmitz(2010) In Handbook of Phenomenological Aesthetics, ed. Hans Rainer Sepp and Lester Embree (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), p. 307-309 Chandler, Timothy, Locus amoenus: Pastoral Atmosphere of Virgil's Eclogues, in COLLOQUY- text theory critique 23 (2012), Monash University p. 185-207

Recommended: Dettelbach, Michael, The Face of Nature: Precise Measurement, Mapping, and Sensibility in the Work of Alexander von Humboldt,(1999) Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci., Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 473504. Schmitz H., Mllan R. O., Slaby J.Emotions outside the box: The new phenomenology of feelings and corporeality (2011), in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 10, 241259.

3. On Atmospheres and Space February 11th Guest: Alexander Husler Readings: Chandler, Timothy, Reading Atmospheres: The Ecocritical Potential of Gernot Bhme's Aesthetic Theory of Nature (2011), In Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment . p.1-16
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Bhme, Gernot, The Space of Bodily Presence and Space as a Medium of Representation, (2003), In Transforming Spaces: The Topological Turn in Technology Studies. Conf. Proc. Ed. Mikael Hrd, Andreas Lsch, and Dirk Verdicchio, p. 1-7 Sloterdijk, Peter, Bubbles: Spheres Volume I: Microspherology (1998), translated by Wieland Hoban, Semiotexte (2011), Chapter: Introduction- The Allies; Or, The Breathed Commune, p. 17-81

Recommended: Morris, David, The Sense of Space, (2004), Introduction: The Problem of Depth, p. 1-32 Bergson, Henri, Creative Evolution,(1911) Introduction p. xxxv-xxxix; (2007) Pallasmaa, Juhani Space, Place and Atmosphere- Peripheral perception in existential experience, (2011) In Ghost 13, p. 1-16 Seel, Martin, Artistic form as operations on the edges of time, translated by Joseph Ganahl, In http://aestetik.au.dk/fileadmin/www.aestetik.au.dk/__stetikkens_gr__nser/the_limits_of_aesthetics/paper s/papers_survey/martin_seel.pdf Johann Wolfgang, Goethe: The Experiment as Mediator of Object and Subject(1792) in Nature in Our Culture: A Study in the Anthropology and the Sociology of Knowing. Friedrich W. Sixel, University Press of America, 2001, pp 194-207.

4. On Atmospheres and Matter I (Wind, sound, light) February 18h Guest: Ernst Karel Readings: Gibson, James J. The Ecological approach to visual perception, (1986), Chapter Medium, Substances, Surfaces, p. 16-32 Bachelard, Gaston, Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter (1999), IntroductionImagination and Matter, p.1-18 Bhme, Gernot, Staged Materiality, In Daidalos, n.56, June 1995, p. 36-43 Bhme, Gernot, Acoustic Atmospheres: A Contribution to the Study of Ecological Aesthetics (2000), Soundscape: The Journal of Acoustic Ecology: Vol. 1 No. 1. Burbury, B. C.: Simon Fraser University: 1418. Connor, Steven, The Vapours,(2003), A paper given at Queen Mary, University of London, December 11 2003, http://www.stevenconnor.com/vapours/

Recommended:

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Schafer, R. Murray, The Tuning of the World, (1977), Chapter: Introduction p. 3-12, Chapter: Morphology, p. 161-168, Chapter: Rhythms and Tempo in the Soundscape, p. 226-236 Trifona, Temenuga, Matter-Image or Image-Consciousness: Bergson contra Sartre, (2003), In Janus Head 6(1), State University of New York at Buffalo, p.80-114 Otter, Chris, Locating Matter- The place of materiality in urban history, (2010), In Material Powers: Cultural studies, history and the material turn ed. Tony Bennett and Patrick Joyce, p. 38-59

5. On Atmospheres and Science February 25th Guest: Ed Eigen Readings: Rigby, Kate, Gernot Bhmes Ecological Aesthetics of Atmosphere, (2011), In Ecocritical Theory: New European Approaches (Under the Sign of Nature), ed. Axel Goodbody and Kate Rigby, p. 139-152 Bhme, Gernot, The art of the stage set as paradigm for an aesthetics of atmospheres(2012) , Paper delivered in the University of Aarhus, March 16-17th, 2012 http://conferences.au.dk/fileadmin/conferences/Understanding_Atmospheres/abstracts.pdf Gamwell, Lynn, Exploring the Invisible- Art, Science, and the Spiritual (2002), Chapter 2: Adopting a Scientific Worldview, p. 33-55 Sloterdijk, Peter, Terror From The Air, (2007), Translated by Amy Patton and Steve Corcoran (2009)

Recommended:

Tellenbach, Hubertus, Tasting and smelling taste and atmosphere-atmosphere and trust(1968), In Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 12 (2), p. 221-230 (1981) Capek, Milik, Microphysical indeterminacy and freedom: Bergson and Pierce (1971), In The Crisis in Modernism: Bergson and the Vitalist Controversy, ed. Frederick Burwick and Paul Douglass (1992), p. 171-189 Miller, Genevieve, Airs, Waters, and Places in History (1962), In Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 1962, 17, p.129-40

6. On Atmospheres and Matter II (Temperature, humidity) March 4th Guest: Allen Sayegh

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Readings (as per as Matter I): Gibson, James J. The Ecological approach to visual perception, (1986), Chapter Medium, Substances, Surfaces, p. 16-32 Bachelard, Gaston, Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter (1999), IntroductionImagination and Matter, p.1-18 Bhme, Gernot, Staged Materiality, In Daidalos, n.56, June 1995, p. 36-43 Bhme, Gernot, Acoustic Atmospheres: A Contribution to the Study of Ecological Aesthetics (2000), Soundscape: The Journal of Acoustic Ecology: Vol. 1 No. 1. Burbury, B. C.: Simon Fraser University: 1418. Connor, Steven, The Vapours,(2003), A paper given at Queen Mary, University of London, December 11 2003, http://www.stevenconnor.com/vapours/

Recommended: Schafer, R. Murray, The Tuning of the World, (1977), Chapter: Introduction p. 3-12, Chapter: Morphology, p. 161-168, Chapter: Rhythms and Tempo in the Soundscape, p. 226-236 Trifona, Temenuga, Matter-Image or Image-Consciousness: Bergson contra Sartre, (2003), In Janus Head 6(1), State University of New York at Buffalo, p.80-114 Otter, Chris, Locating Matter- The place of materiality in urban history, (2010), In Material Powers: Cultural studies, history and the material turn ed. Tony Bennett and Patrick Joyce, p. 38-59

7. On Atmospheres and Art March 11th Guest: Sharon Harper Readings: Seel, Martin, Aesthetics of Appearing, (2005), Chapter II.5 Situations of Appearing, p. 87-104 Chapter III- Flickering and Resonating, p. 139-159 Larsen, Bente On Off On Off: . A discussion of Martin Creed's work The Lights going on and off, (2000), Department of Art History and Musicology, Lund University. Ribner, Johnathan, The Poetics of pollution, (2004), In Turner, Whistler, Monet : impressionist visions ed. Katharine Lochnan, p. 51-63 Mitchel, W.J.T., The Landscape and Power,(2002), Chapter: Imperial Landscape p. 5-34, Chapter: Territorial Photpgraphy, p. 175-202

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Recommended: Smith, Pamela H. Art Science and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe, (2006), In Isis n. 97 p. 83100 Ingold, Tim, Beyond Art and Technology,(2001), In Anthropological Perspectives on Technology by Michael B. Schiffer, p. 17-32 Westheider, Ortrud, Turner and the four classical elements(2011), In Turner and the Elements ed. Ortrud Westheide Philipp Michael, p. 10-18

8. On Atmospheres and Aesthetics March 25th Guest: Marikka Trotter Thornes J E, Cultural climatology and the representation of sky, atmosphere, weather and climate in selected art works of Constable, Monet and Eliasson, (2007), In Geoforum http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2006.10.015 Bhme, Gernot, "Atmosphere as the Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics," (1993), Thesis Eleven 36, p. 113-26 Berleant, Arnold, The Aesthetics of Art and Nature,(2004), In The Aesthetics of Natural Environments, Chpater 3, p. 76-88 Ruskin, John, Of Modern Landscapes,(1859), In Modern Painters on Many Things, pt. 4, p. 254-286

Recommended: Simmel, Georg, The Philosophy of Landscape, (1912), Theory, Culture & Society 2007, Vol.24 (7-8), p. 20-29 Bhme, Gernot, An Aesthetic Theory of Nature: an Interim Report, (1992), Thesis Eleven May 32, p. 90- 102 Gregor, Mary J., Baumgartens Aesthetics,(1983) The Review of Metaphysics, vo. 37. No.2 (December), p. 357-385 Rollins, William H. Aesthetic Perception and Environmental Reform in Modern Europe, (1997), In Greener Vision of Home Cultural Politics and Environmental Reform in the German Heimatschutz Movement, 1904-1918

9. On Atmospheres and the Environment April 1st Guest: tbd

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Wood, David, What is Eco-phenomenology? (2001), In Journal of Research in Phenomenology, vol. 31, p.78- 95 Ingold, Tim, The eye of the storm: visual perception and the weather, In Visual Studies, Volume 20, Number 2, 01 Oct 2005 , pp.98-104 Gissen, David, Subnature- Architectures other environments,(2009), Part one- Atmospheres, p. 30-87 Berleant, Arnold, Aesthetics beyond the arts (2012), Chapter 3, pt 17 - The Changing meaning of landscape, p.195-205

Recommended: Bonacina, L.C.W., Landscape meteorology and its reflection in art and literature, (1939) In Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 65, p. 485497. Ingold, Tim, Being alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description (2011), Pt 3, chapter 9Earth, sky, wind, and weather, p. 115-125 Berleant, Arnold, Environmental sensibility,in www.autograff.com/berleant/pages/Environmental%20Sensibility.htm Uexkll, Jacok von, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans,(1940), chapter- Environmental spaces, p. 53-62

10. On Atmospheres and Politics April 8th Guest: tbd Sloterdijk, Peter, Atmospheric Politics, (2005), In Making things visible, by Latour and Weisel (ed.), p. 944-951 Latour, Bruno, Atmosphre, Atmosphre, (2003), In the catalog of Olafur Eliasson, New Tate Gallery, p. 29-42 Dessauce, Marc (ed.), The Inflatable Moment- Pneumatics and protest in 68(1999), Part one- On pneumatic apparitions, p. 7-26 Borch, Christian, Foamy Business: On the organizational politics of atmospheres,(2011), in In Medias Res Peter Sloterdijks Spherological poetics of being (ed. Williem Schinkel & L N Eelens), p. 29-42

Recommended: Ingold, Tim, Being alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description (2011), Pt 3, chapter 10Landscape or Weather-world ?, p. 126-135 Beck, John, Signs of the Sky, Signs of the Times : Photography as Double Agent, (2011), Theory Culture Society v.28, p. 123-139

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Tuinen, Sjoerd van, Air conditioning spaceship earth: peter Sloterdijks ethico-aesthetic paradigm, (2009), Environment and Planning D: Society and space, Vol. 27, p. 105-118

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Bate, Jonathan, Living with the weather, (1996), In Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 35, No. 3, Green Romanticism (Fall, 1996), pp. 431-447

11. On Atmospheres and Design April 15th Guest: Luis Callejas

Klein, Yves, The evolution of art towards immaterial,(1960), In Yves Klein Air Architecture, (1994), p. 35-57 Zumthor, Peter, Atmospheres: Architectural Environments - Surrounding Objects, (2006), Wigley, Mark. "The Architecture of Atmosphere," (1998), In Daidalos 68, p. 18-27. Verstegen, Ton, Gestures: Atmospheric perception and architecture, (2009), Introduction, p. 7-39 Hill, Jonathan, Weather Architecture,(2012), Chapter 2- The seasons of a life, p. 46-85 Williamson, Rebecca, The breath of cities, (2006), In Aeolian winds and the spirit in renaissance architecture, Kenda, Barbara (ed.), p. 150-166

Recommended: Perrin, Francois, Air architecture: Imagination and Matter, (2004), In Yves Klein Air Architecture, (1994), p. 9-25 Frascari, Marco and Emmons, Paul, Making visible the invisible: signs of air in architectural treatises,(2006), In Aeolian winds and the spirit in renaissance architecture, Kenda, Barbara (ed.), p. 87102 May, Susan, Meteorologica, (2003), In the catalog of Olafur Eliasson, New Tate Gallery, p. 15-28 Hight, Christopher, "Putting out the Fire with Gasoline: parables of entropy and homeostasis from the second machine age from the second information age to the information age,(2007), In Softscape by Sean Lally & Jessica Young (ed.), p. 11-24

12- The Atmospheres Project (WORKSHOP) April 22th

13- The Atmospheres Project (WORKSHOP) Final discussion and presentation April 29th

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