ABSTRACT
According to him, Schmitz’s atmospheres “are free-floating like gods and as such have nothing to do with things, let alone being their product”, so that “at most, objects can capture atmospheres, which then adhere to them like a nimbus”. When criticizing the assumption that one is able to “make” atmospheres and condense them into certain situations, maybe in order to escape from the solipsism of our societies through a constant “barrage of impressive, actual situations”, Schmitz is interpreting what Bohme defines “aesthetic work” exclusively in a negative way. Prototypical atmospheres – which in this way perhaps partly overlap with Stimmungen – hover around us without being strictly linked to causes and objects and without being intentionally produced. The main negative effect of this exceptionalism is to ignore that there are also many theatrical atmospheres, which radiate into the lived space and tinge the in-between as much as the provocative ones, without denying illusionistic models.
