ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a phenomenological approach to atmospheres, focusing on the work of Hermann Schmitz. Every social gathering is replete with atmospheric qualities, charging the space between all those present at the scene. Objects – from old pieces of furniture to the newest devices of high-tech media – radiate atmospheres. The chapter suggests that atmospheres are a type of affordance: prepared occasions for affective engagement, for absorption and attunement. The atmosphere in ambient space is distinct from our corporeal attunement to it. Atmospheres, for Schmitz, pertain to the surfaceless, pre-dimensional spatial milieu – they are what charges, energises the pre-categorical realm. There is some common ground between Brian Massumi and Schmitz, both intuitively and conceptually. This is a parallel that is less surprising when one considers Massumi’s early work on Merleau-Ponty, whose philosophy of corporeality and expansive writing style bears at least a generic resemblance to Schmitz’s approach.
