ABSTRACT
An atmospheric feeling is almost omnipresent, even though at times unnoticed and ephemeral. One speaks of atmospheres continuously, describes them and calls them into question every time that some invisible effects seem to be out of proportion with respect to their visible causes and not fully perceivable through standard sense organs. This ontological contrast between Gernot Bohme’s and Hermann Schmitz’s accounts also refers to a different assessment of everyday life’s aestheticisation: It is stigmatised by Schmitz as a misleading propaganda, while it is analysed by Bohme as the unavoidable reflection of a more general “theatricalization of our life”. The relationship between the perceiver and the already mentioned three types of atmospheres may result in many different emotional interactions. In order to legitimately speak of atmospheric feelings rather than generically of emotions and feelings, one must refer to feelings that are poured out into a certain space and that one experiences as coming from the environment, thus overturning culture’s dominant introjectionism.
