Atmospheres

The multisensoriality of spatially extended emotions

Bibliographic Data

ID2263968
AuthorsP Eisenlohr (0000-0003-4843-4169, Centre for Modern Indian Studies University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume52
Issue1
Pages37-50
Publication date2024-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthos (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0091-2131 • E-ISSN: 1548-1352
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/etho.12417
OpenAlexW4390144134
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited38

In this essay, I introduce an analytic of atmosphere as a way to bridge the gap between the phenomenology of the felt-body and the anthropology of the senses. This analytic of atmospheres as multisensoriality partially aligns with, but also differs from other anthropological approaches to multisensoriality or the anthropology of the senses. Examining the meaningfulness of atmospheres as spatially extended emotions from a neo-phenomenological perspective, I argue that the notion of atmosphere offers advantages for understanding sensory cultural practices such as sounding and lighting. The felt dimensions of these practices often escape full qualification by cultural discourses, but are nevertheless deeply meaningful. Further, I explore how such atmospheric meaningfulness is irreducible to particular single sensory modi. Instead, it rests on diffuse and synesthetic kinds of felt-bodily affectedness with a holistic character. I demonstrate this by way of two ethnographic examples, investigating practices sounding and lighting, respectively, as atmospheric practices

Aesthetics · Art · Atmosphere (unit) · Depth sounding · Epistemology · Ethnography · Geography · Perspective (graphical) · Phenomenology (philosophy) · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Philosophy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Psychology