The rhythmic space of affects

How atmospheres shape music videos

Bibliographic Data

ID21783385
AuthorsTomáš Jirsa (0000-0002-6142-4718, Palacký University Olomouc, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume23
Issue2
Pages330-354
Publication date2025-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Review of Film and Television Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1740-0309 • E-ISSN: 1740-7923
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17400309.2025.2502909
OpenAlexW4411282087
LanguageEN
References cited30

Opening a dialogue between music video scholarship and affect theory, this article argues for grounding the concept of atmosphere in the affective agency and movement of audiovisual forms, their spatial arrangement, and musical composition. Drawing on Eugenie Brinkema’s affective formalism and recent theorizations of cinematic motion, it analyzes the mutual transformations between space, bodies, and rhythm in Jlin’s ‘Carbon 7 (161)’ (dir. Joji Koyama, 2017) and Earl Sweatshirt’s ‘Grief’ (dir. Hiro Murai, 2015). Rather than treating atmosphere as a vague overall mood or subjective experience, the article explores the performative interactions between moving images, music, and sound as shaped by specific affective operations. To explain how music videos generate atmosphere and what aesthetic and conceptual roles it plays in a video’s composition, style, and viewer engagement, I first discuss the absence of the term atmosphere in music video studies, including its frequent substitution with the more diffuse concept of mood. Building upon Jordan Schonig’s account of camera movement and cinematic motion forms, the critique then joins several contemporary voices in affect theory whose philosophical elaborations of atmosphere allow to better understand the affective structure of music video space and movement. Finally, these theoretical interlocutors inform a close reading of the two videos, demonstrating how particular affective operations drive the audiovisual atmosphere, which in turn reshapes both their visual and sonic structures

Aesthetics · Art · Rhythm · Visual arts · Cinema and Media Studies · Communication · Computer Science · Music History and Culture · Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior · Psychology

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