The Construction of Atmospheres in the Scope of Painting

Affective and Pleasurable Design, 2023

In this study we analyse approaches through which the construction of atmospheres in painting is accomplished, and in which ways there might be a crucial relationship between the conception of these images, and the body of sensation. Further to a theoretical framework, we study diverse case studies and propose to establish pertinent distinctions. The cases are examined from the point of view of their pictorial values, and are juxtaposed in sets in order to endeavour to question each other in a more pertinent manner. We try to reach conclusions regarding the construction of atmospheres in themselves, and also in which forms these might allow cognitive and interpretative advances, and how these constructions might be related to different mechanisms of sensation and perception, and in particular how these will be enabled by the body of sensation.

Archimaera, 2019

Atmospheric perception is a vital aspect of how viewers engage with works of visual art. Yet art historical discourse has barely paid attention to atmosphere as a critical concept. To remedy this deficit this essay explores how works of visual art afford atmospheric experiences. Drawing on philosophical work on atmosphere and mood by Heidegger, Schmitz, Böhme and Griffero, it will be argued that atmospheres are at the core of our affective involvement with art. How an artwork solicits this affective involvement depends, among other things, on the media it employs. This will be demonstrated by discussing two examples: a painting and a work of installation art. Both works seem to articulate the same atmospheric character but the perceptual conditions they offer for experiencing this atmosphere are different. As a result, the works emphasize different stages in the process of atmospheric perception. Juxtaposing them helps to better understand-and enjoy-this process.

Something more. Atmospheres and pathic aesthetics, in T. Griffero/G. Moretti (ed.), Atmosphere/Atmospheres. Testing a new paradigm, Mimesis International, Milan, pp. 75-89, 2018

Heritage and the City: Values and Beyond, 2022

The aesthetic perception of a spatial atmosphere is related to the sensory experience we have in that space. Although this experience is led by a multisensory understanding, the dominant sense is generally the sense of sight in architectural spaces. This dominance—which is generally connected to the Modernist architects as asserted by, for example, Juhani Pallasmaa (2005)—is related to the speed of the perception, or speed of the transfer of the data amount collected by this sense. What is perceived and evaluated aesthetically via the data provided by the sense of sight comprises the composition of the spatial atmosphere in visual respect. In this visual rendition, composition principles have an important role in affecting the experiencers aesthetically in the evaluation of space by setting objective criteria. Therefore, in this paper, I aim to read and understand the relationships between architectural spaces and composition principles as objective atmosphere generators. I chose rhythm, contrast, and unity in variety as the composition principles frequently used in architectural design. To demonstrate this relationship, I firstly made a literature review to provide a base for the analyses theoretically, and secondly, I made a case study comprising the examples having visual organizations created by the mentioned composition principles. The cases to discuss the visual qualities provided by these principles comprise the Villa Stein (Paris, France, 1927) designed by Le Corbusier, the Barcelona Pavilion designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Georg Kolbe’s sculpture named the Dawn (Alba) (Barcelona, Spain, 1929), and the Brion Cemetery (San Vito d’Altivole, Italy, 1969-77) designed by Carlo Scarpa. Examining the atmospheric design and genii given by the composition principles in these cases may pave the way for understanding the lack we have in the aesthetic qualities of today’s architecture.

Atmosphere and Aesthetics: A Plural Perspective, 2019

This chapter has two different parts. The editors firstly provide some of the reasons motivating the project of this book, which has been conceived and planned to give an account of the widespread in-terest gained by the ordinary concept of “atmosphere” in the last twenty years. “Atmosphere” has been more and more subsumed by human and social sciences, thereby becoming a technical notion. In this broader context, the editors secondly aim at showing and inquiring the tight relationship between atmosphere and Aesthetics. This discipline is no longer only a theory of art, but has recovered its original vocation: to be a general theory of perception conceived of as an ordinary experience of pre-logical character. In the second part, the editors give a short account of the chapters that compose the book, by which also appears the wide breadth and the scope of applications concerning an atmosphere-based Aesthetics.

The Condition of Painting: Reconsidering Medium Specificity (PhD thesis), 2018

The aim of this investigation is to consider the extent to which the processes and material stuff of painting remain central to its identity and meaning. Within writing that supports painting, the role played by the medium of paint is too often sidestepped—sidestepped within writings that take as their starting point the interdisciplinary assumption that the message owes little of consequence to the medium through which it becomes disclosed. The retreat from medium specificity, in the 1970s – a move largely made in opposition to the hegemonic force of Greenbergian formalism and the expanded field ushered in by studio practices, as well as an embrace of the text (promoted through theory) – dislocated image from that from which the image is constituted. To a significant extent, particularly in the most vibrant approaches to the medium, the iconographic possibilities of a painting came to be situated in opposition to the characteristics of the painted object. This project addresses how the reduction of painting to linguistic schemas has rendered the material object of painting redundant. The conception of painting as image – free of material baggage and operable through language alone – serves to disguise the temporal nature of the manner by which a painting is constructed. A painting’s surface is built incrementally and, in its stillness, offers clues to what it has been—perhaps the only clues to what it is. I will redress this in two ways. First, through a body of studio practice I will demonstrate the indispensability of spatiotemporal concerns in respect of the processes and object of painting. My painting is reliant on responsiveness to methods of making, and I will foreground the image’s construction, staging it as an imbrication of language and material in time. Secondly, I will engage in a written inquiry comprising of five chapters. In Chapter 1, I attest to my concerns as a painter. Chapter 2 embarks on an investigation into the notion of a medium within the post-medium condition. Chapter 3 will consider the positioning of painting: examining philosophical omissions and historiographical oversights, which have, together, contributed to misunderstandings. Chapter 4 seeks, through the work of Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Hölderlin, to negotiate a new ontological model for the medium of painting, and Chapter 5 re-considers my recent practice – and position on medium – through the lens of the aforementioned inquiry. The context for this work is the realm in which painting’s ontological status is questioned—targeting the nodal point where there is recourse to consider the extent to which the meaning of a painting is dependent on the specificity of its material conditions. To that end, I argue that Heidegger’s notion of truth (and of equipmentality) – developed in “The Origin of the Work of Art” and the Hölderlin Lectures – offers the possibility of replacing the redundancy of the medium with a notion of regeneration, against the backdrop of the endism that haunts painting.

“Seeing oneself sensing”. Atmospheric perception in installation art Installation art is an important form of contemporary art, which flourishes in the ever-expanding field of periodical art festivals as well as in contemporary experience-centered museum spaces. Installations are spatial and usually temporary art works that immerse the viewer in a highly stimulating artificial environment. Olafur Elisson’s well-known “Weather Project” (2003), for instance, consisted of a giant artificial sun-disc, constructed of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps that plunged the monumental entrance hall of Londen’s Tate Modern into a warm yellowish light. The comfortable yet aw-inspiring atmosphere of the work was enhanced by artificial mist banks. Sitting or lying on the floor, the visitors could observe themselves and each other in a huge mirror, fixed to the ceiling of the space – a tribe of ants in a sublime yet hospitable universe. Eliasson likes to refer to his installations as “experience-machines”: constructions made for the purpose of both eliciting experiences and reflecting on what they are like. Foregrounding the experience of the viewer is characteristic of installation art as such, which is often said to have turned passive spectators into engaged participants. This engaged, participative spectatorship is what my paper seeks to analyze. By drawing, among others, on Gernot Böhme’s concept of atmosphere, as well as on Arnold Berleant’s concepts of environment and aesthetic engagement, I will argue that the viewer’s participation sprouts from his or her becoming aware of the installation’s atmosphere, which amounts to the initial experience of the installation as a whole. With regard to installations one cannot take an external viewing position and therefore not gain an overview. Experiencing an installation is an experience of an environment that emphatically involves oneself. As atmospheres constitute an ‘in-between’, between environmental qualities and human sensibilities (Böhme), I will argue that an understanding of atmospheric perception allows us to grasp how ‘environment’ is not external but arises out of our active and perceptual involvement with the world (Berleant). Installation art promotes both atmospheric perception and environmental engagement and can therefore help us to reflect on our position in the world.

Social and Cultural Geography

2018

This Ph.D by Practice narrates five spatial paintings that took place over three years, between 2014 and 2017, across a range of sites and exhibition spaces in the UK. This series of work and written thesis seeks to understand what a new materialist reading could bring to painting’s language once it enters architectural space. Each painting uses fragments of both made and found things, that are closely interrelated with painting’s vernacular: edges; translucency; colour; thickness; proximity; etc. These are theatrically staged with space itself - where architectural space becomes complicit with the work. It is the viewer/reader who makes the work do its work, from within the painting, through being in-action with the works as a physical spatial encounter, examining thematics of visibility and invisibility through the concrete materialization of the structures that govern painting. The thesis argues how the experience of painting as a spatial practice requires new interpretative meth...

SHS Web of Conferences, 2019

In architecture, atmosphere and its many implications have, in recent years, received increased attention. This paper considers atmosphere in architectural representation, and begins with an exploration of different definitions of these atmospheric representations. This paper then identifies and summarises representations of atmosphere in architecture and their key aspects, and proposes, in the form of a timeline, a preliminary systematisation of these aspects. This paper considers both traditional and digital representations of atmosphere in architecture, and focuses on aesthetic and emotional qualities of atmosphere. Thus, this paper is not limited to realistic and scientific approaches of atmosphere as meteorological conditions, but extends to atmosphere as emotions and mood. This paper also suggests cross-fertilisation, in the representation of atmosphere, between architecture and other fields. Therefore, while this paper explores atmospheric representations in architecture, it ...