A conference on Atmospheres of Places, Objects and Events will be held at the University of Genoa on 20-21 November 2024. In recent years, the general interest in ecological processes has reconfigured the concept of “atmosphere” —one of the most original of the nature and landscape aesthetics of the 1990s. Questioning environmental perception, the cognition of situated, relational, expressive properties of objects, bodily movement through space and sensorimotor, technological aspects of ambiences, this conference on the meaning of atmospheres seeks to determine what atmospheres are and how they can be grasped. The ATMOS project invites scholars to clarify and artists, practitioners, and professionals to explore often ambiguous, subject-oriented definitions of atmospheres while attempting a comprehensive understanding of how atmospheres characterize places, objects, and events.
Research questions for papers may include but are not limited to:
- Which range of perceptive phenomena can atmospheres explain?
- How do atmospheres fit in the broader fields of nature aesthetics, environmental aesthetics and philosophy of landscape?
- How do they help determine the perception of places, i.e., situatedness, human/nonhuman continuity, perception of localities and geo-socialities as well as large-scale, geological, geomorphic, and climatic phenomena?
- Which role do atmospheres play within the philosophical inquiry on perception? How do they reconfigure debates on empathy?
- On the subjective side, are atmospheres emotional representations of places, site-specific Stimmungen or affective tonalities, spatialized feelings, mood-involved situations, mind-dependent feelings/processes, quasi-things?
- On the objective side, are atmospheres high-level perceptual properties of objects, such as gender properties in voice, melodies and harmonies in music and linguistic meaning, or are they low-level properties, such as colour and shape?
- How can atmospheres be grasped transmodally? 8. Which quantitative components can be defined next to qualitative components such as colour, light, sound, smell, taste, touch and sensorimotor inputs?
- How do atmospheric events involve the dimensions of appreciability, causality, and affordance?
- How do atmospheres characterize events by immediacy and wholeness?
- What role do atmospheres play in the aesthetic appreciation of architecture?
The conference is paired with a twin conference on the “Philosophy of Architecture” to be held in the same venue on 18-19 November.
Invited speakers:
Marta Benenti (University of Murcia)
Elisabetta Canepa (University of Genoa)
Lisa Giombini (University of Roma Tre)
Elena Mancioppi (University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo)
Paola Sabbion (University of Genoa)
Alberto Voltolini (University of Turin)
Call for Abstracts:
Please submit proposals by writing to both:
Dr. Luca Marchetti: luca.marchetti@edu.unige.it, and
Dr. Mariaenrica Giannuzzi: mariaenrica.giannuzzi@unito.it
Submissions should be done as PDF files prepared for blind review. Please submit abstracts between 500 and 1000 words (references excluded) together with a title and 3 keywords. The deadline for receipt is June, 30 2024. Speakers will be notified of decisions by July 31, 2024.
The conference is part of the PRIN-PNRR Project “Atmospheres (ATMOS): What They Are and How They are Grasped” PI: Prof. Elvira Di Bona, University of Turin.