How do atmospheres emerge? This book explores the dynamic entanglements between humans, environments, and nonhuman forces.
Contingent Agencies is a cross-disciplinary artistic research project initiated by Alex Arteaga and Nikolaus Gansterer that investigates how atmospheres arise from the interplay between human and nonhuman agencies. Drawing from phenomenology, enactivism, and new materialism, the book engages readers in a richly layered process of notation, reflection, showing, and sharing.
Through experimental artistic practices across various media, Contingent Agencies opens new pathways for understanding spatial, embodied, and affective relations. The publication invites not only reflection but also active participation in an expanded, open-ended research community.
What the book offers:
- Innovative models of artistic research grounded in philosophy and embodied practice
- Exploration of human and nonhuman interrelations in the formation of atmospheres
- An open framework that encourages communal inquiry and interdisciplinary engagementA vital contribution to current debates on artistic research, material agency, and situated knowledge. A must-read for artists, theorists, and practitioners interested in environmental and performative aesthetics.
Alex Arteaga (*1969, Barcelona) is an artist researcher who combines aesthetic, phenomenological, and enactivist research practices through an inquiry into embodiments, environments, and aesthetic thinking. He is currently pursuing his research at the University of the Arts Helsinki.
Nikolaus Gansterer (*1974, Vienna) is an artist who explores the interrelationships between drawing, thinking and acting in his work. He teaches at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and is internationally active with performances, exhibitions and lectures.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Front Cover
Halftitle
Titlepage
Table of Contents
Foreword - Alexander Damianisch
Foreword - Leena Rouhiainen
A Contingent Preface - Alex Arteaga
Introduction - Alex Arteaga and Nikolaus Gansterer
Scores and Fact Files for the Practices of Notation and Reflection - Alex Arteaga and Nikolaus Gansterer
Notations and Reflections 1 22
Confluence of Influence, and the Struggle of Differentiation - Emma Cocker
Landscape, Atmosphere, and Weather-World - Tim Ingold
Notations and Reflections 23 49
An Aesthetic Dispositive for (Aesthetic) Reflection - Alex Arteaga
Dancing with/in Atmospheres - Paula Kramer
Khôra Touching Sensing Tasting Reflecting Notating Atmospheres - Arno Böhler
Notes on Corporal Notations - Sabina Holzer
Notations and Reflections 50 76
Contingency, Notation, Reflection Some Remarks from the Perspective of Scientific Experimentation - Hans-Jörg Rheinberger
Diagramming Theories of Atmosphere - Gerhard Dirmoser
"Ac-cidents" and Non-necessity. On Contingency - Dieter Mersch
Notations and Reflections 77 93
Field Notes: Figuring Contingent Agencies - Nikolaus Gansterer
Perceptual Ferment - Erin Manning
Passages with View on their Legibility - Mika Elo
Notations and Reflections 94 123
The Atmosphere and the Atmosphere: A Linkage of Meteorology and Metaphor - Andreas Spiegl
Errant Wanderings/Wonderings The Materiality of Imagining, the Imaginings of Materiality - Karen Barad
Index
Biographies
Acknowledgements - Alex Arteaga Nikolaus Gansterer
Colophon
Back Cover
