Description (eng)
How do atmospheres – those subtle, impermanent, non-objectified and surrounding yet intimately affective presences – come to be? What forces enable and constrain their appearance, and how do they relate to one another? How to research these complex processes in a non-reductive way?
Contingent Agencies, an artistic research project initiated by Alex Arteaga and Nikolaus Gansterer, explores the dynamic relationship between human and non-human agencies as enabling conditions for the emergence of atmospheres. This cross-disciplinary investigation is conducted through multimodal practices of notation, reflection, showing, and sharing realized in diverse media within different theoretical frameworks such as phenomenology, enactivism, and new materialism. A group of internationally renowned authors explores the emergence of atmospheres through diverse perspectives, including art, artistic research, western and non-western philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and quantum physics. The present book, complemented by an extensive online archive, features multiple research artifacts–including texts, drawings, photo series, diagrams, sound recordings, and video stills – as an invitation for a wider community to join the inquiry.