Impressionable atmospheres

Any atmosphere that is felt haptically (positively or negatively) as a force or stirring, in, with or through our felt and feeling bodies.

Impressionable atmospheres is a term Anthony R Brand introduced in 2013. To impress is to leave an impression, a mark or trace. This trace is recorded in a medium, as the traces of experience are recorded in and with our bodies and recalled in future encounters. An impressionable atmosphere is therefore any atmosphere that is felt haptically (positively or negatively) as a force or stirring, in, with or through our felt and feeling bodies. It is because of atmosphere that we are always already in touch, always perceiving haptically, and always involved in the reciprocity of making and receiving impressions.

Impressionable atmospheres was later set within the author’s concept of touching atmospheres, developed in Brand (2017), which distinguishes touching₁, contact with a felt and feeling body (Leib), from touching₂, affect. An atmosphere that touches₂ us – one whose impression attunes our disposition and influences our thoughts, feelings or actions, whether or not we are aware of it – is an impressionable atmosphere.

First presented as “Impressionable Atmospheres: a felt phenomenology” at Moved: On Atmospheres and Affects, the 2013 Interstices Under Construction Symposium, Auckland University of Technology, 23 November 2013 — record and abstract at doi:10.5281/zenodo.23990726; the abstract was first published in the symposium brochure, Interstices 15.

Lineage

23.11.13	Talk	Impressionable Atmospheres: a felt phenomenology
2023	Paper	Touching Architecture: Affective Atmospheres and Embodied Encounters