Withdrawing from atmosphere: An ontology of air partitioning and affective engineering

Abstract

The main objective of this text is to warn against atmospherics. However comfortable it might appear, an atmosphere is politically suspicious because it numbs a body into an affective embrace of stability and permanence. It becomes doubly suspicious because a body desires to be part of the atmosphere. For this reason, I rethink both affect and atmosphere ontologically rather than phenomenologically. I argue that an atmosphere is engineered by subsuming individual affects to what I call, following Sloterdijk, an atmospheric glasshouse. I suggest that this happens in four steps: a distinction between inside and outside through partitioning; inclusion of the outside inside; illusion of synthesis; and dissimulation. In order to do this, I begin with air as the elemental paradox of ontological continuum and rupture. I carry on with the passage from air to atmosphere while retaining the discourse around continuum and rupture. Finally, I indicate a way of rupturing the atmospheric continuum through the ontological movement of withdrawal from the atmosphere. The ultimate goal of the article is to sketch a problematic of atmospherics that puts together without synthesising an elemental ontology of continuum and rupture.

The Great War of Enclosure: Securing the Skies

“…This raises “important questions regarding the forms of political subjectivity enrolled within, and created through, materialisations of contemporary enclosure” (Jeffrey et al :1254). As Andreas Philippopoulos‐Mihalopoulos (:151) puts it: “In its enclosure, an atmosphere directs bodies and their airborne affects in politically specific ways and for politically specific purposes”. Such a psychopolitics, one that directs bodies and minds for “politically specific purpose”, is inseparable from the technogeographies of a dronified capitalist realism.…”

“Do you dive?”: Methodological considerations for engaging with “volume”

“…According to Merriman, it aids self‐discovery facilitates discussion, and the process can become equally, if not more, significant than the outcome. Whereas there may be aspects of volumes and the elemental that remain “in excess of the apparatuses of their capture” (Lehman , p. 52; see also Philippopoulos‐Mihalopoulos, ), consciously inhabiting the earth as it is understood volumetrically and proactively engaging with those that not only inhabit, but engineer, work, craft, and create volumes can work to further disrupt the two‐dimensional gaze in political geography and unsettle the idea that our engagements with “volume” take place across or along an x and y axis.…”

“…Although this was obviously an unintentional consequence of my research, it did provide interesting insights into some of the voluminous and elemental questions I have sought to explore, whilst also raising important methodological questions. Air, according to Philippopoulos‐Mihalopoulos (, p. 151), is “heavy” and it “forcefully pushes in all directions.” The air inside the chamber offers a perfect case study of this as it literally compresses the body. As I was “enveloped by inhuman dynamics” in the chamber (Tironi & Farias, , p. 170), the air became hot and thick, my vocal chords were strained, and as I “surfaced,” new volumes in the form of bubbles emerged from my cells and into my bloodstream.…”

Transitional organisations, affective atmospheres and new forms of being‐in‐common: Post‐disaster recovery in Christchurch, New Zealand

“…The resultant affective atmospheres are necessarily unfinished and indeterminate, given that they arise from temporary constellations of bodies, practices and experiences that are themselves subject to ongoing evolution. In addition, as Philippopoulos‐Mihalopoulos (, , ) has argued, individuals in the same place may be enveloped by different affective atmospheres at the same time, or be influenced to varying extents by the same affective atmosphere. It is not a case that all residents in Christchurch have been personally affected by the atmospheres of hope and creative possibility that the transitional organisations have been cultivating.…”