Oct
4

Uncommon Senses III: The Future of the Senses

4 Oct 2019

Uncommon Senses III: The Future of the Senses will be taking place May 1–4 2020 at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Submissions are invited from scholars across the social sciences, humanities and arts interested in exploring the future of the senses in a changing world. KEY THEMES - Engaging the senses through design - Multiple modalities of multi- and intermedia - Coming to be of the sensor society - Rise of sensory politics, and - Sensory challenges of climate change Other themes include (but are not limited to): - Sense-based research methods (sensory ethnography, sensory cartography) - Multisensory education - Sensory alterity (including Critical Disability Studies) - The urban sensorium (including “smart” cities), and - Sentient ecologies
More...

Sep
4

Places, Affordances, Atmospheres A Pathic Aesthetics. By Tonino Griffero

4 Sep 2019

This book offers a diverse understanding and practical approach towards the growing area of atmosphere research, in the context of philosophy, geography and architecture. It begins by tracing back to the model of experience called the "pathic". Drawing on the phenomenology of theorists Hermann Schmitz and Gernot Böhme, introductory chapters offer a grounding for the beginnings of pathic research. The chapters go on to apply pathic framework to a range of practical cases from theatre studies to education. Atmospheres are often defined as affects one feels in a "lived space" and researchers are becoming more interested in the emotions we feel in natural and artificial environments across day to day life. By providing a critical re-evaluation of phenomenology and aesthetics, the book brings a series of unexplored and controversial subjects to light, opening up a new context for thinking about our everyday life and experiences inscribed within aesthetics, politics, literature, spatial practices and pedagogy and effectively merging abstract philosophy and concrete practice. This book is particularly poignant in the emerging field of Atmosphere and New Aesthetics research. Practitioners, academics and researchers working within Cultural Geography, Aesthetics, Art and Philosophy will find this book extremely valuable.

Nov
28

ATMOSPHERE/ATMOSPHERES. TESTING A NEW PARADIGM a new book by Tonino Griffero

28 Nov 2018

What is an “Atmosphere”? As part of the book series “Atmospheric Spaces”, this volume analyses a new phenomenological and aesthetic paradigm based on the notion of the “Atmosphere”, conceived as a feeling spread out into the external space rather than as a private mood. The idea of “Atmosphere” is here explored from different perspectives and disciplines, in the context of a full valorization of the so-called “affective turn” in Humanities.

More information: http://mimesisinternational.com/atmosphere-atmospheres-testing-a-new-paradigm/

Sep
12

The School of Architecture of Nantes will host the 14th European Architectural Envisioning Conference EAEA14

12 Sep 2018

Dates: The Conference will take place from the 3rd to 6thseptember 2019.

Topic: Envisioning ambiances: representing (past, present and future) atmospheres for architecture and the built environment.

https://eaea14.sciencesconf.org/

Call for papers

The concept of “ambiance” has been formed over the years by questioning the interactions between three attractors: architecture and the city, climatic and sound phenomena, uses and perception. Studied in pairs, each of these attractors refers to very different disciplinary fields, architecture and phenomena concern the physics of the city, architecture and uses interest sociology and uses and phenomena are rather turned to comfort. Studies concerning ambiances are therefore highly interdisciplinary and open to many questions: living spaces, urban renewal and heritage, urban prospective and the city as a stage. For this, many conceptual and technical tools are mobilized: digital tools for simulation and immersion, investigation, surveys and storytelling, prototyping, field action. What may be new in the field of academic studies is the awareness of artistic creation as a resource for the use of digital tools, storytelling and the representation of complexity through original means. Subjects may be, but not limited to:
 

  • Visualization of the ambiance-related knowledge;
  • A cultural approach to climatic, light and sound phenomena;
  • Methods of communicating the ambiance issues to the society;
  • Enhancing and stimulating sensitive approaches to the built environment in education;
  • Envisioning all aspects of ambiance perception.
  • The EAEA14 Conference welcomes submissions of research papers, which will be organized in three tracks, namely:
  • Ambiance, storytelling and immersion (representation and communication of medium including analog, digital and immersive environment)
  • Keywords: analog digital media, immersive devices, representation
  • Ambiance and education (tools, techniques, and strategy of design teaching)
  • Keywords: parametric design, conceptual studies, digital world
  • Ambiance and Design (process, analysis, observation and execution of design for objects, space, built-form and urban environment)
  • Keywords: conceptual design, perceptual design, analytical design, performative design, visual design, parametric design, simulation design

The “call” is for extended abstracts of between 1,000 to 1,200 words with a maximum of two illustrations. Those whose abstracts are accepted will be invited to submit a (max) 8-page paper. The full paper will be specified in a later version of the website. Decisions on acceptance will be based on the response of an international review committee. Its decision will be final.

Two Workshops are also being arranged, to take place prior to the Conference.

 
IMPORTANT DATES: Abstracts submission deadline: 2018.09.30

 


Aug
24

Changing landscapes / Changing the landscapes of terror and threat: materialities, bodies, ambiances, elements

24 Aug 2018


A session+roundtable on atmospheres at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2018


Session: http://conference.rgs.org/AC2018/8
Roundtable: http://conference.rgs.org/AC2018/38

Convenors:
  • Sara Fregonese (University of Birmingham)
  • Suncana Laketa (University of St. Gallen)
  • Damien Masson (Université de Cergy-Pontoise)

Sponsored by the Political Geography Research Group (PolGRG)

We are witnessing an upsurge of deadly acts of terrorism. In Western Europe, for example, the number of incidents has remained stable, but deadly attacks have increased, from 2.7% in 2012 to 7.2% in 2015 and 11.2% in 2016 (Source: Global Terrorism Database). The landscapes of terror and terror threat are complexly interwoven with those of conflict, radicalization, grievance and displacement in and from the Middle East and the so called Islamic State. While IR and terrorism studies struggle to analyze, index and measure the increasingly elusive structures of Jihadi terrorism, and critical security scholars assess the deployment and effectiveness of counter-terrorism measures, the contemporary impact of jihadi terror and terror threat on the everyday landscapes are understudied.

The session addresses this gap, by bringing attention to new spacings of terror and terror threat that go beyond the representational, state-centred, and territorial framings of national security, risk and resilience, geopolitics and identity studies. Katz’s work on security, performativity and the everyday urban environment (Katz 2007) is updated here and the research question and analysis pushed further into the everyday visceral materialities, bodily experiences, elemental aspects and ambiances/atmospheres that compose the changing landscapes of terror and terror threat.

Conversely, terror and terror threat as research objects might provoke epistemic shifts within the paradigms underlying the ‘atmospheric turn’, notably by shifting their phenomenological focus towards a critical and (geo)political one. If so, in what ways can affective and atmospheric sensitivities be reconciled with social and cultural understandings and engagements with terror and terror threat?

We invite papers that address the above points within themes including:
  • Living with to terror and terror threat
  • Responding, reacting, coping, absorbing: extraordinary violence and ordinary experiences
  • Governing/regulating public experiences of and responses to terror
  • Studying terror within the atmospheric turn
  • More-than-human landscapes of terror and terror threat
  • Performances of terror/security in public space?
  • Elemental geographies of terrorism and terror threat
  • Atmospheric/material/elemental/bodily histories of urban terror and terror threat
  • Representing, visualizing and/or mapping the everyday, embodied, elemental and ambient geographies of terror fear and threat
  • Collecting, grasping, and other sensory methodologies to understand the mundane feelings/affects/intensities of terror and terror threat




Aug
24

The Anxious City Festival - Rotterdam 08/31-09/02

24 Aug 2018

Noise, pollution, overstimulation, hostile architecture, crowd; are our minds and bodies trapped in this ‘concrete jungle’? As an increasing part of urban populations is suffering from stress and anxiety disorders, one may wonder in which ways urban environments influence emotions and mental health.

The Anxious City brings together experts and city lovers to look at the notion of body architecture and how disciplines such as neuroscience, psychology, behavioral design, art and technology can help bridging the gap between architecture and experiences.

​

Through talks, workshops and artistic interventions, we are investigating how space design can be used as a therapeutic tool.


For more information and tickets: http://healingplaces.nl/the-anxious-city


Aug
24

Call for Papers - "Bring back my neighbourhood!"

24 Aug 2018

SIEF2019 14th Congress
Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 14-17 April 2019


PANEL: "Bring back my neighbourhood!": Heritage, Expressive Cultures and the Production of Urban Ambiances for Tourist Consumption in the Contemporary City.

Convenors
  • Inigo Sanchez (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
  • Daniel Malet Calvo (ISCTE-IUL. University Institute of Lisbon)
  • Salwa Branco (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)


Panel description

The interplay of tourism and heritage is a powerful medium affecting cultural change in urban historical centers. The loss of local population, along with traditional modes of social behavior and vernacular cultural practices, or the transformation of historic neighborhoods into thematic parks for tourism consumption are some of the negative consequences of tourism, that, as some authors have noted, are often expressed in the public discourse making reference to the loss of the "authenticity" and "real feel" of urban places (Zukin 2010).

This panel seeks to analyze the impact of tourism on the urban environment, focusing on the concept of "ambiance" as a tool to explore the physical regeneration and sensory transformation of contemporary touristic places. How does heritage participates in creating particular urban ambiances and places for tourist consumption? How tourism and city development affect the lived ambiances in the urban context? What is the role of heritage and expressive practices in relation to the physical regeneration and marketing of contemporary touristic places?


We are inviting scholars from various academic fields to discuss these and other questions, theoretical frameworks and empirical findings on issues related to the relationship between heritage, expressive cultures and the production of urban ambiances for tourist consumption in contemporary cities.


More information: https://nomadit.co.uk/sief/sief2019/conferencesuite.php/panels/7222

May
24

Appel à contribution pour la revue EXERCICE(S) D'ARCHITECTURE #7 // Thématique : Détournement ... et architecture

24 May 2018

Dans le cadre de la rédaction du prochain numéro sur le thème "DÉTOURNEMENT… ET ARCHITECTURE", le comité de rédaction de la revue EXERCICE(S) D'ARCHITECTURE lance un appel à contribution.

Forte de l’expérience conduite, à partir de 2007, autour d’EXERCICE(S) d’ARCHITECTURE, les membres de l'école renouvellent l’expérience.
Ce support représente à la fois un outil de communication interne et de communication externe. L'ouverture de la revue à des contributeurs extérieurs permet de confronter les points de vue et d'affiner la réflexion. Le département Recherche de l'école dispose d'une place à part entière au sein de la revue.
EXERCICE(S) D'ARCHITECTURE est un support de diffusion de la culture architecturale et urbaine, et a pour vocation de réunir étudiants, enseignants, chercheurs et praticiens de l’architecture. Par la présentation de projets et travaux d’étudiants, EXERCICE(S) D'ARCHITECTURE vise à ce que ses lecteurs puissent accéder à une meilleure compréhension des pratiques pédagogiques d’une école d’architecture.

Modalités pratiques de soumission des propositions :
// La proposition doit comprendre un titre provisoire, un résumé (500 à 1 000 caractères maximum, espaces compris) et les coordonnées de tous les auteurs. L'envoi de la proposition s'effectuera au plus tard le MERCREDI 20 JUIN 2018 à l’adresse suivante : communication@rennes.archi.fr, en précisant en objet « contribution Revue Exercice(s) d'architecture ».

// Les auteurs devront remettre leur manuscrit le LUNDI 3 SEPTEMBRE 2018. Jusqu'à fin septembre, quelques corrections pourront être effectuées à la demande des membres du comité de rédaction. La parution de la revue EXERCICE(S) D’ARCHITECTURE est prévue en janvier 2019.

// Les manuscrits pourront faire l’objet d’un refus de la part du comité de rédaction, en raison d’une orientation différente de celle énoncée dans la proposition, d’une incohérence en fonction des autres articles présentés, du non-respect des consignes éditoriales et iconographiques, …

Thématique et recommandations éditoriales sur : https://www.rennes.archi.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/APPELCONTRIBUTIONS230418.pdf 

Pour plus de renseignements :
Carole LOISEL-SOYER - Responsable communication
Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Bretagne
44 bd de Chézy - CS 16427 - 35064 Rennes
Tel : 02 99 29 68 04

Dec
1

CFP - Experimenting on ambiance with architecture

1 Dec 2017


Call for papers for a special issue of Ambiances, International Journal of Sensory Environment, Architecture and Urban Space

http://ambiances.revues.org



Experimenting on ambiance with architecture
Coordinated by Grégoire Chelkoff

Deadline for the submission of full papers is 1st March 2018.

The experimental notion and the conduct of specific experiments can be applied to a large number of research processes, but we nevertheless to look at their relevance to architecture and the configuration of ambiances. In this issue we shall be investigating experimenting on ambiances, or rather through ambiances, in the sense that the aim is not just to describe existing or given situations as such (with the possibility that they may include a certain type of experience), but also to set up the modalities of “making ambiance”, in order to derive elements with a bearing on theory, method or technique. So our purpose is to confront basic concepts and tools upstream from the project properly speaking, by only approaching the latter in part, or even outside its strict normative framework. How can research on architectural and urban ambiances come to grips with experimentation? How can ambiance phenomena be explored in greater depth or discovered through spatial experimentation? Or how can such experimentation be built or conceptualized on the basis of assumptions regarding ambiance? Often presented as the basis for technical, aesthetic or indeed social innovation, what sort of experimentation can contribute to furthering our understanding, producing artefacts or setting in motion processes of architectural or urban transformation likely to encourage, drive or modify lived-in ambiances?

  • Articles containing 30,000 to 50,000 characters (including spaces) with illustrations
  • Reception date: March 1st 2018
  • Initial feedback to authors: May 2nd 2018
  • Publication: October 2018
  • Please respect the submission guidelines of the journal: https://ambiances.revues.org/221
  • Send the papers to: journal@ambiances.net

Download the call for papers




Expérimenter l’ambiance par l’architecture
Coordonné par Grégoire Chelkoff

Si la notion expérimentale et la conduite d’expériences particulières peuvent être appliquées à un grand nombre de processus de recherche, il convient d’en examiner la pertinence au regard de l’architecture et de la configuration d’ambiances. Nous interrogeons dans ce numéro l’expérimentation des ambiances, ou par les ambiances, au sens où il ne s’agit pas seulement de décrire des situations existantes ou données comme telles (pouvant inclure aussi un certain type d’expérience) mais de mettre en place des modalités de « faire l’ambiance » pour tirer des éléments d’ordre théorique, méthodologique ou technique. Il s’agit en ce sens de confronter les concepts et outils fondamentaux en amont du projet proprement dit en approchant celui-ci partiellement, voire en dehors de ses cadres normatifs stricts. Comment la recherche sur les ambiances architecturales et urbaines peut-elle se saisir de l’expérimentation ? Comment des phénomènes d’ambiance peuvent être approfondis ou découverts par le biais d’expérimentations spatiales ou comment ces expérimentations peuvent-elles être construites ou pensées sur la base d’hypothèses relatives aux ambiances ? Souvent présentée comme support de l’innovation tant technique, qu’esthétique ou sociale, quel type d’expérimentation peut faire avancer la construction de connaissances, la production d’artefacts ou la mise en mouvement de processus de transformations architecturales et urbaines susceptibles de favoriser, d’entraîner ou de modifier des ambiances habitées ?

  • Articles de 30000 à 50000 signes, espaces compris et illustrés
  • Date de réception : 1er mars 2018
  • Premier retour aux auteurs : 2 mai 2018
  • Publication : Octobre 2018
  • Suivez les notes aux auteurs de la revue pour la mise en forme : https://ambiances.revues.org/163
  • Envoyez vos articles à : journal@ambiances.net

Télécharger l'appel à articles


Nov
24

6th Cresson' Winter School - Sonic Transect

24 Nov 2017


Sonic Transect: Questioning the territories of energy by sound - From comfort to ambiences in inhabited spaces.



6th Cresson' Winter School
Graduate School of Architecture of Grenoble, from Monday 22nd to Friday 26th January 2018

Questioning the notion of comfort in the urban environment focuses attention on our relationship with the inhabited spaces. In this thematic school, the notion of comfort will be investigated in the so-called « innovative » districts targeting energy transition, as is the case of the Presqu’Île in Grenoble. By identifying the various amenities of the territory, and by capturing what reveals the standardized comfort (seeking a homogenization of sensation) and what reveals the sensory comfort (searching, on the contrary, a variation of sensation), this will open a new reflection that questions the relationship between a sensory diagnosis capable of carrying prospective design intentions and an urban development model that is still evolving.

Deadline for registration: December 25th 2017

Organized by Sylvie Laroche, Noha Gamal Said, and Théo Marchal.      

For further information, please see: https://ehas.hypotheses.org/1409


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