Contingent Agencies

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.



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