Book part:

Leben im Futur II Konjunktiv. Über das Phänomen Atmosphäre und dessen Bedeutung im Zeitalter der technischen Immersion

Immersive worlds provided by technological media are more and more protruding and overarching the lifeworld. Technologically enabled immersions essentially consist of the experience of atmospheres which trigger states of mind and thereby establish a connection between abstract symbolic realms and bodily relevancies. A profound analysis of the relation between immersion and atmospheres is still outstanding. In this paper a concept of atmospheres is presented that relates this type of experience to the phenomena of immersivity. The perception of atmospheres is characterized by some specific cognitive attributes that are not taken into account by the current concepts of atmospheres. In particular, temporality, which proves to be central to the constitution of atmospheric experience, is not sufficiently credited. In order to address this conceptual challenge, the concept of atmospheres developed in this work is based on three theoretical modules that are derived from the paradigms of embodiment and enactivism. The synthesis of the modules allows for a conceptualization of the affection of bodily and mental states by the perception of environmental objects and situations, as is typical for atmospheres. In this way, atmospheres can be considered certain states of mind, alongside moods and emotions. It is shown that the atmospherical colouring of perception can be understood as the type of cognition for the arousal of implicit readiness to act and for potential future operations or body-environment relations. By showing that immersive realms are based on atmospheric cognition, media theory and sociology also gain new perspectives. With the upcoming age of immersion a new type of socialisation emerges that is based on atmospherically mediated intensities.