The next speaker at the ZeMKI 20th anniversary conference in Bremen, reflecting on the relationship between audiences and media productions. Audiences experience such media productions as atmospheres: media reconfigure the organisation of space, and this affects the actions of those present; our engagement in such atmospheric spaces relies on our tuning into such atmosphere.
The concept of atmosphere is a common concept in ordinary language; we perceive the quality of the atmospheres in various social settings all the time, even though it is inherently ephemeral and intangible. How do media stage an atmosphere, then, and how do audiences perceive these? Distinguishing between natural and staged or designed spaces of atmosphere, media spaces fall clearly into the second category: here, atmospheres are given or complemented by participants’ actions; their interactions help shape the atmosphere and enable a shared and immersive experience between participants. We gear into them, we tune into them; they are dynamic, diffused. The atmosphere is an amalgam of material conditions and the interactions of those present.
All of this is mediated through the felt body: it comes down to individual feelings, which also individualises the otherwise social experience. This bodily experience provides a deep framework of social intelligibility. We need to understand this by analysing the different forms of sociality that this can take, and translating this into a way of thinking. These may be more or less rational, normatively coherent, emotionally cohesive, and for different reasons, purposes, and goals.
