Abstract
Ambiance is rooted in a fragile, spectral and precarious mode of existence. What of its ability to infuse everyday experiences and to atmospherize ordinary situations? What happens when we approach ambiance along its influences and its operational modes? Being of a lesser existence, ambiance exerts impregnating powers. Three complementary perspectives are explored. First, ambiance can be addressed as an in-between that phenomenalizes the world and makes any situation perceptible. Second, ambiance can be addressed as an attunement that highlights our ability to be affected by our surroundings and in turn affect them. Third, ambiance can be addressed as a background that helps us to understand how it infuses our various ways of being together. Ambiance does not operate through narrow determinism or strict causality, rather as an unobtrusive influence. It proceeds by continuous accompaniment which infuses and steers experience. Ambiance’s powers of impregnation reveal five key features: (1) we are dealing with the pervasive, multi-sensory influence of a singular, sensory environment; (2) this influence takes hold over time, durably and continuously; (3) it proceeds mainly at a corporeal and molecular level, usually going unnoticed; (4) this unobtrusive influence involves a specific mode of propagation proceeding from one neighbouring body to the next, by contagion and imitation; and (5) this type of impregnation is fundamentally anonymous and impersonal in nature, with no clearly identifiable author.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Ash, J., & Gallacher, L. A. (2015). Becoming Attuned: Objects, Affects and Embodied Methodology. In M. Perry & C. L. Medina (Eds.), Methodologies of Embodiment: Inscribing Bodies in Qualitative Research (pp. 69–85). London: Taylor & Francis.
Augoyard, J.-F. (1979). Pas à pas. Essai sur le cheminement quotidien en milieu urbain. Paris: Seuil.
Augoyard, J.-F. (2005). Une physique contextuelle des ambiances urbaines. Culture et Recherche, 104, 21–22.
Augoyard, J.-F. (2016). L’apparaître des ambiances. In N. Rémy & N. Tixier (Eds.), Ambiances Tomorrow. 3rd International Congress on Ambiances (2 vols, pp. 579–585). Grenoble/Thessaly: International Ambiances Network & University of Thessaly.
Augoyard, J.-F., & Torgue, H. (Eds.). (2005). Sonic Experience. A Guide to Everyday Sounds. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Bachelard, G. (1957). La poétique de l’espace. Paris: PUF.
Bégout, B. (2005). La découverte du quotidien. Paris: Allia.
Behnke, E. A. (1997). Ghost Gestures: Phenomenological Investigations of Bodily Micromovements and Their Intercorporeal Implications. Human Studies, 20(2), 181–201.
Blankenburg, W. (1971). La perte de l’évidence naturelle (J.-M. Azorin & Y. Totoyan, Trans.). Paris: PUF, 1991.
Böhme, G. (1992). An Aesthetics Theory of Nature: An Interim Report. Thesis Eleven, 32, 90–102.
Böhme, G. (2016). The Aesthetics of Atmospheres. New York: Routledge.
Boissière, A. (2016). Chanter, Narrer, Danser. Contribution à une philosophie du sentir. Sampzon: Delatour France.
Bonnet, F. (2015). L’infra-monde. Paris: Editions MF.
Brennan, T. (2004). The Transmission of Affect. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Breviglieri, M. (2013). De la difficulté à entrer en contact. L’enjeu phénoménal d’instituer des espaces sensoriels pour le travail social hors mur. Ambiances. Retrieved November 18, 2018, from http://ambiances.revues.org/345.
Chelkoff, G. (2010). Ambiances. Pour une conception modale des ambiances architecturales. Faces. Journal d’architecture, 67, 18–23.
Chelkoff, G., & Thibaud, J.-P. (2000). Un nouvel objet d’ambiances: la ville souterraine. In M.-F. Mattei & D. Pumain (Eds.), Données Urbaines (Vol. 3, pp. 419–426). Paris: Anthropos.
Coccia, E. (2010). La vie sensible. Paris: Payot.
Courtright, J. M. (2013). Is Trust Like an ‘Atmosphere’? Understanding the Phenomenon of Existential Trust. Journal for Philosophy in the Contemporary World, 20(1), 39–51.
Debaise, D. (2015). L’appât des possibles. Reprise de Whitehead. Paris: Presses du réel.
Dultra Britto, F., & Berenstein Jacques, P. (2013). Corpographies urbaines: pour un urbanisme plus incorporé. In J.-P. Thibaud & C. R. Duarte (Eds.), Ambiances urbaines en partage (pp. 217–226). Genève: Métis Presses.
Ghitti, J.-M. (1998). La parole et le lieu. Topique de l’inspiration. Paris: Minuit.
Giddens, A. (1994). Consequences of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Griffero, T. (2010). Atmospheres: Aesthetics of Emotional Spaces (S. De Sanctis, Trans.). Farnham: Ashgate, 2014.
Griffero, T. (2014). Architectural Affordances: The Atmospheric Authority of Spaces. In P. Tidwell (Ed.), Architecture and Atmosphere (pp. 15–47). Helsinki: Tapio Wirkkala-Rut Bryk Foundation.
Grossman, E. (2017). Éloge de l’hypersensible. Paris: Minuit.
Ingold, T. (2011). Being Alive. Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge.
Jarrigeon, A. (2013). La Villette—Vies. Synchronies et polyrythmies d’un parc urbain. In J.-P. Thibaud & C. R. Duarte (Eds.), Ambiances urbaines en partage (pp. 269–280). Genève: Métis Presses.
Jolé, M. (2006). Le destin festif du canal Saint-Martin. Pouvoirs, 116, 117–130.
Jullien, F. (1996). Traité de l’efficacité. Paris: Grasset.
Jullien, F. (2009). Les transformations silencieuses. Paris: Grasset.
Jullien, F. (2012). Cinq concepts proposés à la psychanalyse. Paris: Grasset.
Laplantine, F. (2005). Le social et le sensible. Paris: Téraèdre.
Laplantine, F. (2014). L’énergie discrète des lucioles. Louvain-la-neuve: L’Harmattan.
Lapoujade, D. (2017). Les existences moindres. Paris: Editions de Minuit.
Macé, M. (2016). Styles. Critique de nos formes de vie. Paris: Gallimard.
Milliot, V. (2013). Portées d’une ambiance pluraliste: le quartier de la Goutte-d’Or. In J.-P. Thibaud & C. R. Duarte (Eds.), Ambiances urbaines en partage (pp. 249–268). Genève: Métis Presses.
Minkowski, E. (1927). La schizophrénie. Paris: Payot, 2002.
Morton, T. (2007). Ecology without Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Piette, A. (1996). Ethnographie de l’action. Paris: Métailié.
Rauh, A. (2017). In the Clouds: On the Vagueness of Atmospheres. Ambiances. Retrieved November 18, 2018, from http://ambiances.revues.org/818.
Riedel, F. (2016). On Resonances of Music and Atmosphere. The Slippery Slope of Causality. In N. Rémy & N. Tixier (Eds.), Ambiances Tomorrow. 3rd International Congress on Ambiances (2 vols., pp. 671–676). Grenoble/Thessaly: International Ambiances Network & University of Thessaly.
Schmitz, H. (2016). Espace atmosphériques. Ambiances. Retrieved November 18, 2018, from http://ambiances.revues.org/711.
Sloterdijk, P. (2004). Ecumes. Sphères 3 (O. Mannoni, Trans.). Paris: Libella Maren Sell, 2005.
Stern, D. (1985). The Interpersonal World of the Infant. New York: Basic Books.
Stern, D. (2010). Forms of Vitality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Straus, E. W. (1930). The Forms of Spatiality (E. Eng., Trans.). In Phenomenological Psychology: The Selected Papers of Erwin W. Straus (pp. 3–37). New York: Basic Books, 1966.
Straus, E. W. (1935). Du Sens des Sens (G. Thinès & J.-P. Legrand, Trans.). Grenoble: Jérôme Million, 1989.
Tellenbach, H. (1968). Goût et Atmosphère (J. Amsler, Trans.). Paris: PUF, 1983.
Thibaud, J.-P. (2003). Die sinnliche Umwelt von Städten. In M. Hauskeller (Ed.), Die Kunst der Wahrnehmung. Beitraege zu einer Philosophie der sinnlichen Erkenntnis (pp. 280–297). Kusterdingen: Die Graue Edition.
Woolf, V. (1923). Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street. The Dial, 75, 1.
Zaoui, P. (2013). La discrétion. Ou l’art de disparaître. Paris: Editions Autrement.
Acknowledgements
This chapter has previously been published in French in a slightly modified version. See: Thibaud, J.-P. (2018). Les puissances d’imprégnation de l’ambiance. Communications, 102, 67–80.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Thibaud, JP. (2019). The Lesser Existence of Ambiance. In: Griffero, T., Tedeschini, M. (eds) Atmosphere and Aesthetics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24942-7_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24942-7_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-24941-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-24942-7
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)