New Publication: Contingent Agencies – Inquiring Into the Emergence of Atmospheres

How do atmospheres – those subtle, impermanent, non-objectified and surrounding yet intimately affective presences – come to be? What forces enable and constrain their appearance, and how do they relate to one another? How to research these complex processes in a non-reductive way?

Contingent Agencies, an artistic research project initiated by Alex Arteaga and Nikolaus Gansterer, explores the dynamic relationship between human and non-human agencies as enabling conditions for the emergence of atmospheres. This cross-disciplinary investigation is conducted through multimodal practices of notation, reflection, showing, and sharing realized in diverse media within different theoretical frameworks such as phenomenology, enactivism, and new materialism. A group of internationally renowned authors explores the emergence of atmospheres through diverse perspectives, including art, artistic research, western and non-western philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and quantum physics. The present book, complemented by an extensive online archive, features multiple research artifacts–including texts, drawings, photo series, diagrams, sound recordings, and video stills – as an invitation for a wider community to join the inquiry.

Edited by Alex Arteaga, Nikolaus Gansterer

With contributions by Alex Arteaga, Karen Barad, Arno Boehler, Emma Cocker, Alexander Damianisch, Gerhard Dirmoser, Debris Facility, Mika Elo, Nikolaus Gansterer, Sabina Holzer, Tim Ingold, Rosie Isaac, Paula Kramer, Erin Manning, Dieter Mersch, Hans-Joerg Rheinberger, Leena Rouhiainen, Andreas Spiegl.

Editors: Alex Arteaga, Nikolaus Gansterer
Graphic Design: Marie Artaker, Alexandra Moellner
Language: English
Release: April, 2025
Format: 220mm x 280mm, paperback, 440 pages, more than 130 images and diagrams

ISBN: 978-3-7757-5903-8 (print)
e-ISBN: 978-3-7757-5964-9(pdf) Open Access
Licensed under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Publisher: Hatje Cantz Berlin

Watch flipping through the boook video:
https://vimeo.com/1071355845

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→ Book Launches:

07th of April 2025, 18:30-21:00

Book Launch at the University of Applied Arts Vienna,
at the APL Angewandte Performance Laboratory,
Expositur Georg-Coch-Platz (= former PostSparKasse),
mezzanine floor, Georg‐Coch‐Platz 2, 1010 Vienna, Austria.

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09th of May 2025, 9:30-10:15

Book Launch and presentation at the 16th International Conference on Artistic Research
at the University of Porto, Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal.

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