'Seeing oneself sensing.'Atmospheric perception in installation art

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“Atmosphären: Gestimmte Räume und sinnliche Wahrnehmung”

3rd interdisciplinary conference illusion immersion involvement

November 2-3, 2012, University of Applied Science Kiel

“Seeing oneself sensing.” Atmospheric perception in the experience of installation and

performance art

Introduction

It is a great pleasure for me to be here and to have the opportunity to share my thoughts about

atmospheres and how they are experienced. Atmospheric perception has been an important aspect

of my research on contemporary Installation Art and the kind of spectatorship that is associated with

it. In my lecture I will present a few outcomes of that research. In addition to works of Installation

Art, I will also discuss two works of Performance Art, since they allow me to address the topic of this

conference in a more inclusive way.

My main point of interest will be the viewer’s experience of being involved in a work of art,

rather than being confined to the role of a detached observer. In my view, this experience of

involvement constitutes the main aesthetic effect of both Installation and Performance Art. I will

show how I think this experience is triggered and argue that atmospheric perception is a crucial part

of it.

The structure of my lecture is as follows: 1) First, I will describe what I consider to be

characteristic aspects of Installation and Performance Art, as well as of the kind of spectatorship that

they prompt. 2) Secondly, I will introduce the concepts of ‘environment’ and ‘aesthetic engagement’

that were coined by the American philosopher Arnold Berleant and in my view perfectly describe the

experience of involvement that I have just mentioned. In order to clarify Berleant’s aesthetic theory, I

will link it to Hermann Schmitz’ concept of ‘aesthetic attention’, and then apply it in an analysis of the

work of contemporary artist Olafur Eliasson. 3) Finally, I will elaborate on the significance of

atmospheric perception for inciting the experience of ‘aesthetic engagement’.

1. Experiencing installation and performance art

Installation and Performance Art gained prominence in the 1960s and ‘70s, when they were seen as

particularly innovative and experimental. At that time, the boarders between the two artistic forms

were not yet fixed. These works by Allan Kaprow and Robert Withman, for instance, combine

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elements of both [SLIDE]. Works like these were designated at that time as ‘Environments’ and

‘Happenings,’ terms that are more suitable to an approach concerned with the aesthetics of

reception. ‘Installation’ and ‘Performance’ refer to the activity of the artist, who installs or performs

the work of art; ‘Environment’ and ‘Happening,’ on the other hand, refer to how these works present

themselves to and are experienced by viewers.

In the rather conservative 1980s, Installation and Performance art were somewhat

marginalized but they enjoyed a revival in the 1990s, when they were finally incorporated by the

mayor institutions of the Art World. Museums of modern and contemporary art shifted their focus

from the preservation and art historical interpretation of art works towards the manifold experiences

that viewers might have of them. Apart from this new type of experience-oriented museum,

Installation and Performance Art were also embraced by the more transitory platforms that

nowadays dominate the contemporary art scene: biennales, festivals and art fairs. Apparently,

current global high culture embraces ephemerality and creates a constant hunger for intense

immediate experiences. Installation and Performance Art are perfect media for artistic reflections on

this particular state of being.

Currently, the term Installation Art refers to spatial – and usually also temporal –

arrangements of objects, images, texts, sound, light etc., which together constitute an artificial

environment that encloses the viewer. Usually, Installations have a site-specific aspect; they closely

relate to the places where they are installed. The task assigned to the viewer is to immerse herself

into this artificial environment and enact its structure by trying to establish relationships among its

various components.

To give an example, the installation Ballads, by Armenian-French artist Sarkis, was installed

this summer in the former submarine wharf in the harbor of Dutch city of Rotterdam. This space is

currently exploited by the local museum Boijmans van Beuningen for showing large scale installation

works. Sarkis’ installation comprised, among other things, sound, colored light and various sculptural

and video works, some of them preexistent, others specifically created for this occasion. The

installation also included the Futuro (1968), a futuristic mobile holiday home, designed by the Finnish

architect Matti Suuronen. The most impressive and dominant element of the installation was a huge

carillon, constructed from several tree trunks supporting the bells. This carillon constantly played

Litany for the Whale, a composition by John Cage for two singers who take turns to imitate the call of

a whale. Obviously, Sarkis’ choice of instrument significantly changed the character of this work of

music, substituting the notion of undersea wild life with a notion of the sacred.

Viewers were invited to wander or bicycle around the installation and climb into the Futuro,

where they could watch video works in an intimate ambience; they could sit and listen to the

carillon, have a drink at a bar that was integrated into the space, or glance through catalogues of

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Sarkis’ work, along with that of other artists and architects that inspired him, such as Pieter

Saenredam, Le Corbusier and Peter Zumthor, the latter of which is renowned for working with

atmospheres.

We are dealing here with an extensive and complex artificial environment that requests

viewers to immerse themselves into it and explore it from the inside. There is no way of experiencing

a work like this from an external position; neither can the images that I show here afford you an

adequate idea of the experience of the work in real space/time. Two dominant aspects of the work –

sound and light – are impossible to be adequately reproduced. A recording of the carillon cannot

transmit the experience of how the music resounded in space. As for the light, its actual effect was

contingent on the weather and the time of the day. Any photographic reproduction of this effect is

specific for a particular moment. What is more, photographs cannot convey the dynamic perspective

of an embodied viewer, who moves across the space in her very own way, driven by her personal

interests. A video recording would have given you a faint idea of this, but it would have been

someone else’s passage through the work; not yours.

In order to really get an idea of the kind of experience that such a work allows for, it has to

be explored in real time and space. This exploration involves a sensory acuteness to the atmosphere

of the place, as well as to the various components of the work, which in their mutual interplay add to

its over-all atmosphere. Further, the experience of an installation involves the viewer’s receptiveness

to the occurrence of voluntary and involuntary memories and associations, which are triggered by

this particular ambience and, in the viewer’s experience, get entangled with it. Installations seduce

their viewers to inscribe themselves into the work of art. The experience of doing so might be

described as performing in a play that viewers project into the scene in which they find themselves.

Thus, the experience of a work of Installation Art involves the projection of an event, which is on the

one hand imaginary but on the other hand triggered by an actual environment that involves the

viewer as an embodied being.

The experience of a work of Performance Art is slightly different. Central to Performance Art is an

actual event that the viewer is invited to witness, and sometimes also to participate in. The co-

presence of an artist-performer and the audience enhances our sense of the authenticity of this

event and of the immediacy of our experience of it. In performances from the 1970s, this sense of

authenticity and immediacy was often employed to entrap the viewers in situations in which they

would experience a strong tension between aesthetical and ethical demands. Performances involving

acts of self-mutilation of the performer, for instance, confronted the audience with the near

impossibility of passively enduring the spectacle of another human being tormenting herself.

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More recent works of performance art seem to investigate the precarious relationship

between ethics and aesthetics in a more subtle way, aspiring to a fragile balance rather than a

conflict between those two attitudes. For instance, in The Artist is Present [SLIDE] from 2010,

performance artist Marina Abramovic constrained herself to sitting silently and motionlessly on a

chair in the middle of the MoMA in New York, for three months (6 days a week, 7 hours a day).

Viewers were invited to take turns sitting opposite of the performer, looking at her, while she would

simply return their gazes. Surprisingly, this seemingly simple situation was experienced by the

viewers as deeply moving, as is suggested by the series of photographic portraits of visitors that were

taken by the museum during the show [SLIDE]. Many viewers started to cry or made gestures that

expressed their state of being emotionally affected.

Arguable, the viewers’ emotional affection was the main event staged by this work. How

exactly this event was triggered is a bit of a mystery – neither the artist nor the curator fully

anticipated such a strong effect. I guess that it was set off by a combination of Abramovic’s charisma

and the situation in which the encounter between performer and audience took place. The ‘sitting

sessions’ were staged in the middle of an empty gallery space with a rather cool and aloof ambience,

well-lit by strong spotlights. Viewers had to wait for hours, if not for days, to take their turn and sit

with Abramovic. When they finally got their chance, their reactions were closely observed by

museum guards, other visitors, and the eye of the camera. I imagine that being so relentlessly

exposed, together with the stillness that the participants were obliged to observe, created a strong

sense of one’s own vulnerability, which probably enhanced the emotional reactions. With other

words, the ambience did not only contribute to but was actually part of the event.

These two examples were supposed to demonstrate the entanglement of environment and

event that informs the experience of Installation and Performance art and facilitates the viewer’s

experience of involvement. Although this involvement is generally acknowledged, theoretical

reflections on this kind of spectatorship are still in their baby-shoes. Especially within the field of art

historical scholarship the long tradition of treating art works as objects with an intrinsic aesthetic

value has obstructed the formation of a full-fledged account of the viewer’s part in the aesthetic

process. In what follows I suggest that concepts and approaches from the field of Environmental

Aesthetics might help to accomplish this task.

2. ‘Environmental perception’ and ‘Aesthetic engagement’

Two concepts that I find particularly useful are the concepts of ‘environment’ and of ‘aesthetic

engagement’, which are at the centre of Arnold Berleant’s writings on Environmental Aesthetics. To

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Berleant, ‘environment,’ without the definite article ‘the’, is not the physical world that surrounds us,

as traditional notions of the term would have it. Rather, environment occurs in our perceptual and

active involvement with the world. Berleant states that,

“Environment arises out of the reciprocal interchange between my self as the source and

generator of perception and the physical and social conditions of my sensations and actions.

When these coalesce into coherence, we can speak of environment.” (1992: 132)

So, ‘environment’ designates the unity of topographical qualities and human sensibilities, which

characterizes active, lived experience (ibid.). Consequently, the awareness of this unity, which

Berleant refers to as ‘environmental perception’, entails an elementary awareness of the perceiver’s

own state of being, a basic sense of self.

This motif of self-awareness resounds in the concept of ‘aesthetic engagement’, which

stresses the perceiver’s lively and profound involvement with whatever it is she aesthetically

perceives (Berleant 1991). In that respect it seems a very promising concept for describing and

analyzing the experience of involvement prompted by Installation and Performance Art. Yet

unfortunately, the concept remains a bit vague, as Berleant restrains from providing a clear-cut

definition. His approach is mainly descriptive. Surveying a number of particular instances of aesthetic

engagement, he merely specifies some general characteristics of this experience. He mentions a

strong sense of the continuity of a human being and the material world, a heightened sensory

acuteness, a focus on the immediacy and directness of the experience, accompanied by multifaceted

resonances of memory and imagination. Again, this seems to aptly describe the way in which works

of Installation Art and Performance Art are experienced.

Another point that remains unclear is the exact relationship between ‘environmental

perception’ and ‘aesthetic engagement’. Both concepts are used to indicate the unity of a perceiver

and the material world in the act of perception. This seems to imply that the aesthetic experience is

ipso facto a keen awareness of this unity, and hence synonymous with environmental perception.

Such an account runs a certain risk of blurring the specificity of the aesthetic mode of experience.

In order to clarify the relationship between environmental perception and the particularity of

aesthetic experience, without losing grip of their intimate connection, I resort to Hermann Schmitz’

concept of aesthetic attention (ästhetische Andacht). It indicates a mode of experience that allows us

to observe and contemplate our own states of bodily affection, without either denying their

immediacy and authority or losing ourselves in being subjected to their impact. In being aesthetically

attentive we slightly defer the immediate impact of our bodily states to the prospective realm of

anticipation. In so doing, we can not only experience how particular bodily states actually feel, but

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also how they give rise to memories and associations. The latter are aspects of what Schmitz calls

‘unfolded presence’ in contrast to the ‘primitive presence’ of our bodily states. This explains how

sensory awareness can become the source of a more refined experience that endows bodily feelings

with meaning.

To test the heuristic value of these theoretical musings, I would like to consider two installations by

contemporary artist Olafur Eliasson. His work in general has set out to offer models for experiencing

and understanding our reciprocal relationships with our living environment. Eliasson himself has

expressed this general aim of his work in the phrase “Seeing yourself sensing”, which I quote in the

title of my lecture (Eliasson 2002).

The concern with reciprocity is articulated already in an early work with the intriguingly

simple title Beauty (1993). The installation consists of a bare and darkened space with a sprinkler

installation that produces a curtain of water droplets, and a lamp that projects light on that curtain. If

viewers look at the water from a certain perspective, they will see a spectrum of light, like in a

rainbow. Without the viewer there is only water and light; nothing else. It is the acute presence of

the viewer, her willingness to see what might be there to be seen, and the effort she makes to find

out what that is, that turns the arrangement into a phenomenon whose effect on a human being is

aptly described by the work’s title. This work does not only afford an experience of beauty, but it also

alerts us to our own share in perceiving something as beautiful, as well as to our desire for beauty.

Strikingly, Eliasson uses the same term as Berleant to indicate the experience of reciprocity of

perceiver and perceived by calling it a form of engagement. He further stipulates that this

‘engagement’ entails an attention to time, to movement and to changeability. (Eliasson 2009: n.p.)

In his more recent work, Eliasson employs extremely sophisticated technologies to prompt

environmental engagement. He refers to his high-tech installations as experience-machines or

phenomenon-makers (Birnbaum 2002: 25; Seeing yourself seeing, 2008). Ironically, these experience-

machines often produce illusions of natural phenomena or natural surroundings. His well-known

installation The Weather Project (2003; see May 2003), produced for Tate Modern in London,

mimicked a sunset, complete with foggy atmosphere. The museum’s monumental foyer, the so-

called Turbine hall, was bathed in a warm yellowish-orange light that made visitors settle down and

linger there for a fairly long time. Mounted on the ceiling were huge mirrors that reflected the whole

scene from above and allowed the visitors to see themselves as part of the scene. Some visitors

responded to this by creating shapes and symbol with their bodies.

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To my great regret I haven’t been able to physically experience the work myself but

everybody who has and who I have spoken to, seemed to be deeply and lastingly moved. This ability

to deeply move the viewers and inscribe itself into their memory is characteristic of installation art.

The Russian-born artist Ilya Kabakov, a pioneering practitioner and theoretician of installation art,

ascribes this ability especially to the creation of an atmosphere.

3. Atmospheric perception in the experience of Installation and Performance Art

In a series of lectures on installation art Ilya Kabakov has described ‘atmosphere’ as the clearly

defined face of a particular place that immediately presses itself on a visitor and obliges her to feel,

think and behave in a particular way (Kabakov 1995, 244, 312). He observes that sensing the

atmosphere of an installation amounts to the initial experience that a viewer will have of the work in

its totality. Installations, as we have already seen, cannot be surveyed from an external position but

have to be investigated from the inside, step by step. Kabakov argues that this close investigation is

constantly accompanied or alternated by an awareness of its overall atmosphere, which is sensed

from the very beginning and then gradually refined. Sensing an installation’s atmosphere is both the

initial experience of the work and a frame for one’s further interaction with it, which includes the

occurrence of memories, associations and anticipations. Considering the significance of atmospheric

awareness, Kabakov meticulously explains how artists can create atmospheres.

Although Kabakov’s lectures on Installation Art make an important contribution to the

understanding of atmospheres, I feel that he underestimates the viewer’s share in it. Throughout his

lectures he tends to treat atmospheres as something that an artist can willfully construct and control.

The idea that atmospheres are powerful tools of manipulation also informs practices of

environmental design, such as the use of light and ‘muzak’ in semi-public spaces, like shopping malls

and airports. This objectifying approach is quite opposed to Berleant’s conception of environment as

the unity of topographical qualities and human sensibilities that occurs in lived experience.

Gernot Böhme seems to take an intermediate position in arguing that atmospheres

constitute an ‘in-between,’ between environmental qualities and human sensibilities (Böhme 2001).

In order to be able to describe and analyze this grey area, he has distinguished five atmospheric

types or characters and specified what it is that mostly produces them. I will attempt to show, by way

of two examples, how this typology can be used as a critical tool to analyze the experiences afforded

by works of art. Installation and Performance art.

In the case of Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project it is quite obvious that the work’s

atmosphere depends mainly on the correlation of light, humidity and spatial proportions, along with

the visitor’s behaviour. In Böhme’s terminology this amounts to the type of atmospheric characters

that he calls synesthetic, because they are primarily experienced in terms of intermodal perception.

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This type of atmosphere is most strongly experienced in terms of our own state-of-being, of the

quality of our own presence as part of a particular environment. Intermodal perception is especially

enhanced by the way in which Eliasson uses light. Although the light comes from a clearly visible

source, it is mainly experienced as a modification of the space.

Tate Modern’s architecture stresses the previous industrial function of the building, which

used to be a power station. The Turbine hall is the part of the building that most strongly evokes its

history (SLIDE). Its monumental scale and industrial look are impressive but also rather aloof and

overpowering. Eliasson’s intervention both stresses and mitigates the impact of that space on the

visitor. His sun disc is an entity that is equally impressive and overpowering but the warm light that it

emits (note the synaesthetic metaphor) has a soothing effect. This effect is enhanced by the misty

atmospheric condition, which softens the hard architectural shapes. I imagine that the combination

of light and mist makes the visitor feel almost tenderly embraced by a space that, on the other hand,

retains its awe-commanding monumentality. This monumentality is even stressed by the mirrors on

the ceiling, which make the space appear double its actual size. The mirrors also provide the visitors

with an image of themselves as a tribe of tiny ants basking in a hospitable universe. The viewers are

part of the scene and observe themselves being part of it.

But to do justice to Eliasson’s work it is important to note that although atmospheric

perception is a crucial aspect of it, the work is not only about that. Experiencing his work

characteristically involves a moment of disillusionment, in which the mechanism of the ‘experience-

machine’ is revealed to the viewer. In The Weather Project disillusionment occurs as soon as the

viewer approaches the ‘sun’ and discovers that it is actually a half-circular semi-transparent disc with

electrical light bulbs fitted behind it. The exhibition catalogue specifies them as mono-frequency

lamps, a type of lamp frequently used in street lighting. The kind of light that these lamps emit

belongs to urban rather than natural surroundings. The upper half of the sun turns out to be a

reflection of the half-circular disc in a mirror. The blurred contours of that mirror image cause the

illusion of radiation. So, the most realistic effect comes down to merely a reflection of an artificial

construction.

This calculated moment of disillusionment does not destroy the work’s atmospheric effect,

but adds another layer to it. Like a Brechtian alienation effect, disillusionment prevents the viewers

from immersing themselves uncritically in the atmospheric effect, which opens the opportunity of

contemplating what one feels, as well as the conditions in which these feelings occur. In regard to his

Weather Project Eliasson has pointed out that even our experiences of a phenomenon as concrete as

the weather are informed by ‘mediations’, such as architecture, air-conditioning, the weather

forecast or simply the memories and expectations that inform our actions and perceptions. Eliasson

invites viewers to become aware of this multilayered tissue of mediations and negotiate their

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position within it. His aim is not to entertain viewers but to ‘emancipate’ them, to borrow an

expression of Jacques Rancière. Like Rancière, Eliasson plays upon the double meaning of the word

‘sense’ by stating that he wants the viewer “to make sense of the world by sensing it”, in a way which

is engaged, critical and self-aware (Seeing yourself seeing, 2008; Rancière 2009).

Engagement en self-awareness are also crucial to my second example, a work of

performance art by British-German artist Tino Sehgal. Sehgal also realized a work in Tate Modern’s

Turbine hall recently. But the work that I will be discussing was presented this summer in Kassel, at

Documenta 13. It was called This Variation but I only got to know this title afterwards, for the

exhibition catalogue didn’t give any information about this work except for the place where it was

performed. To a visitor familiar with Sehgal’s work this is no surprise; Sehgal is known for not

providing any information about his work whatsoever, nor allowing for his work to be documented.

His work is, and has to remain, an event that occurs at a certain place and time and involves fleeting

interactions between performers and audience. The only thing that remains is the memories and

stories told by whoever has experienced the event live.

This Variation was staged in a dark and empty space. When I entered it, the darkness was so

pervading that I could hardly see my own feet. But I sensed very strongly the presence of other

human beings. The space was saturated with their smell, their body heat, and probably other

energetic emissions that language cannot express. Shuffling my way through darkness, I felt

profoundly disorientated, crowded and utterly afraid of bumping into someone. When that actually

happened, it came as a relief because it wasn’t painful or awkward. As we were all caught in the

same situation, everybody was very careful, alert and attentive to the physical presence of the

others.

While I was still trying to adjust to this situation, the about twenty performers, who shared

the space with the audience, started to utter sounds, that slowly evolved into a rhythm until they

were enthusiastically singing, clapping, dancing and a bit later also telling stories. Meanwhile my eyes

had gotten adjusted to the darkness; furthermore it appeared that either the performers or a hidden

mechanism could regulate the light, so that at times you could actually see, although the light

remained dim most of the time.

I stayed in that space for about 20-30 minutes, but could have stayed much longer. For as

soon as the initial feeling of crowdedness and disorientation had evaporated, I experienced a kind of

intimacy and an exchange of physical and emotional energy that was absolutely thrilling. I felt that I

was more and more becoming a participant of the party that was going on here, without having to do

anything that I didn’t want to do. Although the performers were dancing all around me, and

sometimes directly addressing me with their movements, I could just stand there or move around a

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little, observe the performers and my fellow visitors, and feel connected to them through the warm

and intimate atmosphere that we all shared. In contrast to my initial experience I now felt

completely safe, welcomed and absorbed into this strange and anonymous but somehow very real

community.

Returning to Böhme’s typology of atmospheric characters, the atmosphere of Sehgal’s

performance could be described as being predominantly ‘communicative.’ Such atmospheres depend

on what Böhme calls ‘physiognomies.’ This category includes all sorts of non-verbal communication,

such as involuntary movements, gestures, body postures, the rhythm, volume and intonation of

voices etc. He argues that in perceiving physiognomies we feel addressed as a person; physiognomies

appeal to our sense of life, to our attitude towards our own life as well as that of other living beings.

And indeed, the sense of well-being that I experienced while partaking in Sehgal’s work involved a

feeling of trust in the others – performers as well as viewers –, and a sense of our shared

responsibility for securing everybody’s safety and well-being. In that sense, partaking in Sehgal’s

performance was a profoundly ethical experience.

I have included this example to show that atmospheres constitute themselves and are

perceived not only in space but also in time. Atmospheric perception involves an awareness of time-

based phenomena such as rhythm and movements, as well as a keen awareness of how things –

including one’s own state of being – change in time. Atmospheres may be described, as Elisabeth

Ströker does, as emotionally tuned spaces (gestimmte Räume) (Ströker 1987) but we should keep in

mind that the actual resounding occurs in time as well as in space.

To conclude

In my lecture I have tried to show that the concept of atmosphere is crucial to an understanding of

the mode of the experience employed by both Installation and Performance art. Designating a

perceived unity of environmental qualities and human sensibilities, the concept can help us to

understand how human beings are continuous with the world in which they dwell. Works of

Performance and Installation Art ‘stage’ atmospheric perception. In so doing they offer viewers the

opportunity to “see themselves sensing,” to catch and observe themselves in the act of perceiving.

The lack of a need to immediately re-act provides space and time for reflection on our perceptual

acts. This reflection is not the kind of detached contemplation that mainly involves our intellectual

capacities. At its core there is a judgement of feeling, a precognitive evaluation of the quality of one’s

presence. This evaluation springs from an intensified experience of the here and now. However, by

giving rise to memories and anticipations of future events, it extends into the past and future as well.

In that sense we can say that the aesthetic experience that springs from atmospheric perception

engages the viewer in a holistic way. I emphatically consider aesthetic engagement to be a valuable

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experience in itself. Nevertheless I think that if future practices in the fields of architecture, urban

design, ecology and education would be more strongly informed by this mode of experience, this

might help to improve the quality of life on this planet.

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References

Berleant, Arnold, “The Aesthetics of Art and Nature,” in Salim Kemal; Ivan Gaskell (eds.), Landscape,

Natural Beauty and the Arts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 228–243.

Berleant, Arnold, The Aesthetics of Environment, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992, p. 10.

Berleant, Arnold, Art and Engagement, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.

Birnbaum, Daniel, “Interview: Daniel Birnbaum in Conversation with Olafur Eliasson,” in: Grynsztejn

et. al., Olafur Eliasson, London/New York: Phaidon, 2002, p. 25.

Böhme, Gernot, Aisthetik. Vorlesungen über Ästhetik als allgemeine Wahrnemungslehre, München:

Fink, 2001.

Eliasson, “Your Engagement has Consequences,” in: Emma Ridgway (ed.), Experiment Marathon:

Serpentine Gallery (exhib. cat.), Reykjavik: Reykjavik Art Museum, 2009, pp. 18–21. I quote the PDF

version of that text that is available on Eliasson’s website: www.olafureliasson.net.

Eliasson, Olafur, “Seeing Yourself Sensing,” in: Madeleine Grynsztejn et. al., Olafur Eliasson,

London/New York: Phaidon, 2002, pp. 124–127.

May, Susan (ed.), Olafur Eliasson. The Weather Project (exhib. cat.), London: Tate Publishing, 2003.

Rancière, Jacques, The Emancipated Spectator, London: Verso, 2009.

Seeing yourself seeing, video featuring Olafur Eliasson explaining his work, MoMA, 2008.

Schmitz, Hermann, Der Leib, der Raum und die Gefühle, Bielefeld/Basel: Edition Sirus, 2009.

Ströker, Elisabeth, Investigations in Philosophy of Space, translated by Algis Mickunas. Athens, Ohio

and London: Ohio University Press, 1987, pp. 19-47.

Wellbery, David E., “Stimmung”, Ästhetische Grundbegriffe. Historisches Wörterbuch in sieben

Bänden, vol. 5, Stuttgart: Metzler, 2003, pp. 703-733.