Contingent Agencies

CONTINGENT AGENCIES – Inquiring into the Emergence of Atmospheres

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Contingent Agencies is an artistic research project conceived to inquiry into a subject matter, which is central for artistic practices and has been denominated with different terms: “atmosphere”, “ambience”, “Stimmung”, “mood”, “topology”, “place”, “environment” or “figure”. All these expressions stand for a kind of presence, which is basically characterized as enveloping, impermanent, unstable, intangible and non-objectified. It is a kind of presence that emerges surrounding the person to whom it appears due to the interaction between all components of the situation in which it arises.

This project focuses on the re-search of one central aspect of this kind of presence that has been often overseen: the agency of the situation’s components that allow it to arise. In this regard, the main research question is the following: What is the specific agency of the different types of elements that enable the emergence of ephemeral environments? In other words: How do all the single components of a situation interact so that a fleeting figure arises?

In addition, this project pursues three subsidiary goals: first, to contribute to the fundamental knowledge about this modality of presence; second, to develop a new research methodology, based on artistic practice and practices of the humanities, that allows for an exhaustive and non-reductive inquiry; and third, to design innovative formats and strategies of dissemination. The theoretical framework of this project is configured fundamentally by the work of some authors that have researched the modality of presence to be investigated here: Böhme, Thibaud, Gumbrecht, Malpas and Casey.

This inquiry takes a phenomenological and enactivist approach, which enables a fruitful combination of an experienced-based access to the object of research and a system-oriented perspective. The recently concluded three-year research projects of the key-researchers Nikolaus Gansterer (“Choreo-graphic Figures“) and Alex Arteaga (“Architecture of Embodiment”) constitute the conceptual and methodological basis for the integration of these sources and approaches. The structure of this project is based on “research cells”: units of inquiry defined by a limited duration, a specific spatiality, a determined number of participants (artists, specialist of different disciplines), a group of practices to be realized and of strategies to connect them. The core of each cell is termed “þing” (pronounced “thing”): the spatiotemporal framework, in which the fundamental aesthetic practices—practices of notation—are carried out.

Contingent Agencies is a project of fundamental artistic research, the results of which can be applied in the fields of architecture, design, space-related artistic practices, art pedagogy, philosophy, art theory, as well as critical and cultural studies. The project is funded by the Program for Arts-based Research (PEEK) of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

Contingent Agencies is a four year research endeavor [2019-2022] that was inaugurated in the framework of the Research Pavilion #3 at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019.

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Project website: http://www.contingentagencies.net/

https://player.vimeo.com/video/1167909307?h=5403458472
Cape Woolamai – Sensing Contingent Agencies,
Trailer for a short experimental film by Nikolaus Gansterer, 2025

 

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 1 June 2026 :
BOOK PRIZE: CONTINGENT AGENCIES – INQUIRING INTO THE EMERGENCE OF ATMOSPHERES, at Vienna Praterateliers

Contingent Agencies – Inquiring into the Emergence of Atmospheres, edited by Alex Arteaga and Nikolaus Gansterer, has been awarded as one of The Most Beautiful Books of Austria 2025 in the category Scientific Publications, Educational and Textbooks. The award ceremony will take place on 1 June 2026 at the Praterateliers in Vienna. The awarded books will also represent Austria in the international competition The Most Beautiful Books from All Over the World and will be presented at international book fairs and exhibitions. Developed as a designed research space, the publication Contingent Agencies brings together contributions from a wide range of disciplines exploring atmosphere as an emergent interplay of human and non-human agencies. Similar to the reduced exterior appearance of the book — with its cloud image, monochrome coloured edges, and the tactile quality created through softcover and volume paper, evoking a fragment of atmosphere itself — the interior is likewise shaped by subtlety and the omission of excessive design gestures. One typeface in three sizes and rhythmic white spaces sequence a multiplicity of texts and images into a parallel-readable constellation. Despite the thematic structuring into five chapters, the design sustains an ongoing dialogue between different modes of reading across more than 400 pages with remarkable lightness. To concretise and render tangible that which is elusive is perhaps one of the most common motivations of human cultural production. This publication is no exception — and yet something feels different: despite its manifestation as a printed object, its clearly designed pages, and its precise typographic language, a sense of processual transience remains palpable. A finished object — at least physically — that nevertheless appears unfinished and part of something larger, thereby creating one of the most beautiful sensations imaginable: holding something in one’s hands that can be felt and seen, but never fully grasped. Published by Hatje Cantz Verlag. Designed by Marie Artaker and Alexandra Möllner.

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