Contingent Agencies has developed as a methodolocial approach three interconnected fields practice: practices of notation, practices of reflection as well as practices of showing and sharing.

• The Practices of Notation are understood as processes realized in different media and in immediate contact with the inquired agencies, aiming at producing artifacts that enable a sensory-cognitive access to these agencies, not only for the notators but for all researchers interested in this issue.

• The Practices of Reflection are mediated by notations and intended to intensify the approach to the investigated agencies as well as outlining (provisory) conclusions about them.

• The Practices of Showing and Sharing, on the one hand, connect both practices by presenting the artifacts of notation in the most adequate way for performing practices of reflection and, on the other hand, they lead to realizing the most convenient ways of presenting both artifacts of notation and reflection to a specialized and a general public for further investigation.

The German term Stimmung, comes even closer to the phenomenon that we are approaching. Stimmung connects the so-called “inner” felt Gestimmtheit (feeling, mood, emotion, flow…) with the effect of a specific situation that is supposedly experienced “outside,” (atmosphere, environment, place, landscape, topography…) and its emergent, process-based character (worlding, spacetimemattering, relationscape, sympoiesis…). The Stimmung bears the Stimme (the voice) within it; speaks, sings, swings, is in communication, in resonance with the world. Stimmung brings those inner and outer phenomena, which supposedly exist separately, into constant, mutually-conditioning interaction, into dialogue with one another, to maneuver into this ambigious resonance space in favor of a dissolution of the subject-object split.

More particularly, Contingent Agencies investigates the specific ways in which the actualization of the agencies of single components of a situation (eg. from light to animals, from artifacts to sounds, from matter to vegetation, from color to decay) conditions the emergence of these comprehensive and senseful presences. Accordingly, atmospheres are considered as coherent networks of phenomena that emerge due to a systemically organized set of intertwined agencies: the capacity of each component of a given situation to transform the presence of the other components and the arising environment. Contingent Agencies aims at investigating this complex subject matter in a non-reductive way through artistic and aesthetic practices and connecting this inquiry with other processes of research realized through practices developed in the humanities, the social, and the natural sciences.

Contingent Agencies is an artistic research project initiated by Nikolaus Gansterer and Alex Arteaga conceived as an inquiry
into the subtle, dynamic, complex, and enveloping presences
that emerge in given situations for those who inhabit them.

These presences and its co-constituting aspects are denominated depending on the cultural context with various terms such as ambiance, mood, place, figure or Stimmung. In this project we favor the words atmosphere and environment as common denominator for these resonant in-between spaces.

For further informations please visit the Contingent Agencies website

containing a variety of research artifacts and conceptual texts :

https://contingentagencies.uni-ak.ac.at/

While notating, I imagine sinking into the genius loci. The genius loci inside. The infrathin within. The ground beneath-within is a blind spot. And yet, it resonates. So close, not even a few millimeters away. Figuring (a) ground. Seemingly still and stable, but always in a deep time slow motion—until the sudden vibration, eruption, and emergence. This ground(ing) brings forth the foundation on which these atmospheric figurations grow and go (by).

Fig.1: Resonant Entanglements of Agencies

Here, a writing-drawing emanates, overwrites, and configures. It is in this open field that a practice of diagraming life lines situates itself, tracing the jolty ruptures of me, the fluid transitions of you, the hairline cracks of us, fog-holes of them, and deep shallows of it—where unknown forces emerge, quietly infiltrating the scene, only to vanish as suddenly as they have appeared. Ghostly, elsewhen, at ween, spirited away.

Two exemplary research artifacts created within the framework of the ongoing Contingent Agencies research endeavor:

1) Artifact of Notation: identifier: N-Gansterer-20210512-1430-Vienna

agency: resonance
practices of notation: drawing
artifacts of notation: 1 circular drawing with various colored pastels, chalk and pencils on white paper, d=140 cm
notator: Nikolaus Gansterer
time: 2021.05.12 14:30
place: Austria, Vienna, Praterstudios, Bildhauergebäude
description of the atmosphere: Inside my studio, afternoon mood, intense. I rushed here. Still sweaty, with my blood pumping. A rush. I feel quick, alert. Even the light seems to be moving faster through the windows,  heightening my senses, receptive. More than much is reaching me–all at once making  me draw–dance on the paper circle.
hyperlink: https://contingentagencies.uni-ak.ac.at/n-gansterer-20210512-1430-vienna/

2) Artifact of Notation: identifier: N-Arteaga-20190504-1725-Venice

agency: sky
practice of notation: photographing
artifact of notation: a series of 44 photographies (selected here: 6)
notator: Alex Arteaga
time: 2019.05.04 17:25
place: Italy, Venice, Fondamenta Sant’Eufemia
tactics of showing: projected as a series of slides in big format
notes: Sitting outside of a café right by the water
short description of the atmosphere Cloudy, almost completely covered. Raining a little bit. I’m sitting in front of the water. There are boats passing by, few people around me. It is kind of… contained, maybe even sad atmosphere. It looks like autumn.

hyperlink: https://contingentagencies.uni-ak.ac.at/n-arteaga-20190504-1725-venice/