Paper short abstract:

This paper considers how various actors in the city of Milan are attempting to consider, define and produce atmosphere as a field of intersubjective action to achieve social and environmental change.

Paper long abstract:

Affect theory has also put a special focus on contagion, on the transmission and communication of affects between people. The more recent development of atmosphere as a concept have begun to put these ideas together, by looking at the atmosphere of place as a dynamic which both produces and is produced by affect in people. There are flaws and there are limits to this concept. Within the affective turbulence of atmospheres there are hierarchies, differentiation, positive and negative affects. Nonetheless it is a concept that binds people together with place in some sense. This paper looks at over a decade of policy development and activism in the city of Milan from 2010-2020 in Milan to try to change both the social and environmental atmosphere of the city. How have collective affects like melancholia, boredom, disgust, anger and excitement spread in certain moments? In what way are they contributing to the atmosphere and being excited by them? What limits are they confronting and is there a way they can be overcome? This paper will look at how various actors consider, define and produce atmosphere as a field of intersubjective action to achieve change.