Short abstract:

This paper explores speculative fabulation and aesthetic strategies as a means of sensing and attuning to more-than-meteorological microclimates. Using a number of case studies, I discuss specific methodological challenges and openings of atmospheric thinking and speculative research.

Long abstract:

This paper introduces the work of the SF-Microclimate Meteorological Institute, a bureau dedicated to speculative fabulation, situated feminisms, and string figures, with a focus on developing methodological toolkits for researching meteorological, metaphorical, and morphological atmospheres.

Recently, MMI researchers have explored microclimates using aesthetic strategies such as Speculative Landscaping, Micro Climate Fiction writing, and Ambient Composition. They are also engaged in experiments aimed at representing and communicating atmospheres to future worldlings. In the presentation, MMI research practitioners will share their experiential and speculative techniques—including play, experimentation, confabulation—in realms of affect and ambiance, as well as the weatherworld. They will also discuss their experiences and challenges in fostering intimacy and bodily resonances to sense, record, and represent the composition of more-than-meterological atmospheres.

More formally…

My paper presents case studies from workshops conducted with practitioners of ArtScience, computational arts, interactive architecture, creative writing and STS. I will discuss how atmospheric thinking and aesthetic strategies allow us to foreground relations and encounters across heterogenous scales and re-entangle bodies in their technological, environmental, affective and more-than-human relations. My paper will also focus on the specific methodological challenges and openings that arise when working with atmospheres as quasi-objects that are mediators and mediated and shape matters and methods through speculative and aesthetic means. Finally, I explore the values of atmospheric thinking as a mode for accessing SFs and characteristics of desirable futures-present.