Gestures, Attunements and Atmospheres: On Photography and Urban Space

Developed through a series of conceptual analyses (Edmund Husserl, Vilém Flusser, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Walter Benjamin) case studies (Fernando Lopes’s Belarmino Jeff Wall’s Mimic), this article delves into the relationship between gesture, attunement atmosphere how it unfolds in photographic works dealing with urban space. The first section focuses on role played by photography film Belarmino, which raises questions about both representation phenomena issues related to expression gesture boxing. second discusses Husserl’s thinking image consciousness his surprising reference “photograph” boxer, reveals relevance phenomenological approach when comes defining aesthetic properties gesture-images. third examines principles Flusser’s philosophy gestures, focusing semantic field its connection various elements photography, moods affects. question photography—both gestures photographed those photographer—can be articulated notions atmosphere, go beyond semiological, psychological communicational approaches are important for our understanding artistic experiences. Finally, if is privileged way studying atmospheres (as suggested Benjaminian notion optical unconscious) their inner life subject, relation space study often acquires an intersubjective, social political dimension, as Mimic.