Imaging Atmospheres: From Visual Diagnosis to Olfactory Imagination

Abstract

This introductory paper proposes a shift from the image as object to imaging as act, approaching atmosphere as a condition that emerges through processes of mediation. Drawing from medical imaging technologies, imaging is understood here as a di agnostic operation: a probing mechanism that renders internal, otherwise inaccessible processes visually representable. Within this framework, atmosphere operates as a relational field that, like the interior of the body, resists direct observation and becomes legible only through its effects, symptoms, and dispersions. Here, the neurological condition of blindsight offers a critical lens, revealing a mode of perception in which something is registered without entering conscious recognition, complicating the assumption that visibility coincides with knowledge. Within this framework, the olfactory realm emerges as a crucial model: operating through proximity, affect, and involuntary recognition, it dissolves the separation between subject and environment, offering an alternative mode of imaging grounded not in capture, but in attunement. Atmospheric imaging thus unfolds at the limits of visibility, where perception exceeds recognition. Engaging with authors like James Hillman, Paul Virilio and Luce Irigaray among others, the text situates atmosphere as a field of subliminal emergence.