Vesper No. 7 | Sky | Fall-Winter 2022
Alessandro Calefati
The Expression of the Sky. Aesthetic
Interfaces in Watsuji Tetsurō
Keywords
Fūdo, atmospheres, interface, Watsuji Tetsurō
The purpose of the
essay is to find in the work of Watsuji Tetsurō (和辻 哲郎, 1889-1960), particularly from his Climate:
Philosophico-Anthropological Reflections (風土: 人間学的考察, Fūdo: Ningengakuteki kōsatsu,
1935), the foundation of a possible philosophy of atmospheres, in order to
deconstruct the optical and terrestrial aspects of the concept of panorama. It
will allow to think of a tangible space as expression of an affective and
climatic environment, starting from the notion of kūki (空気), which is composed of the characters of
‘sky’ (sora) and ‘mood’ or
‘atmosphere’ (ki). Acknowledge the physical and local
feature of a space, which could be both cultural-historical and natural, will
allow to think the aesthetic interfaces of the sky as morphogenetic space.
contacts
t. +39 041 257 1542