Wednesday 23 Sep
Arrivals
Participants arrive through the afternoon and evening. Registration desk · 15:00–18:00 · main lobby of the ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel Kobe — look for the desk with the SOFAS logo. Anyone who cannot register on the 23rd may register individually on the following days. Free evening.
Thursday 24 Sep
Founding & plenary · ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel · Banquet Room (Rosemary), 9F
SOFAS Inauguration & First Meeting
Founding · Regulations · Atmosphaerica (yearbook)
Tonino Griffero
The Unresolved Problems of Atmospherology: Cornerstones or Challenges?
David Howes
Sensing Environmental Qualia
Lenart Škof
Philosophy of Breath and Atmospheric Ontology
Bruce Bégout
Time and ambiance. The sense of Passing
Shanti Sumartojo
Ineffability, atmospheres, and human-world connection
Nicolas Rémy & Evangelia Paxinou
The Suspended Step of the Stork – Ambiance as Hospitality of Modes of Existence
Paulo Gajanigo
The digital and the emergent
Birgit Breidenbach
The Atmospheric Metaphor
Kerstin Thomas
Painting Air: Atmosphere in French Landscape painting around 1800
Fabian Heubel 何乏筆
The Ontological Unlocalizability of Atmospheres or Toward an Aesthetic Cultivation of the Between
Purushottama Bilimoria
Altered state of breath: pedagogical contours of prāṇa, prāṇayāma, and kuṇḍalinī-yoga, with ramifications for cross-cultural atmospheric studies
Shinji Kajitani 梶谷真司
The Communality and Normativity of Emotion as Atmosphere: The Scope of Schmitz’s Theory of Legal Feeling
Friday 25 Sep
Panels · Kobe University
Special events · sign-up
The panels need no registration — you are free to move between rooms all day. The optional special events are different: the two exhibition tours and the workshop have limited places, and the artist soundwalk and the Saturday excursion need numbers in advance. Please use the form if you would like to join any of them.
Deadline · 19 September 2026 (Japan time). Where there are more requests than places, we will allocate by random draw and write to everyone who applied.
- Jessie AlperinFar Above and Below the Depths: Imagining Ecological Seeing in Odilon Redon’s The Red Screen
- Kahlua Tsunoda 角田かるあBetween the Visible and the Invisible: Reconsidering A. G. Bragaglia’s Theory of Photography
- Thorsten Botz-BornsteinToxic Kitsch: The Atmospheric Paintings of Thomas Kinkade
Chair Kerstin Thomas · discussion follows
- Sachi Sekimoto 関本幸Aeroception: The Cultural Technique of Reading the Air
- Yosaku Matsutani 松谷容作Breathing as an Aesthetic Method for Perceiving the Environment: A Case Study of Asthma
- Florian Goeschke“Like the weather” – toward an atmospheric organology
Chair Purushottama Bilimoria · discussion follows
- Francesca GrecoKi (気/氣) and Aiki (合氣) in the Japanese Martial Art of Aikidō (合氣道). A Contribution to Bodily Relationality and Atmospheric Studies
- Cheung Ching Yuen 張政遠Fūdo in the air: connecting Atmospheric Studies and Fūdo Studies
- Yukiko Kuwayama 桑山裕喜子The Role of Atmospheres in the Praxis of Psychoanalysis
Chair Bruce Bégout · discussion follows
Season Lao Exhibition at the Yamaguchi Seishi Memorial House
10:00–16:30 · curated by Rie Kodera 小寺里枝 & Romaric Jannel 羅馬里克・詹內爾
Flyer (PDF) ↗- Gabi SchilligAgencies of Softness – Atmospheres of Co-Existence
- Lorenzo MarinucciIs Kawaii an Atmosphere?
- Manuela de Mattos SalazarVibe Shift: Atmospheric Emotions in Contemporary Life
Chair Shanti Sumartojo · discussion follows
- Elisabetta CanepaThe Space In-Between
- Damien MassonUnlayering the Thousand Leaves of Ambiances
- Kantaro Ohashi 大橋完太郎The Theory of Ambiance in the works of Jean Baudrillard
Chair Nicolas Rémy · discussion follows
- Andreas RauhCo-presence and actuality: Atmosphere theory and New Materialism
- Chung-Yen Cheng 鄭中彥Rethink Atmospheric Attunements: Bodies as Qi and More-Than-Human Narratives
- Nadja Furlan ŠtanteEcological Atmospheres: Ecofeminist Perspectives and Global Inequities
Chair Sara Borriello · discussion follows
↑ continues
- Silvina KatzLiterary Atmosphere: Translating Silvina Ocampo’s Fiction through the Body
- Linjing Jiang 姜林静The Letter H in Schumann’s Myrthen
- Alberto ParisiRespiratory Poetics: Breath, Atmosphere, and Poetic Form between Europe and Japan
Chair Birgit Breidenbach · discussion follows
- Megan KaminskiTender Ground: Weathering, Deep Time, and the Felt Atmosphere of Land
- Maximilian HepachFrom Zodiacs to Cyclones: A Brief History of Medical Meteorology
- Mathieu GaulèneConveying the Invisible Radioactive Atmosphere of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster
Chair Paulo Gajanigo · discussion follows
- Takuya Niikawa 新川拓哉Atmosphere and Wellbeing
- Tetsushi Nonaka 野中 哲士The reciprocity of the agent and the environment
- Gorazd AndrejčWittgensteinian moods, disenchantment and scientific objectification
Chair Lenart Škof · discussion follows
↑ continues
- Julia OstwaldMise-en-Scent: Choreographing Air as Atmospheric Practice
- Jiang Sanshi 蔣三石Atmosphere, Nature, and Ink Art — Biographical Reflections
- Chun-Chen Lin 林俊臣Awkwardness and Qi: The Generative Body and Atmospheric Experience in Chinese Calligraphy
Chair Fabian Heubel · discussion follows
- Federico De MatteisThe Climate of Spaces
- Ola SigurdsonCity as Biotope: On the Atmospheric Experience of the Urban
- Malcolm Troon‘Auditory Asides’ – Listening Prismatically
Chair Evangelia Paxinou · discussion follows
- Lukas TrabertHermann Schmitz and his Analysis of Atmospheres
- Sara BorrielloAtmospheres and Value: On Nature and Moral Significance
- Ari PurnamaWhat Råså Offers Atmospheric Studies
Chair Tonino Griffero · discussion follows
↑ continues · closes 16:30
- Yu-lin Lee 李育霖 & Shan-Hui Hsu 徐珊惠Bodies in Flight: The Wuxia Gest in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
- Lin Shu-wen 林淑文Utensil (器), Dao (道), and Technique (技): The Aesthetic Practice of Tea-Walking
- Tomoyo Arisawa 有澤知世江戸戯作におけるデザイン上の雰囲気の演出
Chair Yukiko Kuwayama · discussion follows
- Madoka Serizawa 芹澤円Playing the Wind: Embodied Wind in the Works of Jenova Chen
- Pierre-William FregoneseThe Aesthetic of Emptiness and Fullness in Shadow of the Colossus
- Alexandre DeclosAtmospheric Cartographies: The Aesthetics of Videogame Maps
Chair David Howes · discussion follows
No session
Venti Journal Aperitivo
Kobe University Cafeteria · with Jessie Alperin, Rie Kodera 小寺里枝, Mao Matsuyama 松山聖央 and Yuho Hisayama 久山雄甫
Saturday 26 Sep
Closing · ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel · Banquet Room (Jasmine), 9F
KOIAS partnership and other announcements
SOFAS General Assembly — with voting
KOIAS Fellows / early-career roundtable
Closing discussion and final speech — the future of Atmospheric Studies
Related program
Other events
Organised around the conference by our partners and open to everyone. These are not part of the conference program above, and need no conference registration.
Exhibition
Thinking with the Ears
Sam Auinger + katrinem
Sam Auinger + katrinem present the results of the research and creative work carried out during their residency in Kobe, as part of KOIAS Art Project #2 (2024). We hope you will come and see it.
Dates
29 September – 4 October 2026
Opening & reception
15:00–17:00, 29 September
No registration required
Venue
Design and Creative Center Kobe (KIITO), 2F, Gallery C · 20 minutes’ walk from the main station