For now, [for now] it is easier [some decision is made] to recognise … this now of recognising, the now of notation … the influence of other agencies on the agency of temperature than it is to observe the conditioning agency of temperature on atmosphere.[But, no, not to observe the conditioning agency of temperature on other agencies, nor the influence of other agencies on the agency of temperature, but the agency of temperature in relation to atmosphere. So many points of touch, of contact, of influencing. A confluence of influence. Observe — to ob-serve. To serve obliquely, perhaps. To serve or to attend] Nothing stays still for long. [A desire for things to stay still, just long enough] …this desire for stillness, to observe this relation, yet relation is never still … [Just long enough to observe a relation, but no, relations never stay still.] All these other agencies in turn conditioned by or influenced by or affected by a change … in temperature. [There is temperature that is measurable, then there is temperature in terms of how it feels] The influence of temperature on my own perception. [The felt sense of temperature or do I mean the weather? How is this difference between temperature and weather? Temperature feels part of the weather — an agent amongst other agents … or an agency?] I am distracted by all these agencies [Agent or agency. Agency or agent? How is this relation between agent and agency? Are there only agencies?] at play, interweaving: [All these other agencies] light; sound; raindrops; insects; airplanes; the agency of the sun. [How are these other agencies, in turn conditioned by, or influenced by, or affected by a change in temperature? A change in temperature or in the agency of temperature?] So, many other agencies [Agency — from the root *ag, meaning to set in motion, to activate, to propel, to force even, perhaps. These moments of change, of transformation, of setting in motion] in turn influencing [These moments of in-fluence, of in-flowing or of in-forming. Influence — a fluency, in-fluency. Fluent. In-fluent. I would like to look up the etymology of this word, fluent, fluence, this fluid flow of things] and affecting the agency of temperature. [To cause - to transform or change or make happen. To bring into formation — to cause to form. To influence, to affect a change or transformation, to make happen — yet this somehow seems causal.] Yet, this relation feels reciprocal and mutual — not sequential, not delineated, not causal. [Conditions are operative in a different way. Conditions — a different register of influence, the word influence even seems perhaps too strong. This com-bination, this con-fluence, this com-plex confluence of combining agencies. Temperature might be recognisable as one. But is it possible to discern it as a singular agency?] Temperature is mediated [The agency of temperature feels already com-plex, a combination of other agencies] both by the wind and the sun, even by the rain. [A complex web of other forces and flows — of rain, of sun, of wind]. Temperature or the weather? [There is no temperature as such — only the confluence of all these other agencies] … combination — not only influence, but also confluence. Con-fluence — a flowing together… It is hard to dislocate temperature from these other agencies …Is it possible to focus on the agency of one, when it belongs so clearly to a complex or mesh of other agencies? Agency — from the root *ag - to set in motion. The power or capability to set in motion or to transform. To bring to life … [I am waiting. Atmospheric arising, with the warming a sense of awakening. Things coming alive.] Arising coming-aliveness — the situation expands, is expanding, opening … An opening, an expansion, of all things – seemingly both animate and inanimate… I am struggling to differentiate one agency from another. [There is objective temperature — a temperature that can be measured. And there is a temperature that can be felt. Objective temperature suggests that there is only one — the temperature measured, the temperature gauged] … It is not a case of measuring; it is rather more a matter of feeling. Can atmosphere be observed independent of my own sensory apparatus, my own feeling body? …What is this temperature, for it seems that there is no one temperature … [It seems that there are already many temperatures]. Give or take an imperceptible shift, the actual temperature has probably remained much the same. [Temperature can be felt — but is it true that what can be felt might not exist as such?] Yet it feels as though it shifts and changes, as if it rises and falls. … This con-fusion — the dilemma of differentiation, or recognition, or difference, or distinction between what is it that I am experiencing as atmosphere and how is the atmosphere experienced. And whether these two things can ever be separated or taken apart… How to observe not only the effects of a given agency on my perception, my own living experience? [How does this sensing body, this sensing apparatus, this barometer in a way, how does it somehow even give rise to certain atmospheres?] Not the effect of temperature on how I feel, [‘My’ temperature determines how the agency of other temperatures are felt (by me). ‘My’ temperature makes this air feel cool against my skin. How does this air, this cooler air, feel for the tree, or for the grass? What is their temperature, their bodily temperature?] but on the atmosphere — I am struggling to even differentiate between these two things.
… Too late, too late …I need more time to settle, [I am distracted. The agency of distraction. Is distraction an agency, or the point where the agency of my attention or my intention wavers or gets lost?] to let go of this I, … Too late … It is already too late - things are already changing, I am always too late or too slow. [All these agencies at work, interweaving. The sight of you as you are drawing, or walking, or writing, or notating, or lying down]. I lack the fluency or fluidity needed to be alert [The influence of the agency of temperature upon atmosphere, or the felt sense of temperature and how this in turn shapes the possibilities of perception and awareness] to all these changes, to be capable of meeting change in change. [Things unfold too fast. No, things are not unfolding. Time unfolds too fast. No … so what is it that is unfolding, that my observation cannot keep up with?] This sense of time and of timing, and of the notation always being too late. [Fluency, fluidity — again these words. Lacking the fluency, lacking fluency. In-fluidity, in-fluency.] Is all notation always too late? [This need to be alert, to be fluid, to be able to respond to the changes. How to keep pace? The changes, in a sense, come to quick. I am unable to register all these shifts and transformations. I am struggling to keep up. I am struggling to keep up with the notation]. Writing, it seems; language, it seems, has this quality of lateness. [There are so many other agencies. Is one agency separable from the agency of all these other things? A complex web of agencies, together creating the conditions for atmosphere. A web, a web of agencies]. And the slowness of the practice, this tension between the quick of living and the slowness of writing. [My own agency, the agency of this writing, of this notation, of this speaking, of this reading, of this voicing, of this attending, of this waiting. It does not feel clear, it does not feel clear at all]. The wind conspires with the agency of temperature: [But how does temperature condition atmosphere? How is atmosphere conditioned by the agency of temperature?] it conspires. [What need is there of this word agency? Is not agency already inscribed in the how?] … Is agency a quality or a property of temperature, or does it emerge only as a capacity to affect, that is, agency is always relational. No agency of temperature, recognisable, separable from that which is affected … Enlivening, bringing to life. …Is this a registering of agency or of affect?... [How or when? How is the conditioning influence of temperature upon atmosphere? Or rather when? When feels as if when can be marked — like now, or now, or now.] Atmosphere coming-to-life. [Yet the conditioning influence is not discontinuous; rather, it ebbs and flows, rises and falls. At times, the relation is more evident, yet still, there is co-relation]. Yet I am not sure if it is the agencyof temperature or of light [Co-relation. Correlation — this co- relation of agencies and atmospheres.] … I am struggling to differentiate … I am not sure if these are notations or reflections.
The agency of light … alight, ignite, to cause to kindle, bring into flame … seems somehow inseparable from the agency of shadow. The light somehow amplifies the agency … agency as igniting, to set in motion... of the wind, and of the gently swaying trees. Is it warmth or light? [Light or warmth: how to differentiate the one from the other? And so many registers of light, like so many temperatures] … To light, to set alight. Catching alight, to set on fire, ignite. To set in motion, incite … I close my eyes. [I close my eyes to see, to see the effect of light with eyes closed. Light changes register as shifts, like the movement of the clouds, the shadow of the trees.] Is it possible to attend to light with one’s eyes closed? [This relation to the eyes, is this the only way to register light — optical, ocular. Is the agency of light somehow photographic?] Light makes the colours somehow more vibrant; [Yet more thick than visual, the density of light, a thickness or density, a felt light], light makes shapes sharper. Shapes or things? …the contour of shadow is not fixed, rather instable and ever shifting… Contours of shadows …To fix the shadow is to defeat it of its agency, its capacity to move, and to be moved … The interplay of shadow … light does not cause shadow. Shadow is an effect of light’s obstruction, of the agency of other things, intervening… and light. …Eyelids obstruct the light, creating shadows on the retina, as patterning and indeterminate forms … [Light felt on the skin, on the skin of the eyelids, not through the eyes. Feeling light, less seeing light, but how is it that light feels? … Light, like temperature, can be measured and gauged: there are scientific ways. But it is also felt, as a lived and live event, or rather, felt in and through living. Light felt is tactile as much as visual, felt on skin as much as eye … [Feeling light, light felt, or is it warmth? How can I differentiate these two?] Can the agency of light [How is light’s agency; and then - here, now?] be separated [Is light not already composite, an intermingling of many forces or flows?]from the agency of shadow, or the clouds? Agency of the clouds, or of the wind, determining the rises and falling of the light. Complex interplay of agencies, that together make perhaps a sense of weather.] Discontinuous observations [I am not sure whether it is that or this, one agency or another, for they seem impossible to split, separate, untangle] — yet experience is continuous … Phenomena are time-based — arising, ceasing, endlessly changing, unfolding, in continual flow … [Follow this through, stay with the experience, see where it leads. Yet not to follow into concept]. The play of light extends the frame of my attention. All these frames, …these instable lines, blurry boundaries … all these lives.All these other agencies. I am struggling to differentiate between … soft demarcations; fluctuating, animate categories, shifting, changing … these different agencies — of light and shadow, of warmth and light … persistent binaries keep appearing… Yet when I really observe there seems to be no one or the other — always shifting, always in flux. Changeling: a being between times, a transitional condition, between states. Inter-play, between play: inter – between … Shades and soft transitions … Still, do I register agency only in terms of a change or a transition? … There are moments, no, not moments, but times, durations, where the light does not appear to change. [Remember the word temper, tempered, balanced.] How does this unchanging light [Recall how painters often prefer the North light, even and unchanging] influence atmosphere? Not only when, but how. Not only change, but also continuity. [Less variable, less subject to change, so that a painting might be continued over many days and weeks; so that the painter might not need to start again, minute by minute, day after day.] Sustained unfolding — micro-shifts and changes and instabilities and transformations …vectors of intensity, from one state to another, augmenting, decreasing… that are imperceptible to my untrained eye, … my eyes, no, my habits, those modes of attention and inattention that I have cultivated over years, ingrained ways, that require undoing. Then practising again, relearning … that somehow remain unseen, unseeable … attending only to relation, to that which is irreducible to the one nor the other, but rather, registered sensibly in the in-between … intangible, unfelt, … unrepresentable, this relational in-between … imperceptible, unnameable … Attending to influence, in fluence — that which is fluid, not clearly see-able or stable… Yet, there are always other things that are easier to recognise, to see and to name.
[I had not imagined that I would be focusing on the agency of wind.] The flicker of light. [I guess you could say that the agency called me]. Now, the flicker of light, of artificial light, of televisual light. [No, this is not quite right. Rather, it was in the intending to document one agency that another revealed itself from the sides, as an accident, one might say]. The lights guard against the night, [An accidental notation, kairotic notation] guard against the dark, the threat of the dark. [A notational form emerging in the occasionality of the situation which it takes as its correlate. Not quite as accident, but still unplanned for]. Lights mitigate against the dark, [Not light of day, but light of night] mitigate against the threat of shadows, of darkness, of the unseen, the in-visible. [Wind registering through notation, like the flicker of a television screen]. Guarding against the night, protecting, holding the night back. Light holds back the night. [I turn attention to the wind. The wind or is it the air?]. There is so much light, or rather there are so many lights. There is no night. [When is it the end of wind and the beginning of air?] There is no night — I miss the dark, [Where does air begin and wind end? Wind ending, air beginning. Air ending, wind beginning] or rather I miss the lunar light. [Where is the line of differentiation between wind and air? Agency of air, or agency of wind? What differentiates this wind from air? Is it in the movement — the movement of wind that takes the clouds across the sky, clouds that seem light against the dark of sky]. The temperature of night light is no longer lunar. [A dark punctuated by stars. A not-quite dark, lit by artificial light]. Lit with artificial lights — the lights hold the night back, [The wind somehow makes it feels as though this space is still alive, as though this space has not yet gone to sleep.] hold the dark back. [What is it that differentiates the wind from breath?] I close my eyes. [To feel the direction of the wind as it touches against my skin]. Iclose my eyes and try to imagine no light. [My body feels an unfaithful measuring device — instead, I look to the clouds] A dark night, [The clouds, like shadows — inverse shadows on a dark sky, punctuated by stars] a night unilluminated by stars or moon or television screens or security lights or car lights or spotlights or lights in rooms or mobile phones [Flickering, oscillating, vibrating, pulsing]. A dark night — I try to imagine the blackness of night. [The wind brings a sense of life, a liveliness, an aliveness]. Night, dense in its darkness. [Vibrating the grass, the leaves, the trees, the hairs on my skin.] Yet, no darkness to this night, just lights.
[Settling, not yet]. The atmosphere has a soft contour. [It is like we — I and the atmosphere — first need to make some acquaintance, establish a mode of contact, a way of being in touch] For now, it feels as thoughI am sat outside. [Atmosphere — waiting for discovery, waiting for my attention, no, for this bringing of my attention is also an agency within the conditions of its arising]. But where is this atmosphere? [I am edging towards, trying not to grasp, and in this edging, gently, circling, slowly, I might begin to feel, tentative emerging. Recalling how lightning strikes — the yearning for contact between the sky and the earth] …forgetting, forgetting each time of encounter, necessary forgetting, in order to encounter afresh… I still feel like I am looking at — yet this attempt feels somewhat futile. [I cannot discern at the outset, it does not come all at once] … barely noticeable, first then, focusing, heightened sense of noticing, before notating… Am I trying to ‘see’ the atmosphere, [not yet feeling its unfolding, I feel as if I am sat outside of that to which I seek to attend] discern it through the nameable senses rather than feel it. Felt sense — feeling that is somehow more than sensation, more than strictly sensible. Sensitivity, sensibility… Feeling operating in another register somehow, a different time. … already complex, many presences, many relationships, interwoven … [My attention is already part of that to which I attend] It needs to be slower. [patience then, to remain with. Yet this patience, this remaining with, is changing the atmosphere] I am not sure that an atmosphere can be watched or seen. Not about, not on, not at a distance. To feel the influence …influence, fluency, to be in flow, to flow into, to intermingle … of agencies, of agency, of an agency, of one agency, on atmosphere. [So many agencies at play, in interplaying, interweaving, interwoven, interacting, interdependent, co-arising] … Dampening and enlivening, interconnected agencies, the register of one agency on another, interdependent, impossible to disentangle. The more I attend, the more the one agency folds into another, into the other, into the other, into the other… Agency — I am still not sure if I understand what this means. [Activate, act, actor, agenda: *ag- effecting or affecting, I am never sure. To affect (is also to be affected)] From *ag, to set in motion, to cause to move. Action — force of action. Agency or conditions. Conditions or causes? [Consider the principle of conditionality, that all phenomena arise in dependence on the arising of other phenomena. Dependent co-arising, dependent origination. How does this conditionality appear, become disclosed, revealed?] … this principle of conditionality — expressed both as interdependency and as emptiness. Empty of all intrinsic existence, empty of a given self …
Not clock time, …this bleed of atmospheric past and now... a time marked by other temporalities and durations …threshold between what was and what is now becoming blurred… Containment of attention holds open … regarding, not guarding, not re-guarding, not guarding again, against... a space for my attention, [My attention — yet it is not so much mine, not my, not me, as an arising through the interplay of so many things] holds back the distraction of other things. … Yet, what is at stake in the practice, the practising (together)? Being with, being there, remaining, staying, dwelling, being alongside. Co- as in co-agency, com-, co-, together, with, always interdependent … A feeling of suspension, of protection, of seclusion, [Necessary separation as a precondition for re-connection. To touch, to be in contact, contiguous, contingency, to be in touch, yet not to cross the line] of apartness, [A part-ness, a way-ness, a decentring, to the sides, indirect, oblique, not direct — circling, relaxing, releasing] … decentring of attention or decentring of the self as a precondition for focusing … ofa contained attention, [Containment creates the conditions for openness, for opening, containment as the holding of a space open, less that of closing it off from an outside] a cool attention. [Cool yet not cold, not distanced, not the cool of a supposed objective attention. Cool rather more like deep water, cool of shade and moon, lunar, murky]. Slowness — yet slowness is somehow not quite right. But still, a different rhythm …ephemeral constancy, circular time … [Stilling, centring. Slow temporal accumulation like leaf mould layering, sedimented] Slow transformations. [Like the rings on the trunk of a tree, expanding circular time, not linear]. No urgency, yes, no urgency. [Time expands in concentric circles, slowly, year on year, not progressing forward, no seizing of the next, next, next]. There is no hurry, which is not to say that there is nothing urgent [A slowness that is not linear, not based on velocity — a concentric slowness] … doubling back, folding, re-meeting, meeting again, differently, deep down, a slowness not of velocity but of re-turning. Re-ply, to fold again and again, over and to the sides. Re-ply, to fold or to be folded, re- again and again, slowness accumulating in re-turns, circular time, not clock time … My attention recalibrates to the attention of the trees [returning, again, again, over and over, not linear, not progressive, no telos]. Minute movements, dappling of light, insects hovering. Cool, slow, unhurried, green. [Unseen slowness, hovering — to hover, to suspend, to remain still and yet in constant movement. The movement of and in stillness, no future leaning. An un-space — undoing of hurry, of urgency, a letting go]. The trees take my words, [Wordless is not silence, not silent, but rather a sign-less speaking. A wordless murmuring in dialogue with the wind] my need to speak [releasing, letting go]. No need, no need to speak. Words — as discontinuity, words make breaks, separating the world into things] A thinking space, a thinking, a thinking differentiable from speaking, [Each word, a cut in the continuity of the unfolding, articulation perhaps, always separating into parts] from words. [So, towards murmuring then — to slur or murmur] … What alternatives to capture, to grasp? How to affirm an alternative, rather than only name that which we might best avoid? … Cool green attention — unhurried, wordless. [Blurring the borders of words — languaging as bleeds and overlaps, as seepage and softening] Unthinking attending, the release of that. [Relief, release, ease, sinking, disappearing]. Released attention, releasing. [No, not disappearing, rather contours dissolving. I am disappearing yet remaining as attention] Easy, no, not easy. Ease. Release. Released.
Guest — from the Old English gæst, giest: accidental, a chance comer, stranger. To guest in another’s research project and process; to guest in another’s enquiry. To visit, to dwell with for a while; yet temporarily, only for a time. To accept (provisionally) the invitation of one’s host. The invitation — to attend to the relation between ‘contingent agencies’ and ‘emergent atmosphere(s)’. More still — to notate how the agency of a specific named presence conditions the emergence of atmosphere. More still, to conceive and practise a form of notation that might provide re-entry or access (again and again) to the phenomenon under observation (the conditioning of emergent atmosphere by the agency of a specified presence). More still, to reengage with the notation in hope of accessing again the phenomenal relation of conditioning agencies and emergent atmospheres, thus enabling the possibility of reflection-with notation, a way of reflecting conceived to be still in touch or contact with the original experiential event (albeit mediated). More still, to test and develop tactics of showing [contingent assemblages of those artefacts — notations and reflections — emerging in and through this process] that might somehow enable others to gain experiential access to the phenomenal presences in question (albeit indirectly). Many layers. Many questions, so many arising questions. So many terms invoked, yet remaining still a little slippery, resistant to neat definition (in advance). Agency. Atmosphere. Conditions. Contingency. Notation. Phenomenon. Practices. Presences. Reflection. Showing. Tactics.[1]
What follows is my response to these interwoven research objectives, comprising distilled extracts of text generated through different practices of ‘live writing’ and ‘voicing observation’. These language-based research practices (combining notation and reflection) were activated in both immediate and mediated relation to the phenomenal unfolding of an ‘emergent atmosphere’ conditioned by various ‘contingent agencies’ — including light, sound, temperature, wind. This contribution consists of two interrelated parts: (Part 1) An online exposition: presenting the original artefacts conceived as time-based experimental assemblages comprising a simultaneity of unfolding texts (both voiced and typed), alongside other forms of visual notation – multimodal, polyfocal, polyvocal, non-linear, cyclical, looping. (Part 2) Published in this book here: textual fragments (transcribed and distilled from the original artefacts) are reworked for the page (whilst acknowledging the challenge, even compromise, therein), accompanied by further reflections, questions, wonderings, that have their origin in notes made during my various live encounters with Contingent Agencies (between May 2019 – October 2022).[2]