Searching for ways to trace this subtle space where the body and its surroundings co-enact invisible reality, I turned to practices that bypass the analytical mind, opening a direct path to subconscious and somatic processes.


However, translating these metaphysical insights into a readable language requires a synthesis of specific scientific and philosophical fields. To bridge the gap between raw physical experience and scientific perspective, my investigation built a theoretical scaffolding across these parallel paths:

Affect is widely understood as a subtle, pre-rational impulse — a non-conscious intensity that moves through the body. Emotions, for the most part, can be articulated; affect usually cannot. It lives in the body.

Affect vs. Emotion

Atmosphere acts as a mediator between the objective qualities of a space and the subjective experience of it, giving the environment a sensuous hue. It unfolds between bodies and space, rather than as the fixed result of architectural design.

Atmosphere

Drawing from Guy Debord, psychogeography examines the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment on the emotions and behavior of individuals

Psychogeography

Grounded in Phenomenology, the body is revealed as our way of being in the world. Cognition is an enactive process: perception is a matter of participating in the world through embodied action.

Embodied Perception

The moment I felt a sensory shift in my body (changes in breath, pulse, sight etc.), I would stop and allow an impulse to move into the hand, initiating automatic drawing "blindly" — without visual control over the page. This practice aimed to bypass mental filters and access pre-rational, bodily impulses before they were conceptualized by the mind.

Guided by the current of attention, I carried out a series of intuitive routes (dérive) without predetermined goals, allowing the body to become the navigator.

Following the drawing, the upper wave of the affect was captured in the form of automatic writing — a stream of random phrases or words.

After these automatic practices came a visual rationalisation through performative, fragmented photography. I would look around and compose a close-up shot, extract details from the surrounding background to document the context.

The outcome took an unexpected turn.
Comparing the drawings resulting from these two cities, I captured a stark difference in the character of the lines. In Haarlem, my hand produced a nervous, chaotic pulsation of movement. In Tbilisi, on the other hand, the line was fluid, dancing in a soft organic order.

My body reflected a fluid order in a chaotic environment and a nervous pulsation in an elaborated design.

Was it the mind state in the moment that created this shift, or an inherent inclination to a specific character of space?

In an attempt to find an answer, I realised that I was born and raised in a surrounding similar to what Tbilisi carries. Intuitively, I respond to a decayed wall and an odd garbage composition rather than to beautiful gardens and a decent flow of mossy bricks. Between these two cities, it is Haarlem that is an alien to me, even though I derive pure pleasure from absorbing its harmony.

To verify the accuracy of this assumption, a repeated journey through similar spaces is going to be held.

I conducted the developed methodology in two very different cities: Haarlem and Tbilisi. The former is a deliberately designed city with unified architecture and carefully maintained streets. The latter — beautifully raw, with naturally decayed facades and a chaotically composed urban exterior.

The question was whether the surrounding environment is the element that alters the inner response, or if it is solely the internal design of our attention that creates an immutable receptive pattern? Or perhaps the very space in between them is the container that mixes them into a new, unique order?

This question invites a multilayered, large-scale research to trace tendencies among diverse participants. However, I have taken a small step forward to discover the underlying mechanics of our interaction with space.

This project laid the foundation for my journey into the depths of preconscious experience in the everyday environment. It is a complex and exciting exploration of the point where the unconscious and the tangible collide — where the journey itself becomes the purpose.