ON THERMICITY.TECHNOCULTURES, SUBJECTIVITIES, AND ELEMENTAL AESTHETICS

This work offers a pioneering exploration of the aesthetic dimension of heat, examining how the thermal domain—traditionally mediated by technoscientific practices and devices—is experienced, made visible, and conceptualized. The epistemic reduction of heat to temperature measurement has historically marginalized the role of perception, cultural practices, and imaginaries in the understanding of thermal phenomena. Through a critical engagement with the history of thermometry, this research introduces the concept of thermicity as a theoretical framework that acknowledges the co-existence of aesthetic, experiential, medial, and cultural dimensions of heat. By analyzing historical phenomenotechnics such as the thermoscope and contemporary devices like infrared thermography, the study investigates the retroactive effects of these media on the formation of thermoceptive subjectivities. The work demonstrates that the experience of heat is not a simple sensory datum, but rather a performative and transformative field in which bodies, environments, technologies, and imaginaries are interwoven. The goal is to lay the groundwork for an aesthetics of thermicity that values the lived and situated dimension of thermal phenomena, fostering a critical awareness of the mediations that shape our relationship with the atmospheric world.