Atmospheres of Privacy

This chapter offers a reflection on how privacy can be theorized as a distinct form of sphere, namely an atmosphere. Drawing on perspectives from phenomenology and aesthetics, ‘Atmospheres of privacy’ provides a conceptual framework for exploring the embodied and felt experience of privacy in everyday lived spaces. The chapter discusses two cases from contemporary surveillance culture in which domestic privacy is at stake: a series of deeply voyeuristic images taken by the artist Arne Svenson of his neighbours in their apartments in a glass building, and Lighthouse, an AI-enabled home surveillance assistant which provides remote access to the smart home and its inhabitants through the user’s smartphone. The chapter offers key insights into how the spatial boundaries of the home are dissolving in new ways, and how thinking about privacy as an atmosphere directs our attention to how one feels in an environment – and thus to the transformation of the experience of the home as a privacy space in the 21st century.