Ambient Media: Japanese Atmospheres of Self

Ambient Media examines music, video art, film, and literature as tools of atmospheric design in contemporary Japan. Paul Roquet traces the emergence of ambient styles from the environmental music and Erik Satie boom of the 1960s and 1970s to the more recent therapeutic emphasis on healing and relaxation to make a case for portraying ambient media as a neoliberal response to older modes of collective harmony.