Page - 20 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/02

20 | Mirko Roth www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/2, 17–35 of perception”, a cityscape consists of, among other things, a climatological- geographical space, an infrastructure shaped by social norms with differently coded control systems and a typical architecture that channels the people with their perceptions and moves vehicles and goods. this “space of perception” is additionally coded with identifiable sounds that form specific soundscapes and with a particular urban smell. these features interplay with climatological fac- tors such as temperature, air pressure and humidity, which leave their imprint on the scene and colour how it is perceived. “spaces of perception” are thus, with their original environment patterns and unique aesthetics, culturally highly specific. They emerge as a response to and as management of the lived environment, helping make sense of it and enabling orientation within it and in communication with other members of a group in a given climatological, geographical, economic and socio-historical context. these multidimensional and variously mediated complexes of sym- bolic systems leave their imprint on the human being: on the one hand, these different “spaces of perception” are internalised with all the senses in various phases of socialisation so that the individual literally embodies them. Likewise, this socialised group member internalises these symbolic systems cognitively in their dimensions of meaning, which in turn become patterns for interpretation. Cultural and milieu-specific patterns of perception and perceptual habitus are thereby created, to which emotions are also subject. Human beings thus inhabit the most diverse of “spaces of perception” and encounter them with all their senses; they can orient intuitively, emotionally and cognitively in them and in doing so together with other group members can change them continuously. the religious aesthetic structuring of environments by individual religions and religious currents creates, in turn, “spaces of perception” by means of their own communicative and educational institutions, each with its own specific me- dia. in this way the awareness, perceptions, movements, emotions and inter- pretations of religious actors can be channelled. it should be noted here that religious actors in what is superficially one and the same religion experience quite different “spaces of perception” depending on historical period, cultural context, social milieu, family tradition and so on; the imprint of the religion on the respective religious actor is thus quite different as well. For this reason and against this background, I see one plausible objective of religious studies research to be the reconstruction of such “spaces of percep- tion” and of the four-dimensional symbolic complexes that constitute them in their material, medial, performative and receptive-aesthetic aspects as discur- sively and dialectically conventionalised and reconfigured by the members of the group.5 5 Cf. Geertz 1987, 9; Rüpke 2007, 35–43; Waardenburg 1986, 30–32. Gladigow (1988, 33) saw the purpose of religious studies research to be the reconstruction of culturally and religion-specific interpretation,