In my hands : holding the digital.

• Main Author: Tan, Wei Zheng.
• Other Authors: Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Mass media::Media studies; DRNTU::Humanities::Philosophy; DRNTU::Social sciences::Communication::Visual communication; DRNTU::Social sciences::Communication::Visual literacy; DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology::Phenomenology; DRNTU::Social sciences::Mass media::Media effects
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51502
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

I hold an iPad in my hands. The act of holding an object with my hands can be described as an event where one body touches another. That is the simplest way one can articulate the interaction between my hands and the object. This paper aims to be a philosophical treatise on the phenomenology of touch in electronic and digital media devices. While the paper does examine gaming on the iPad and other electronic devices, the purpose of the paper is not to delve into ludology or the cultural issues surrounding gaming and electronic or digital media. Rather, the paper would explore the relationship between the lived-body and the electronic and digital "body". This is through using Vivian Sobchack's work in Carnal Thoughts as a springboard, paying special attention to how embodiment can be extended to digital spaces — understood as "imaginal” spaces (Lambert, 2011) — and electronic devices. Focus will be placed how this embodied "technosomatic involvement" — Ingrid Richardson's term (Richardson, 2010) — is changed when we interact with electronic and digital artifacts through the interface of the touch-screen device, using the iPad as the vehicle to discuss the phenomenology of such interactions.