2019/2 — #Gesture

Browsing 2019/2 — #Gesture by Subject "Bildschirm"

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  • Article
    Selfie-screen-sphere: Examining the selfie as a complex, embodying gesture
    Berkland, Darren (2019) , S. 263-283
    This article posits that the selfie is a screenic gesture which allows individuals to embody themselves within what Vivian Sobchack calls the ‘screen-sphere’: a reformulation of our definition of the screen which accounts for the ubiquity and mobility of contemporary screens that can no longer be regarded as an ‘“array” of discrete artefacts’ but instead regarded ‘as a structural and functional collectivity’. While Sobchack claims that our ‘lived-bodies cannot physically dwell in this new spatiality without special technologies’ such as VR equipment, I believe that the set of complex gestures which result in the selfie allow, in fact, for a type of embodied existence within the screen-sphere. In particular, it is grasping the device and viewing oneself in its ‘digital mirror’ that results in this complex gestural moment. I am following Flusser in my definition of gesture; that is, a production of meaning that is contained in some practised performance: a symbolic movement that at once both expresses and articulates meaning. I will draw upon Bo Burnham’s film EIGHTH GRADE (2017) to provide an example of how this gestural relationship develops within the screen-sphere, in which a young protagonist engages with a variety of ‘screenic’ surfaces. Closely examining the main character’s selfie process, I will, first, reformulate Sobchack’s screen-sphere as a screenic topology that accounts for how screens arrange space; second, I will examine how gestural movements emerge within this topology; and finally, I will examine the role of the digital mirror, and how looking into the device consolidates this gesture.
  • Article
    Touchscreens, tactility, and material traces: From avant-garde artists to Instagram ASMRtists
    O’Meara, Jennifer (2019) , S. 235-262
    This article identifies and historicises gestural trends in ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) videos on the social media site Instagram, where media objects foregrounding touch and texture are shared via specialist accounts and hashtags such as #satisfyingvideos and #slimeasmr. While much of the initial scholarship on ASMR culture has focused on understanding the psychological and physiological aspects of ASMR (a tingly bodily sensation triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli), I instead explore the visual aesthetics of hand-focused ASMR videos in relation to theories of haptic visuality and the touchscreen. In particular, the article historicises the filming of dexterous hands that interact with subjects like soap, slime, and paint in relation to practices of avant-garde film and women’s decorative arts, examining how these diverse media forms can all represent traces of the creator’s hand in the work itself. In considering, for example, Stan Brakhage’s hand-painted films and Mary Ellen Bute’s use of the oscilloscope as a proto-touchscreen device, I aim to reveal how both avant-garde artists and so-called ‘ASMRtists’ can channel the mediums and platforms of their times towards distinctly tactile kinds of audiovisual experiences. I argue that since Instagram’s ASMR videos are typically activated using a finger on a touchscreen then the anonymous surrogate hands contained within can allow for a vicarious kind of tactile pleasure, one that can lead to distinctly digital forms of sensory stimulation.