Can a book work as a Blicklabor?
This publication brings together diverse perspectives and approaches to interrogate the widespread contention that increasing digitalization in childhood leads to tactile deprivation. The authors describe sensory practices in early childhood as media practices in which skin and screens, eyes and ears interact synergistically to bring forth sensorial events. The publication is built around 10 short films featuring touch. The combination of texts and films explores interrelationships between embodiment, materiality, and virtuality in digital childhoods. As a Blicklabor in the form of a book with films, the publication incites reader-viewers not only to explore diverse examples and seek for further cases of touch but also to imagine further possible views on touch.
Distribution via LIT Verlag
Reader’s comment
“Touch is the oldest sense and the first to develop in children; touch is a vital medium for human interaction. Nevertheless, tactile communication is still under-researched. This extraordinary book takes us directly into the tactile world of young children and thus into the world of new, electronic media. The authors open up this world through a unique combination of highly accomplished, considered video recordings, fine-grained analyses and new forms of presentation. At the same time, they have reinvented the book: QR codes bring each scene to the readers’ phone screen in a matter of seconds and allow them to participate in the research themselves.”
Jürgen Streeck, The University of Texas at Austin (USA)