The relational ontology of mobile touchscreens and the body: Ambient proprioception and risk during COVID-19

Abstract

In this article, we explore the tension between the significance of touch as a vital sensory modality of human experience and how, with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, proximity and (tactile) intimacy with other bodies in urban and domestic spaces becomes fraught with the risk of viral contagion. Informed by haptic media studies, the corporeal or sensory turn in contemporary theory, and phenomenology-informed mobile media studies, we examine the possible impacts for mobile device use of the risks of viral contagion associated with our routinized uses of haptic interfaces. We also examine the role and possibility of mobile haptics and the touchscreen in these contexts, and our capacity—via embodied and material metaphor—to extend corporeal reach through the mobile interface. Our contention is that, while the “stand in” for touch that mobile media offers may be perpetually incomplete, the “as-if” structure of habitual experience can play a significant role in narrowing the sensorial gap.

Keywords

Mobile touchscreens COVID-19 relational ontology skin hunger touch mediated touch “as if” structure of perception

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