Touched Matter: material explorative approaches to investigate tactile relationships with responsive materiality

The associated thesis explores the mundane nature of tactile relationships with touchscreens, focusing on their material qualities through experimental approaches. The research addresses the question: What do we touch daily that is responsive to our touch? In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the study examines the significance and physicality of touchscreens and other responsive materials, including conductive threads, to understand their impact on tactile interaction. The pandemic's restrictions on physical interactions highlight the changing nature of tactile engagements, as well as the risks associated with contamination through touch and mundane contact with touchscreens. The research is a practice-led inquiry concerning the tactile relationship between skin and touchscreens.Through material interventions and explorations in gallery and workshop settings, the thesis examines the interactions between the body and touchscreen as an embodied encounter . Moving beyond the user-device relationship, the study is framed by the concept of 'intra-action,' which is explored through practice-led methodologies. The study focuses on the residual traces left on touchscreens, considering them as not merely passive objects, but as active participants. This research adopts a New Materialist perspective, where the touchscreen is viewed as a material agent, and the person is seen as a nervous, responsive matter, in physiological and philosophical terms. The research contributes to understanding the tactile relationship with technology by identifying four key themes—Conductive, Broken, Wet/Soft, and Cared—that emerge from material explorations. These themes convey the diversity of encounters between the body and touchscreen, prompting a reconsideration of the everyday tactile engagements we have with responsive technologies. This work makes an original contribution to knowledge by examining the sensory and material dimensions of touch in relation to the materiality of e-waste, thereby expanding the discourse on embodied interaction with technology at the intersection of Art practice and Neurophilosophy.

本关联论文以触摸屏与触觉的日常关联本质为研究对象，通过实验性方法聚焦其材料属性。本研究旨在解答这一问题：我们日常所触碰的、可响应触觉的事物究竟为何？在新冠疫情（COVID-19）背景下，本研究针对触摸屏及包括导电丝线在内的其他响应性材料的重要性与物理属性展开探讨，以明晰其对触觉交互的影响。疫情对实体互动的限制，凸显了触觉参与方式的演变，以及通过触碰与日常接触触摸屏所带来的污染风险。本研究属于以实践为导向的探究，聚焦皮肤与触摸屏之间的触觉关联。通过在画廊与工作坊场景中开展的材料介入与探索，本论文将身体与触摸屏的互动视为一种具身相遇展开研究。本研究突破了用户-设备关系的框架，以“内互动（intra-action）”概念为研究范式，并通过以实践为导向的方法论展开探索。本研究聚焦触摸屏上留存的残迹，将其视作并非被动的物体，而是主动的参与方。本研究采用新物质主义（New Materialist）视角：从生理学与哲学维度来看，触摸屏被视为一种物质性能动者，而人类则被视作具有神经活动与响应性的物质。本研究通过梳理材料探索中衍生出的四大核心主题——导电型、破损型、湿润/柔软型与照料型——，深化了人们对技术触觉关联的认知。这些主题展现了身体与触摸屏之间相遇场景的多样性，促使我们重新审视日常中与响应性技术之间的触觉参与行为。本研究通过探讨触觉的感官与材料维度与电子垃圾（e-waste）物质性之间的关联，为相关知识体系做出了原创性贡献，进而拓展了艺术实践与神经哲学（Neurophilosophy）交叉领域中关于技术具身交互的学术话语。