Curtin University Homepage
  • Library
  • Help
    • Admin

    espace - Curtin’s institutional repository

    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.
    View Item 
    • espace Home
    • espace
    • Curtin Research Publications
    • View Item
    • espace Home
    • espace
    • Curtin Research Publications
    • View Item

    Screen as Skin: The Somatechnics of Touchscreen Music Media

    Access Status
    Fulltext not available
    Authors
    Glitsos, Laura
    Date
    2017
    Type
    Journal Article
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citation
    Glitsos, L. 2017. Screen as Skin: The Somatechnics of Touchscreen Music Media. Somatechnics. 7 (1): pp. 142-165.
    Source Title
    Somatechnics
    DOI
    10.3366/soma.2017.0210
    Additional URLs
    http://www.euppublishing.com/journals
    ISSN
    2044-0138
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/61248
    Collection
    • Curtin Research Publications
    Abstract

    In this article I explore the way mobile music devices with touchscreen technology produce new somatechnical figurations that reshape emotional dynamics of music listening. Using research drawn from a cyberethnography of online users from Reddit.com, I argue that the changing relationships between the human-computer interface result in new affective schemas that expand and reconfigure how it feels to listen to music in a mobile setting. In particular, I focus on skin-on-screen contact in order to suggest that the screen acts as a reflexive surface producing intimate relations for the mobile listener. Touchscreens imply the relationship between skin on skin—the skin of our body (in particular the hands) against the skin of the screen. It follows that mobile touchscreen devices suggest a degree of sensuality—in the coming together of bodies, fluids and other organic materials which ‘stick’ to the touchscreen. Reading the mobile touchscreen player as a somatechnical figuration therefore suggests that the listening experience is developing along with the technologies that mediate music to the body in ways that continue to challenge our understanding of bodily borders and in ways that redefine what it means to feel the music. Therefore, the touchscreen-skin is a critical site of affective relations that dramatically reshape what it means to listening to music in a mobile setting; a private and intimate encounter between the user and their counterpart.

    Related items

    Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

    • Uses of music in everyday life
      North, Adrian; Hargreaves, David; Hargreaves, J. (2004)
      The value of music in people’s everyday lives depends on the uses they make of it and the degree to which they engage with it, which are in turn dependent on the contexts in which they hear it. Very few studies have ...
    • Music-listening in everyday life: Devices and choice
      Krause, Amanda; North, Adrian; Hewitt, Lauren (2015)
      Utilizing the Experience Sampling Method, this research investigated how individuals encounter music in everyday life. Responding to two text messages sent at random times between 8:00 and 23:00 daily for one week, 177 ...
    • Tactile input features of hardware: Cognitive processing in relation to digital device
      Johnson, Genevieve (2013)
      Three relatively distinct types of devices have characterized the digital revolution; 1) the personal computer of the 1990s, 2) the mobile phone in the first decade of the new millennium and, most recently, 3) the tablet ...
    Advanced search

    Browse

    Communities & CollectionsIssue DateAuthorTitleSubjectDocument TypeThis CollectionIssue DateAuthorTitleSubjectDocument Type

    My Account

    Admin

    Statistics

    Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

    Follow Curtin

    • 
    • 
    • 
    • 
    • 

    CRICOS Provider Code: 00301JABN: 99 143 842 569TEQSA: PRV12158

    Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy statement | Accessibility

    Curtin would like to pay respect to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members of our community by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which the Perth campus is located, the Whadjuk people of the Nyungar Nation; and on our Kalgoorlie campus, the Wongutha people of the North-Eastern Goldfields.