Article published in:
Interacting with Objects: Language, materiality, and social activity
Edited by Maurice Nevile, Pentti Haddington, Trine Heinemann and Mirka Rauniomaa
[Not in series 186] 2014
► pp. 295–318

Artworks as touchable objects

Guiding perception in a museum tour for blind people

| ICAR Research Lab, ENS Lyon
| ICAR Research Lab | Centre Jacques Berque (CNRS-MAE)
In this chapter we contribute to the description of the interactional accomplishment of object use, by raising the following question “what kind of objects are artworks?”, and consequently, “what kind of interactional practices do they configure?”. By focusing on video-analysis of a guided tour for visually impaired persons (VIPs) allowed to touch artworks, we propose a praxeological analysis of situated procedures of artworks’ formulation and palpation, opening on a reflection on aesthetic touch – both about the way it is reflexively accomplished and the way tactile experience is collectively and sequentially organised in interaction.
Published online: 12 September 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.186.13kre
References
Cekaite, A.
(2010) Shepherding the child: Embodied directive sequences in parent-child interactions. Text & Talk, 30(1), 1–25. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cometti, J.-P.
(2000) Art, modes d’emploi. Esquisses d’une philosophie de l’usage. [Art, user’s guide: Outline of a philosophy of use]Bruxelles: La Lettre Volée.Google Scholar
Conein, B.
(1997) L’action avec les objets: un autre visage de l’action située? [Action with objects: Another face of situated action?] Raisons Pratiques, 8, 25–46.Google Scholar
De Fornel, M.
(1993) Faire parler les objets. Perception, manipulation et qualification des objets dans l’enquête policière. [Make the objects talk. Perception, handling and qualification of objects in police investigation] Raisons Pratiques, 4, 241–265.Google Scholar
De Stefani, E.
(2010) Reference as an interactively and multimodally accomplished practice: Organizing spatial reorientation in guided tours. In M. Pettorino, A. Giannini, I. Chiari, & F. Dovetto (Eds.), Spoken communication between symbolics and deixis (pp. 137–170). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Deppermann, A.
(2011) The study of formulations as a key to an interactional semantics. Human Studies, 34(2), 115–128. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dewey, J.
(1980 [1934]) Art as experience. New York: Perigee Books.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, H.
(2002) Ethnomethodology’s program: Working out Durkeim’s aphorism. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Gibson, J.J.
(1986 [1979]) The ecological approach to visual perception. New York: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Goodman, N.
(1976) Languages of art. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Heath, C., & vom Lehn, D.
(2004) Configuring reception. (Dis-)Regarding the ‘spectator’ in museums and galleries. Theory, Culture and Society, 21(6), 43–65. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Keevallik, L.
(2010) Bodily quoting in dance correction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 43(4), 401–426. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kendon, A.
(1990) Conducting interaction: Patterns of behavior in focused encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(2004) Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
LeBaron, C., & Streeck, J.
(2000) Gesture, knowledge, and the world. In D. McNeill (Ed.), Review of language and gesture: Window into thought and action (pp. 118–138). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lindwall, O., & Ekström, A.
(2012) Instruction-in-interaction: The teaching and learning of a manual skill. Human Studies, 35, 27–49. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Martin, C., & Sahlström, F.
(2010) Learning as longitudinal interactional change: From other-repair to self-repair in physiotherapy treatment. Discourse Processes, 47, 668–697. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McNeill, D.
(1992) Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: The Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Mead, G.H.
(1932) The physical thing. In The philosophy of the present (pp. 119–139). LaSalle: Open Court.Google Scholar
Mondada, L.
(2007) Transcript variations and the indexicality of transcribing practices. Discourse Studies, 9, 809–821. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2009) The embodied and negotiated production of assessments in instructed actions. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 42(4), 329–361. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Napier, J.
(1980) Hands. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Nishizaka, A.
(2007) Hand touching hand: Referential practice at a Japanese midwife house. Human Studies, 30(3), 199–217. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2011) Touch without vision: Referential practice in a non-technological environment. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 504–520. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pitsch, K.
(2012) Exponat - Alltagsgegenstand - Turngerät. Zur interaktiven Konstitution von Objekten in einer Museumsausstellung. [Exhibition object – Everyday object – Turntaking device. On the interactional constitution of objects in a museum exhibition] In H. Hausendorf, L. Mondada, & R. Schmitt (Eds.), Raum als interaktive Resource [Space as an interactional resource] (pp. 233–273). Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Psathas, G.
(1976) Mobility, orientation and navigation: Conceptual and theoretical considerations. New Outlook for the Blind, 9, 385–391.Google Scholar
(1992) The study of extended sequences: The case of the garden lesson. In G. Watson, & R.M. Seiler (Eds.), Text in context: Contributions to ethnomethodology (pp. 99–122). Newbury Park: Sage.Google Scholar
Quéré, L.
(1999) Action située et perception du sens. [Situated action and the perception of meaning] Raisons Pratiques, 10, 301–338.Google Scholar
Relieu, M.
(1994) Les catégories dans l’action. L’apprentissage des traversées par des élèves non-voyants. [Categories in action. Learning to cross a road for visually impaired persons] RaisonsPratiques, 5, 185–218.Google Scholar
Sharrock W., & Coulter J.
(1998) On what we can see. Theory & Psychology, 8(2), 147–164. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Streeck, J.
(2003) The body taken for granted: Lingering dualism in research on social interaction. In P. Glenn, C.D. LeBaron & J. Mandelbaum (Eds.), Studies in language and social interaction: In honor of Robert Hopper (pp. 427–440). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
(2009) Gesturecraft: The manu-facture of meaning. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
vom Lehn, D.
(2010) Discovering “experience-ables”: Socially including visually impaired people in art museums. Journal of Marketing Management, 26(7–8), 764–769. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wollheim, R.
(1992) Art and its objects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Due, Brian & Simon Bierring Lange
2018. The Moses Effect: The Spatial Hierarchy and Joint Accomplishment of a Blind Person Navigating. Space and Culture 21:2 ► pp. 129 ff. Crossref logo
Due, Brian L.
2021. Distributed Perception: Co‐Operation between Sense‐Able, Actionable, and Accountable Semiotic Agents. Symbolic Interaction 44:1 ► pp. 134 ff. Crossref logo
Kobyshcha, Varvara
2018. How Does an Aesthetic Object Happen? Emergence, Disappearance, Multiplicity. Cultural Sociology 12:4 ► pp. 478 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 october 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.