The haptic nature of gesture: Rethinking gesture with new multitouch digital technologies

Sinclair, N and De Freitas, E (2014) The haptic nature of gesture: Rethinking gesture with new multitouch digital technologies. Gesture, 14 (3). pp. 351-374. ISSN 1568-1475

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Abstract

© John Benjamins Publishing Company. This paper is about re-thinking gesture in order to reckon with its material and haptic nature, especially in the current multitouch technology environment. This re-thinking of gesture returns to the principle of indexicality found in Peirce's material semiotics, and develops this principle through the work of Gilles Châtelet and Gilles Deleuze around hand-eye relationships. Drawing on the work of Jürgen Streek, we propose and discuss the notion of the tangible gesture, in the context of mathematical explorations of young children with a multitouch iPad environment designed to promote counting on and with the fingers.