The Bundle Explorer: Touch is the prototype of a praxeological research platform for studying situated practices. Its conceptualization draws upon Wittgenstein’s work and his method of grammatical investigation. With its pool of diverse filmic ‘prepared specimens’ from the research project Early Childhood and Smartphone, the tool facilitates a comparative, probing, and contouring procedure that opens up new perspectives on touch practices in digital everyday life. This working paper recounts the context and process of the Bundle Explorer’s development, and outlines how to work with it. Considering grammatical investigation (Wittgenstein), praxeological bundle theory (drawing on Schatzki), and camera ethnography alongside one another, the paper develops methodological proposals for ways to address the following questions: How can a language-game analysis be deployed to study nonverbal practices, and how can bundle theory serve to discern how practices are situated? How can we bring Schatzki’s flat ontology together with Wittgensteinian thought, and to what extent can Wittgenstein’s übersichtliche Darstellung be seen as an experimental field that transcends medial and cultural boundaries? How could presentational grammar work? In this paper, the term ‘touch’ stands as a proxy for changing semantic fields in changing lifeworlds.

About the author

Bina Elisabeth Mohn (Ph.D., Berlin) is a cultural anthropologist and founder of camera ethnography, a cinematic research approach that aims to make epistemic things visible. Her work focuses on nonverbal practices and (media) ethnographic methodology. As a researcher, she has been involved in the SFB Media of Cooperation from 2016 to 2023. In 2023, her book Camera Ethnography: Ethnographic Research in the Mode of Showing: Programmatics and Practice was published. Bina Elisabeth Mohn was a project team member for Project B05 until the end of 2023.

About the Working Paper Series

The Working Paper Series of SFB 1187 “Media of Cooperation” brings together current contributions from the field of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary media research. The SFB Working Paper Series offers the opportunity for pre-publication and rapid dissemination of research work currently being carried out at the SFB or related to it. The aim of the series is to make SFB research accessible to a broader research community. Publication in the Working Paper Series does not preclude the publication of revised versions of the same contribution in other journals. Contributions from postdocs and established researchers are welcome. The series is intended as a publication forum for the researchers represented in the SFB, their projects, and their ongoing research. Contributions are published in open access and in a limited print edition. If you would like to publish an article in the Working Paper Series, please submit your topic proposal in the form of an abstract (max. 300 words) together with a short CV (max. 50 words). For manuscript submission, please refer to our styleguide.

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) – Project number 262513311 – SFB 1187. Editorial responsibility: Karina Kirsten, University of Siegen & SFB 1187 Media of Cooperation.