Feeling Through Screens: Developing "Sensory Awareness" for Sensing at a Distance during Medical Videoconsultations

Lupton & Maslen (2017) have highlighted the importance of examining the sensory aspects of clinical consultations using telemedicine devices. They have studied the entanglement of technology, bodies, affect, and sensory cues in clinical practice, emphasizing the role of these elements in supporting what they call "sensory work." During video consultations, physicians cannot use senses such as touch and smell and must learn new ways to perform the "sensory work" they need to examine patients: for example, by relying on what they can see and hear or by delegating some physical assessments to patients. The aim of this communication is to examine the way in which "sensory work" is performed during remote medical consultations. To this end, a multimodal interaction analysis of video recordings of clinical consultations will be conducted. This will be followed by allo-confrontation interviews with physicians to analyze how they adapt their clinical practices to perform remote physical examinations. This study's findings illustrate how physicians cultivate a "sensory awareness." This concept refers to their capacity to reflect on and adapt their practice in response to the range of possibilities and constraints that technology presents or imposes on sensory experiences during clinical interactions.

Keywords: sensory work, vidéoconsultation, sensory awareness, affordances, multumodal interaction analysis

Nicholas Bascuñan-Wiley ∆ (Sociology, Stony Brook University, USA)

A Digital Palate: Migration, Sensation, and Online Food Narratives

This study investigates how Chilean Palestinian chefs use Instagram to translate the proximate sensorial dimensions of their culinary practices into audiovisual formats for global audiences. Through vibrant photography, dynamic videos, and evocative textual narratives, these chefs attempt to digitally relay their dishes’ flavors, aromas, and textures. I explore how these online creators use visual cues such as vivid ingredient close-ups, rich textures of finished dishes, and rhythmic preparation sequences to simulate proximity and intimacy. Captions and storytelling further enrich the sensory experience, often blending culinary descriptions with personal and cultural narratives that anchor the cuisine in its Palestinian roots and Chilean influences. Central to this analysis is the chefs' ability to render the embodied act of cooking and eating into digital sensory performances, creating an affective connection with viewers despite the physical distance and symbolic separation. Drawing on 60 interviews, content analysis, and 18 months of sensory ethnography within the Palestinian foodscape in Chile, this study argues that these practices not only serve as effective advertising but also function as a form of cultural storytelling, creating a digital sensory experience that transcends physical boundaries. This research contributes to broader discussions on digital gastronomy, sensory ethnography, and the role of online platforms in diasporic foodways.
Keywords: Food, Diaspora, Migration, Digital, Sensation

Rikke Munck Petersen ∆ and Hongxia Pu ∆ (Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
Sensitive Environmental Attunement Through Direct Engagement with Sensory Transitions Between Layered Screens

This paper explores sensory transitions linked to cinematic and analog afterimages in ‘Echoes’, a collaborative research exhibition intersecting the themes geography of the senses; architecture and the senses; multisensory design. The interplay between three digital screens and three double-layered silk prints creates a sensory environment encouraging viewers to engage with and re-read landscapes—transformation of riverine environments in Denmark and China —their complex cultural, geographical, and ecological water- and soil narratives—and the emergence of sensorial affects in the action of motion. In the cinematic montages, slowing down and fading from one footage into the next allows a trace from the first to blend with the next, creating afterimages that allows new imaginations of the landscapes to emerge. The silk prints, derived from film stills and afterimages, act as tactile and visual filters, freezing and merging specific time periods, regions, and water-soil materialities. Visitors have described these afterimages as moments where they could see the past, present, and future in unison, thus connecting viewers directly with time, material, and sensory transitions. This paper qualifies how the digital/analog multimedia format decelerates the sensory experience of landscapes, emphasizing normally hidden sensory and tactile transitions. Moreover, the combination of sensory filmic immersion with the tactile presence of the silk prints allows one's body to coexist within the environment (landscapes and exhibition), ultimately extending touch beyond time, sight, and sound, fostering sensitive attunement to environmental transformations.

Keywords: Environmental Attunement, Experimental Filmmaking, Sensory Transitions, Cinematic Afterimages, Multimedia Analog.