Sensory Ethnography: Major senses

These are the major senses and the way they are stimulated by the three activities I have chosen:

1. Putting on my jacket

smell: cotton and polyester, faint iron from buttons

Touch: jaggedy zips, furry cotton interior, slippery internal sleeve, hands freed afterwards, encased and safe, neck rubbed by collar: no other clothes do this in the same way, it’s warmer, arm gets caught at armpit, seam of cuff just on your palm

Sight: large, present, masculine shaped torso

Sound: zips, sounds of cotton rubbing against itself, clicking and slight jingling of buttons, flapping fabric, popping sound when jacket is pulled tight (similar to flapping fabric)


2. Picking up and using my Playstation controller

smell: like nothing

Touch: Thumbs bumping together and slipping off the analogue stick, resistance when the button is all the way in, palms sticking to controller, buttons wobbling when you bump (not press) them

Sight: like coloured plastic – paint has metallic stuff in it to look shiny, dust in groves but only places that don’t have contact with hands (around the outside of the analogue sticks, down the side of the triggers), grime building up in the cracks around the palm grip, blue dust around the base of the analogue stick,

sounds: like clicking, sliding, popping, hollowness of plastic


3. Sitting in one of the bean bags on the fourth floor

 smell:poliester, mild BO and junkfood (wether this is from the beanbags themselves or the rest of the room is unknown)

Touch: the bag itself is moulded to your body, holding everything from your thighs to your upper back in a way that your body just naturally fits into. the fabric is on the finer side of corse, its not unpleasant by any stretch of the imagination but you wouldn't want a blanket made of it. The seams are trimmed by a black cord. you can feel all of the indevidual beens when you move but otherwise it is a seemless pressure, a seemless surface.

Sight: a large grey blob with black trim, shapped almost like a puffy chair by the dozens of bodies that have used it

Sound: Beans moving inside the bag when you move, dull thud when your back hits the inside back of the bag. the sound of poliester rubbing against poliester when you move and make one bag rub against another.