Glove and Touch Studies

By Kerstin Kraft, Susanne Schmitt, Regina Lösel, Laurie Young and Andrea Keiz

This 14 minute film is part of the research project “Dresses in Motion: An Object-Based Examination of Clothing as a Reconstruction of Movement in the Textile Form,” which received funding from the VolkswagenStiftung conducted from 2015 to 2021. During the project, we held transdisciplinary workshops focusing on object-based research. To share our insights and experiences while considering the pandemic’s limitations, we chose video calls as the research medium. We collaborated with a videographer to document the process by producing a film designed and realized as a methodological experiment.

Initially, we experimented with the medium of film, with the inherent distance and simultaneous intimacy of virtual workshops held via Zoom. The selection of the research object was significantly influenced by the research format. The pandemic forced us to completely rethink our research concept and approach. Originally, we planned to use the museum archive to generate expansive movements related to the site’s spatiality. However, the pandemic forced us to downsize these movements to make them suitable for the space between the desk and the mobile phone holder.

In order to be able to show more than just garment details, we chose an item of clothing that was small, easily accessible to everyone, and commonly found in households.

The choice came down to the glove (the German word “Handschuh” combines the body part “hand” with the word “shoe,” which derives etymologically from “barn”). The manageable, ready-at-hand, and easily available became the focus of the inquiry (in German, these terms all contain the word “hand”), and as we dealt with the clothing of the hands, the originally expansive body movements we had imagined prior to the pandemic were now reduced to hand movements and gestures. We sent each other “gloveboxes” containing different types of gloves and wrapping materials, filmed the unboxing, researched cultural studies literature, exchanged ideas via video call, conducted simultaneous movement exercises on-screen, and developed approaches informed by our individual practices.

https://www.fashionstudies.ca/a-short-introduction-to-glove-and-touch-studies

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