Material Culture for Sensibility in the Private Environment

This chapter deals with artefacts aimed at the senses that were popularised as part of an incipient mass culture to be consumed in the everyday intimacy of the domestic space. It covers optical and sound objects. There are two reasons for addressing these types of objects in this chapter. First, the aim is to contribute to de-assigning them to a single sensory domain, from which they have commonly been studied, whether it is sight or hearing. Indeed, many of them have a certain technological sophistication. In this respect, I am interested in exploring aspects related to their materiality, to their physical dimension as artefacts that require manipulation, beyond their consideration as objects to be seen or heard. The aim is to contribute to the thesis that sensory organs never function autonomously and independently. I will also argue that the devices we will see in this chapter contributed to the training of the senses in their everyday use, not only sight and hearing, but also touch, and their relationship with each other.