Manual Manuals

Abstract

Reading is a manual activity. The touch hands are everpresent: holding, turning, pointing, scrolling, clicking and scribbling are physical practices that engross people in the printed word. The project "AIME Tiles" began by thinking about how systems of ideas can be translated into hybrid physical-concept tools. Further, the project attempts to resituate the scholarly activity of reading as a practice with its own material culture and media affordances. AIME Tiles, their design intent and construction are described as a modest sketch of tactile tools for scholarship-game pieces for playing with ideas while reading.