Fanology: Hand-fans in the prehistory of mobile devices. (September 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Davies, Hugh
• Other Names: Frith Jordan guest-editor.; Özkul Didem guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Mobile media & communication. Volume 7:Number 3(2019)
• Page Start: 303
• Page End: 321
• Publication Date: 2019-09
• Subjects: hand fan -- handheld devices -- haptic -- media archeology -- media history -- mobile phone -- optic -- portable devices; Mobile communication systems -- Periodicals; 384.53
• DOI: 10.1177/2050157919846181
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2050-1579

Abstract

In the prehistory of mobile devices, the hand-fan plays a crucial role. Extending well beyond use as an air-conditioning tool, the hand-fan has evolved across centuries and cultures to become a portable screen, a game console, an artistic medium, and an elaborate communication device. Drawing on the scholarly, literary, and art history of hand-fans in North Asian and European contexts, this paper excavates a deep history of hand-fans and connects them to contemporary mobile communication devices. This research develops two key aspects of the hand-fan as a communicative apparatus: first, the fan as an optical image surface to store and transmit information, constituting the earliest portable screen, and second, the fan as a haptic and gestural object from which distinct vernaculars arise. This paper maps a radical new trajectory in how we conceptualise the hand-fan in history and the mobile phone in the present.