This study investigates how the immediacy and superficiality of digital media reshape readability and the aesthetic structure of visual culture, introducing “media affect” as a framework that contrasts these dynamics with craft-based practices. Drawing on arts-based action research and ethnographic observation of Japanese ukiyo-e carving and letterpress printing, the paper demonstrates how the temporality, materiality, and manual labor of craft generate embodied and affective reading experiences. Findings indicate that such sensory practices not only resist the logic of technological acceleration but also address a critical gap in visual culture studies, which have largely privileged textual and semiotic analysis while overlooking sensory and embodied dimensions. By situating typography between “carving and coding,” and engaging with frameworks of post-textual reading and sensory ethics, the study shows how craft cultivates attention, cultural responsibility, and respect for material. Ultimately, the paper contributes a cross-cultural aesthetic framework that reconfigures contemporary visual culture, offering a critical and sustainable perspective for the humanities and arts education.

Authors:
Juiyi Yen, National Taiwan University of Arts, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Juiyi Yen is currently an Assistant Professor investigating visual communication and post-textual practices, and a doctoral student at the National Taiwan University of Arts.

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