"Collecting Memories in a Time of Transition. A reading of the iPad app The Artifacts" Part of Panel: Environmental fears 2 - Fear or pleasure in artificial and/or digital nature

Schwebs investigates how landscapes are depicted in "The Artifacts", a children’s and YA interactive iPad picturebook app. It tells about a boy, 12, who, deprived his collection of material objects, retreats into his own imagination, a ‘mindscape’. The narrative deals with existential loss and ways to cope with it. Schwebs reads the story as a Bildungsroman, in which the main character’ meetings with various types of landscapes play a pivotal role. Also the presentation discusses how the multimodal and interactive affordances of the iPad platform unfold the premises for these landscape constructions.