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Touching

Touch is an interesting, conflicting sense to work with. It's something that creates a certain line between an artist and their audience, sometimes in a literal sense, sometimes in a metaphorical sense, and sometimes somewhere in between.

I think that the line created by the social contract between artist and audience is important to consider – it's part of what frames the interaction from a social point of view. Touch plays a role in parts of the constraints that should be considered in developing artistic pieces.

The limits of performance are fuzzy, it's an idea that some people dedicate their lives exploring. However, even if artists don't deliberately address them, these limits constrain art pieces. I believe touch is a fundamental barrier between people in general (and thus, artists and audiences), and as such, have traditionally defined a limit beyond which art pieces don't usually pass through. These implied limits of personal space and spatial independence have limited (not necessarily in a bad way) the scope of what can be achieved by art pieces.

Physicality and touch is not something that is often conceived as material for an art form. It's interesting that it receives this under-privileged position among the senses. Hearing has music, and sight has visual art. However, the previously mentioned constraints touch has probably never allowed for this sense to be used in an artistic context to the same extent as the other senses.

Another thing I find interesting about touch is how often its used in metaphors: “I found your piece to be so touching” can be a highly flattering and pleasant thing to hear. But what does that mean?

The way I see it, saying that art is touching comes out directly out of the fact that touch represents the fringes of art. It alludes to the fact that personal space can be of such intimate and deep importance to individuals, that being “touched” by that art piece represents complete immersion into the work, with a certain degree of intimacy permitted by the allowance of touch (albeit in a metaphorical sense).

I think that one of the interesting things about modern art pieces that allude to touch or incorporate it in some way (mostly through technologically enhanced means) is that it stands (or maybe could stand) in between the romanticized conceptualization of touch I described previously, and the acceptance of the fact that touch is simply a sense, and as such, through contextual cues and sensorial orchestration, can be used to create a coherent artistic experience.

It's interesting that bringing in a new sense into the world of art brings a series of questions. Personally, I have no clues how touch could be involved in art pieces other than as an augmentation of other senses. Mostly, I think of how sound can be paired with skin sensation, as I often feel goosebumps with music I find powerful, and I think it could be interesting to explore the connections between sound and goosebumps this way.

I think that touch is a sense that is often very private to individuals, and as such, needs to be framed in a way that respects these conceptions of personal space, but also invites audiences to experience art forms in a new way that might lead the aesthetic and conceptual expression of a work to reach where it intends to reach. But I realize this all sounds kind of vague.

Additionally, I think that something I kept thinking about touch throughout these discussions is how I don't necessarily need to be touched for my sense of touch to be stimulated – often close-up images can have a similar effect, and I also think it's interesting how these ideas also intersect with spatiality, and thus with sight (forming a multi-modal experience?). Touch is one of the ways we can understand the world around us, so it's interesting the effects its involvement, either physical or metaphorical, can have.