Synthesis as mediation: inner touch and eccentric sensation

ABSTRACT

The article inquires into how the tactile sense became a promising area of investigation in media theory, particularly to counteract notions of linear, mechanical culture. I take two starting points: (1) Modern psychology and the arts, unlike Post-Kantian philosophy, are interested in the structure and efficiency of synthetic processes as an effect of a certain medial constitution of sensual perception. (2) Since antiquity, the sense of touch is hardly ever connected with immediacy. On the contrary, since Aristotle it possesses a deeply mediating and reflexive character. Aristotle grasps the sense of touch in two ways: as koine aisthesis, common sense – which will later also be known as the sensus communis – and as ‘inner touch’, which synthesizes the individual sense perceptions. This notion of the sense of touch still resonates in Marshall McLuhan’s interest in the haptic sense: ‘Tactile’ is the word he uses to refer to those percepts that require a strong inner involvement of the perceiving subject. Drawing on Gestalt theory (modern psychology) and avant-garde art, McLuhan unites the two strands of discourse. The article therefore traces a number of versions of the conception of tactility since antiquity and focuses on two distinct fields: physiology and psychology of prosthetics and the classical avant-gardes of the early twentieth century, particularly Raoul Hausmann’s thought experiments with Ernst Marcus’ concept of ‘eccentric sensation’. It argues that with media theory in a strong sense the antique tradition that considered skin and flesh as medium is connected with Avant-garde sensibilities and helps to develop a diagnostic perspective on the effects of media technologies on human agency.

KEYWORDS:

• Synesthesia
• tactility
• prosthetics
• common sense
• sensorial economy
• media

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Karin Harrasser is professor for cultural studies (Kulturwissenschaft) at the University of Art and Design Linz. She studied German Literature and History at the University of Vienna and completed her dissertation on the narratives of digital cultures there. After a post-doc position at Humboldt-University Berlin she followed her research in the cultural history of prosthetics at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. She conducted a research project on the production of gender and knowledge in museums and has completed numerous projects at the intersection of arts and science communication. Latest book: Körper 2.0. Über die technische Erweiterbarkeit des Menschen, Bielefeld 2013.

ORCID

Karin Harrasser http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5591-9995

Notes

1. Researchers grappled with this difficulty through, among other things, self-experimentation and a veritable training of their own sensory capacities and introspective competence. See Solhdju (2011).

2. Translators note: The subtitle of the English translation reads: ‘An essay concerning man and his relation to the world.’

3. James draws on Lotze’s work numerous times, in particular on the latter’s concept of local signs and his reflections on synesthesia. See James (1950).

4. On the relationship between Gestalt theory and cybernetics, see Rieger (2003, p. 349f) and Bühler (2004, p. 86).

5. The idea is inspired by, among other things, Emil du Dubois-Reymond’s experiments with transectioning and transposing nerve fibres to bring about the redirection of sensory impulses to incorrect processing centers (see Bexte 2011).

6. Later, Hausmann, with the help of an engineer, technologically thinks through optophonetics and puts it into practice. Though it is not quite clear how far this practical engagement went, Hausmann was engaged in research on the conversion of light waves into acoustic waves with the help of selenium cells. These efforts resulted in an application for a patent that Daniel Broido, the brother of Hausmann’s model at the time, Vera Broido, submitted in England. The patent was based not on an acoustic transducer but on a switch mechanism that uses selenium cells (see Borck 2010).