Touch: Sensuous Theory And Multisensory Media

by Laura U. Marks

Proposes a revolutionary approach to the interpretation of art, film, and the digital. In Touch, Laura U. Marks develops a critical approach more tactile than visual, an intensely physical and sensuous engagement with works of media art that enriches our understanding and experience of these works and of art itself. These critical, theoretical, and personal essays serve as a guide to developments in nonmainstream media art during the past ten years—sexual representation debates, documentary ethics, the shift from analog to digital media, a new social obsession with smell. Marks takes up well-known artists like experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs and mysterious animators the Brothers Quay, and introduces groundbreaking, lesser-known film, video, and digital artists. From this emerges a materialist theory—an embodied, erotic relationship to art and to the world. Marks’s approach leads to an appreciation of the works’ mortal film’s volatile emulsion, video’s fragile magnetic base, crash-prone Net art; it also offers a productive alternative to the popular understanding of digital media as "virtual" and immaterial. Weaving a continuous fabric from philosophy, fiction, science, dreams, and intimate experience, Touch opens a new world of art media to readers.  

Genres: Art, Film

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Alexander Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was lesser developed in theory as _Enfoldment and Infinity_ and it was really difficult to follow what Marks was arguing in the new media technology section. In some ways it felt like a bit of a stretch for empirical work. It was a fascinating consideration, but it does not offer a lot for a scientific consideration or validation. You simply have to take a lot of this at its word.

What is important with this book is Marks' development of "Haptics" in the early sections and how it considers these in contexts with the use of visual and olfactory in sensory media. I was particularly impressed with her ability to express how visuals and smells can often work together in a haptic way.

[Tito Quiling, Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am still using Laura Marks works on multi-sensory experiences and images in cinema, and the university had multiple copies of this. Such an eloquent work that propels ideas on how the senses are reproduced onscreen, following audio-visual engagement in cinema. Given that the work was a bit dated and it was heading towards the digital age, the arguments in the chapters were ahead of its time, as it thought about the higher definition rendering that will enhance our experience of cinema. Perhaps cinema touches us even more intrinsically, more than the usual impact of the narrative, music, characters, and the camerawork. I do wish this can be updated or had more non-Western examples since that can have a more interesting reading for film studies.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never tire of reading those rare academics who are thoughtful, purposeful, and clearly having a really good time with their subject matter. Laura Marks pulls off this effect more often than not.