Haptic, from the Greek verb, to touch, was introduced to art history and
criticism by Alois Riegl in the later 19th century. More recently it has
found its way into the writings of great philosophers in the work of
Gilles Deleuze. Also, experimental psychology has taken it up as a
possible way we learn to use our eyes. The distinction is between haptic
perception and sensation and optic vision in art theory and Egyptian art
is considered haptic art as distinct from optical art which is said to
start with later Roman art. It is also an essential part of modernist
visual arts including art photography (eg Robert Frank and Lee
Friedlander) so it is not at all correct to say art photography is
concerned only with optical art. It also refers to the positions of the
flesh and blood body in art sensation and as such is connected to
modernist and recent poetry. Even typing on a computer keyboard is
haptic and is now being taken up in the computer science field.
Anyways, one of my fave areas, so will stop here. best, Chris Jones.
PS speaking of haptics, the keyboard on my new laptop is much easier to
use then the ancient desktop tower I no longer use. The shift keys, esp.
On Mon, 2009-01-26 at 15:49 -0700, Sheila Murphy wrote:
> I think haptic is a beauty of a word, and sounds less clinical,
> Stephen.
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