Look Don't Touch (Notes on Art and Haptic Compulsion)

 Image credit: Raul Arboleda / AFP / Getty Images

 

 

I. 

 

Touching objects is surely a vital activity. But just as green grocers don't like you handling the fruit and veg, so gallery owners seem to have a real problem with people touching works of art on display. 

 

Obviously, there are practical reasons for this; dirt particles and perspiration on the hands can stain or, over time, cause serious damage to the surface of a sculpture, for example, which it might be difficult (or even impossible) to repair. Whilst porous materials, such as wood or stone, are particularly vulnerable, even works made of bronze or stainless steel, are not entirely immune to damage. 

 

Thus, in public art museums the world over there are signs reading do not touch, white boundary lines marked on the floor, and security guards lurking nearby to ensure people keep their distance. The curators want the public to engage with the art and be inspired by it, but they want them to do so with their eyes whilst keeping their filthy paws off. 

 

Oh, and just to be clear, kissing statues is also strictly forbidden and very much frowned upon.   

 

 

II. 

 

Practical concerns aside, there are clearly other issues at play here; aesthetics is founded upon an ideal of detachment and enforcement of the golden rule of look don't touch. Nietzsche, however, mocks this ability to gaze upon beauty apparently free of all desire as immaculate perception and suggests that objective contemplation is very often a disguised form of emasculated leering: click here for a post in which I discuss this. 

 

We see this aesthetic idealism expressed in Byung-Chul Han's 2015 work Die Errettung des Schönen (trans. rather prosaically in English as Saving Beauty (2018)), where he writes disapprovingly of Jeff Koons's sculptures on the grounds that their ultra-smooth surfaces not only reflect a social imperative lacking in all negativity, but cause "a 'haptic compulsion' to touch them, even the desire to suck them" [1].

 

Han writes: 

 

"It is the positivity of smoothness alone that causes the haptic compulsion. It invites the observer to take an attitude without distance, to touch. An aesthetic judgement, however, presupposes a contemplative distance. The art of the smooth abolishes such distance." [2]     

 

Like Hegel, Byung-Chul Han wants art to be meaningful and that requires visual appreciation. For sight, along with hearing, is a theoretical sense that allows us to interpret, judge, and reflect upon a work. Smelling, tasting, or touching an object might inform us of its material reality and sensible qualities, but won't enable us to make profound sense of it as an artwork. 

 

And like Roland Barthes, Byung-Chul Han believes the sense of touch to be "'the most demystifying of all senses, unlike sight which is the most magical'" [3]. Why? Because whilst the latter preserves distance, the former negates it. To touch an object is to demystify it and make it available for enjoyment and consumption: "The sense of touch destroys the negativity of what is wholly other. It secularizes what it touches." [4]

 

For Han, Jeff Koons's seamless sculptures may embody "a perfect and optimized surface without depth and shallows" [5], but so do soap bubbles made of air and emptiness and as any West Ham fan will tell you, there's no real salvation to be found in blowing bubbles ...  

 

 

III.

 

The problem is, whilst I might agree with many aspects of Han's critique of smoothness, I'm a little more ambivalent on the subject than him (and I also like the work of Jeff Koons, as discussed in a recent post: click here).

 

Further, it seems to me that professor of museum studies, Fiona Candlin, is right to call for a radical rethinking of aesthetics as it has traditionally been conceived and to challenge the idea of art museums as sites of visual learning. In her 2010 study, Art, Museums and Touch, Candlin demonstrates that touch was - and remains - of crucial importance within the history, theory, practice, and appreciation of art, whilst, at the same time, contesting ideas of touch as an unmediated and uncomplex (i.e., primitive and inferior) mode of discovery [6].     

 

Having spent many years investigating why visitors to galleries and museums often can't help reaching out to (illicitly) touch exhibits, Candlin shows just how common this is. Whether those moonlike philosophers who wish us all to simply gaze upon life like it or not, the fact is many people want to physically touch objects they admire and don't like to think of art as something out of bounds and out of reach (nor do they wish to creep around a gallery speaking in hushed tones as if in a church surrounded by sacred relics).

 

Ultimately, perhaps this haptic compulsion is not a sign of an obsessive disorder, nor the mark of a philistine, but, rather a form of resistance to an overly visual (virtual) world. And perhaps sculptures today should be exhibited in darkened rooms where visitors in blindfolds are invited to feel their way around, physically interacting with objects and one another, groping their way into a future democracy; the democracy of touch [7].         

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Byung-Chul Han, Saving Beauty, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2018), p. 3.  

[2] Ibid.

[3] Roland Barthes writing in Mythologies, quoted by Byung-Chul Han in Saving Beauty, p. 4.

[4] Byung-Chul an, Saving Beauty, p.  4.

 

[5] Ibid. 

[6] See Fiona Candlin, Art, Museums and Touch, (Manchester University Press, 2010).  

 

[7] The democracy of touch is an idea found in D. H. Lawrence's late work. I have written several posts discussing the idea; click here, for example, or here. 

      Interestingly, however, Lawrence isn't always pro-touch; see for example what he says in Chapter X of Fantasia of the Unconscious (1922) about "hands exploiting the sensual body, in feeling, in fingering, and in masturbation". 

      As for aesthetics, whilst Lawrence doesn't feel the English are devoid of feeling for the plastic arts, he does believe them to be full of fear for the body and that this fear distorts their vision and instinctive-intuitive consciousness. Thus it is, says Lawrence, that even those intellectuals and critics who get an ecstatic thrill from looking at artworks are "only undergoing a cerebral excitation" and remain essentially unmoved and untouched. See 'Introduction to These Paintings', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 182-217. The line I quote from is on p. 190.    

 

   

Aces High: Reflections on Asexuality

Asexual flag 

I. 

One of the reasons that Nietzsche has a difficult time accepting the idea of aesthetic detachment - he derides the idea as immaculate perception - is because sex is such a crucial aspect of his Dionysian philosophy and the lover, he says, is not only a stronger but more valuable type of human being:

"His whole economy is richer than before, more powerful, more complete than in those who do not love. The lover becomes a squanderer: he is rich enough for it. Now he dares, becomes an adventurer, becomes an ass in magnanimity and innocence [...] this happy idiot grows wings and new capabilities."    

Nietzsche insists that our sexuality reaches into the uppermost summit of our spirit and that beneath all our purest thoughts and high ideals lie unconscious libidinal investments that attest to the fact we are first and foremost creatures of desire. This is not to say that an erotic motive is to be attributed to all human activities, but that an element of sex is never far away.

For Nietzsche, as for so many nineteeth century thinkers, sex is the great clue to being and the truth of ourselves. I suspect he would refuse to conceive of asexuality except in purely negative terms - as evidence of retarded puberty, for example, or a form of degeneracy.


II.

Unfortunately, there are still people today who regard asexual individuals either with suspicion, contempt, or a mixture of both; believing them to be unfeeling and unnatural, almost inhuman in their apparent indifference to sexual pleasure.

Personally, however, I rather admire those individuals who have refused - inasmuch as asexuality does involve behavioural choice - to be amorous subjects and stepped beyond LGBT whilst remaining happily within the uncanny order of Q (much to the annoyance of some within the allosexual community).

What's more, I sometimes think that the reason individuals who pride themselves on their sexual identity and orientation sometimes feel threatened by and hostile towards asexuals is due to the fact that the latter (a) do not find them attractive and (b) refuse to make themselves available for fucking.       


III.

Before going any further with this defence-cum-celebration of asexuality, let's just be clear on a few important points ...

Firstly, asexuality is distinct from abstention and celibacy; i.e., it's not merely an expression of ascetic idealism. Indeed, some religious writers openly condemn asexuality as delusional and immoral. The Jesuit priests David Nantais and Scott Opperman write:

"Asexual people do not exist. Sexuality is a gift from God and thus a fundamental part of our human identity. Those who repress their sexuality are not living as God created them to be: fully alive and well. As such, they're most likely unhappy."

This characterisation amuses me and I have to admit that I'm quite happy to think of asexuality as a form of blasphemous living that refuses consummation. Better that, than attempts to portray it as a medical disorder, a form of sexual dysfunction, or the result of bad conscience concerning the body. 

Finally, it should be noted that some asexuals may in fact engage in erotic activity despite lacking any real desire to do so - perhaps as a matter of courtesy or curiosity - although most prefer romantic relationships that involve non-physical activity (apart from hand-holding and the odd cuddle), friend-focused non-romantic relationships, and/or queer-platonic relationships that invent new ways of associating.

There are, thankfully, no hard and fast rules governing the so-called ace community and there are also plenty of grey areas (of ambiguity) to explore.     


IV.

For me, then, asexuality holds a good deal of interest as something that (potentially) challenges sexual normativity and offers (passive) resistance to the coital imperative to fuck over and over and over again; what one critic refers to as the tyranny of orgasmic pleasure. 

The socially cherished myth that sex is the most basic and universal of instincts - often repressed and thus in need of liberating so that men and women can lead happy, fulfilled lives - is one that Michel Foucault and Judith Butler began to deconstruct decades ago, but it seems that more work still needs to be done convincing people that sexuality is not a natural given, but a historical construct. Essentialism, alas, continues to exert itself - not least in the idiocy of identity politics.

Notes

The black stripe in the asexual pride flag is for those individuals who identify as asexual; the grey stripe represents those who are demi- or semi-sexual; the white stripe is for those who subscribe to or manifest some full form of sexuality; and, finally, the purple stripe is to display solidarity with members of the wider queer community. 

For more information on asexuality visit the website of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), founded in 2001 by David Jay. I don't necessarily share or endorse the views expressed here; particularly the reactive attempt to make of asexuality an intrinsic identity or orientation and to present asexuals as people with 'the same emotional needs as everybody else'. How dreary and disappointing if that's the case! I'm hoping, like Ela Przybylo, that asexuality might prove to be a bit more provocative and create spaces of complication. See her essay, 'Crisis and safety: the asexual in sexusociety', in Sexualities, (SAGE, 2011), 14 (4), pp. 444-461. Click here to read online via Academia.edu

Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, (Vintage Books, 1968), 808, pp. 426-27.

David Nantais and Scott Opperman, 'Eight myths about religious life', Vision (Vocation Network, 2002): click here to read online. 

Immaculate Perception: On Aesthetic Detachment and Emasculated Leering

Henri Matisse: The Artist and His Model (1919) 
henrimatisse.org

I.

Zarathustra famously takes a pop at those moon-like individuals who claim to be able to view everything - including the nakedness of a beautiful young woman - objectively and with aesthetic detachment.

Such hypocrites, who claim to gaze upon life without desire whilst secretly possessed by the will to ravish, lack innocence and their emasculated leering (which they term contemplation) is a sign not of spiritual superiority, but bad conscience and cowardice. Or, in a word, Kantianism.       

For Zarathustra, creators should be full of Sonnenliebe; i.e., they should not merely reflect but directly illuminate and enrich the world with value via an outpouring of energy. Even, it is better they destroy in innocence, than simply stand back and look on coldly.     


II.

I thought of these words by Nietzsche when I recently came across an astonishing remark made by Henri Matisse, whose writings contain numerous references to his relationship with models: 'The naked body of a woman must awaken in you an emotion which you seek in turn to express [...] The presence of the model helps to keep me in a sort of flirtatious state which ends in rape.'

Now, before members of the #MeToo movement call for an immediate ban of his work, it should be noted that Matisse is not, of course, speaking literally and, indeed, he is not referring to the rape of the model. On the contrary, he seems to regard the creative process as involving a form of self-rape and speaks of how he is enslaved and ravished by the model upon whom he is absolutely dependent.

Interestingly, Delacroix also confessed that his beautiful young models robbed him of his vital energies (so much so, that he eventually resorted to working from nude photographs).  

Of course, feminist critics concerned with the imperialism of the male gaze and the power imbalance as it is conventionally understood to exist between (male) artist and (female) model, will probably find this disingenuous and be quick to dismiss it as such; isn't it merely another example of powerful men pretending that they - and not the women stripped bare - are really the victims as they hide behind their easels (or cameras), cock in hand à la Terry Richardson.    

See: Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, II. 37. 

It's important to note that Nietzsche is not simply advocating an active, practical existence over a life of contemplation. On the contrary, he insists that the true creator differs both from the actor and spectator in his possessesion of uniquely creative energy. See The Gay Science, IV. 301.