10.54103/ai/17297
Touch represents one of the latest and most complex frontiers of virtuality: a sense which historically seems to have carried the burden of proof on reality, by definition resistant to illusory environments. The paper begins from this assumption to trace a history of illusion across authors and theorists that have debated the statute of haptics, building a dialogue between philosophical dilemmas and technological developments. Moving both from an aesthetic and psychophysiological viewpoint, the article will root its analysis in an historical-artistic account, augmenting the discussion with a series of case studies from the museum sector. The introduction of haptic technologies within cultural institutions, which dates back to the last three decades, proves an interesting field to test the functions which touch plays in both educational and imaginative scenarios. The open question being whether modern technologies should aim at replicating haptic realism in miming phenomenological accuracy, or whether the most innovative applications need to aspire to a more environmental employment of touch.
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Anna Calise
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The haptics of illusion. An account of touch across theories, technologies and museums
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2022-12-20
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Weiss, T., “Phantom sensations,” in Grunwald M. ed., Human Haptic Perception. Basics and Applications (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008): 283-294.
The haptics of illusion. An account of touch across theories, technologies and museums
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/anicon/article/download/17297/17787
1
           The haptics of
           illusion: an account
of touch across theories,
technologies and museums
by Valentina Bartalesi and Anna Calise
                      Haptic
                                         Technology
                                         Illusion
                                         Virtuality
                                         Museums




                            Issue №2 Year 2022
                            → Just an illusion? Between simulation,
                            emulation, and hyper-realism
                            Edited by Pietro Conte
                            and Lambert Wiesing
The haptics of il usion.
An account of touch across
theories, technologies
and museums
VALENTINA BARTALESI, Università IULM – https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8596-4014
ANNA CALISE, Università IULM – https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2966-7613
https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/17297



Abstract                        Touch represents one of the latest and most
                  complex frontiers of virtuality: a sense which historical-
                  ly seems to have carried the burden of proof on reality,
                  by definition resistant to illusory environments. The paper
                  begins from this assumption to trace a history of illusion
                  across authors and theorists that have debated the stat-
                  ute of haptics, building a dialogue between philosophical
                  dilemmas and technological developments. Moving both
                  from an aesthetic and psychophysiological viewpoint, the
                  article will root its analysis in an historical-artistic account,
                  augmenting the discussion with a series of case studies
                  from the museum sector. The introduction of haptic tech-
                  nologies within cultural institutions, which dates back to
                  the last three decades, proves an interesting field to test
                  the functions which touch plays in both educational and
                  imaginative scenarios. The open question being whether
                  modern technologies should aim at replicating haptic re-
                  alism in miming phenomenological accuracy, or whether
                  the most innovative applications need to aspire to a more
                  environmental employment of touch.


Keywords          Haptic          Technology               Illusion        Virtuality         Museums
To quote this essay: V. Bartalesi, A. Calise, “The haptics of illusion. An account of touch across theories,
technologies and museums,” AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433] 2 (2022):
133-161, https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/17297

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                     133                                            AN-ICON
Fig 1. Creation of a new style of media art using digital paints in a
harmonization of the senses of vision and touch.


                                     It seems that we have so often been warned not to touch
                                     that we are reluctant to probe the tactile world even with our minds.
                                     Constance Classen
                                     The Deepest Sense. A Cultural History of Touch, 2012


                                     Introduction

                                In his Post-Scriptum addendum, alongside his
                  monumental survey on the polysemy of touch in Nancy
                  through the history of Western philosophy, Derrida de-
                  nounced a widespread prejudice whereby “one sponta-
                  neously has the tendency to believe that touching re­sists
                  virtualization.”1 Through this acute remark, the French phi-
                  losopher underlies a consolidated topos that attributes to
                  the sense of touch the ability to convey a direct and objec-
                  tive knowledge of the things of the world, captured in their
                  physical and even theoretical dimension.2 By questioning
                  the supposed identity relationship between touch and ob-
                  jectivity, the author opens a new perspective on the sub-
                  ject, widening the ways in which the world of haptics could
                  be conceptualized and practiced. For the purpose of the

         1 J. Derrida, On Touching – Jean-Luc Nancy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005): 300.
         2 Cfr. J.-L. Nancy, Corpus (Paris: Metailie, 1992): 76; M. Paterson, The Sense of Touch:
         Haptics, Affects and Technologies (Oxford: Berg, 2007): 2-3; C. Classen, D. Howes, Ways of
         Sensing (New York: Routledge, 2014): 89; A. Gallace, C. Spence, In Touch with the Future:
         The Sense of Touch from Cognitive Neuroscience to Virtual Reality, (Oxford: Oxford University
         Press, 2014): 3.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                    134                                          AN-ICON
              argument presented here, Derrida’s considerations prove
              pivotal: the aim will be to try and deepen his assumption,
              investigating the relationship between illusion, haptic per-
              ception and works of art. Addressing the possibility that
              both the theory and practice which anticipate and guide
              haptic experiences and technologies account for an illusory
              character, escaping the grounds of undeniable certainty
              and adherence to reality which are at times linked to the
              discourse on touch.
                            This study will in fact envisage the possibility
              that illusion imposes itself as a constitutive figure of haptic
              feeling both on a theoretical level and on a technical one.
              The research will focus on how the experience of touching
              plastic objects changes from the analogical dimension to
              the digital one, first from a theoretical point of view and
              then across a range of case studies within the museum
              sector. In the peculiar phenomenon of touching sculpture
              in a virtual environment employing haptic devices, the il-
              lusion changes its function: before a theoretical figure, it
              becomes an experiential strategy. Not necessarily aimed
              at generating a phenomenological surplus, which as we
              will see most technologies are not able to offer, but at of-
              fering the possibility of a semantic shift on an emotional
              and aesthetic level. The study will begin with an assess-
              ment of Derrida’s theorizing on the haptic and on virtuality,
              highlighting the inherent illusory character that seems to
              be shared by both virtual haptic museological experiences
              and the theorizing of “haptic” itself, a link captured by the
              author already in his work On Touching. While borrowing
              from Derrida the relevance of museum practices as case
              studies for the discussion on the haptic, this article will
              however assess evidentiary accounts in the second sec-
              tion of the text. Before addressing the case studies, it was
              deemed necessary to elaborate two relevant premises. On
              the one hand, a thorough account of haptic technologies
              and of the current theoretical issues that guide their design
              will be presented, with reference to the challenges posed
              by haptic illusions. On the other hand, a historiographic
              account of the fundamental role that the concept of illusion
VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE     135                             AN-ICON
               has played in the theorizing of the haptic discourse will be
               offered. Through this analysis, we aim to hopefully demon-
               strate the structural role played by the figure of illusion in
               both theoretical and technological designs, strengthening
               the rationale which serves as the guiding principle of the
               discussion at hand. The second section, following Derrida’s
               intuition and using museological haptic technologies case
               studies, will try to assess how these premises relate to the
               cultural offer available to the public. Beginning from the
               relationship between touching and cultural artifacts, and
               more specifically sculptures, which has played a central
               role in both philosophical and museological undertakings,
               a history of touch in museums will be briefly traced, con-
               necting contemporary endeavors to their historical pre-
               decessors. Then a series of relevant case studies will be
               presented, trying to understand, by looking closely at their
               design and reception, what aspect of the haptic experience
               they aimed to leverage on, and therefore which epistemic
               and experiential qualities were privileged. It will emerge
               that when museums are trying to reinstate the evidentiary
               nature of the haptic experience, and focus on mimicking
               a reductive understanding of the phenomenology of touch,
               the results might be scientifically interesting yet not experi-
               entially powerful. By contrast, when the more evocative and
               illusory qualities of the haptic are investigated, exploiting a
               more environmental and multifaceted account of the haptic
               experience, a new and promising use of haptic technolo-
               gies is possible.3

                                “Tact beyond the possible:”4 illusion
                                 as a figure of the haptic between
                                 historiography and psycho-aesthetics

                           The teleological value of the human hand as a
               pro toto organ of the sense of touch is a recurring trope in
               the history of philosophy, from Kant, through Herder, de

       3 Although the paper is the result of a collective research and reflection work made by the two
       authors, the first section was written by Valentina Bartalesi, the second one by Anna Calise.
       4 J. Derrida, On Touching: 66.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                136                                         AN-ICON
               Miran, Husserl, until Katz, Focillon, Révész, and Gibson.5
               In Derrida’s analysis the haptic, assumed as a not stric-
               tu sensu6 sense that “virtually” involves the sensorium in
               its obscure intricacy,7 is qualified by the peculiar “motor
               activity”8 of the human hand. Yet, while recognizing the
               constitutive motility of this sensory faculty, Derrida refus-
               es such preliminary immediacy, claiming with Nancy its
              “local, fractal, modal” nature.9 If these adjectives partially
               complicate the meaning of touching on an ontological level,
               they seem to encourage the reflection towards a technical
               sphere, according to an address that Derrida tries to verify.
               As a proof of the fragility of a way of thinking that a priori
               denies the possibility of virtualizing touch, the philosopher
               presents a significant case study for that time: the Haptic
               Museum in California.10
                            In spite of the limited evidence still available
               with regards to this institution, its mission appears clear. As
               Margaret L. Mclaughlin of the Integrated Media Systems
               Center (University of Southern California) states:

 Our IMSC team has used haptics to allow museum visitors to ex-
 plore three-dimensional works of art by “touching” them, some-
 thing that is not possible in ordinary museums due to prevailing
“hands-off” policies. Haptics involves the modality of touch-the
 sensation of shape and texture an observer feels when exploring


       5 J. Derrida, On Touching: 41-42, 95, 122, 140. See in this respect: L.A. Jones, S.J. Lederman,
       Human Hand Function (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006): 6; A. Benjamin, “Endless
       touching: Herder and sculpture,” Aisthesis. Pratiche, linguaggi e saperi dell’estetico 4, no. 1,
       (2011): 73-92, https://doi.org/10.13128/Aisthesis-10983; H. Focillon, “Éloge de la main” (1934),
       in Vie des Formes (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1981); G. Révész, The Human
       Hand (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958); J.J. Gibson, “Observations on active touch,”
       Psychological Review 69, no. 6 (November 1962): 477-491, https://doi.org/10.1037/h0046962.
       6 J. Derrida, On Touching: 53, 149.
       7 Ibid.: 42.
       8 Ibid.: 142.
       9 As noted by: “But there again-and this, too, has to be clear only upon the condition that tact
       does not concentrate, does not lay claim as Descartes’s touching does to the privilege given
       to immediacy, which would bring about the fusion of all the senses and of ‘sense.’ Touching,
       too, touching, first, is local, modal, fractal”, J.L. Nancy, Corpus: 76.
       10 J. Derrida, On Touching: 300-301; M.L. Mclaughlin et al., “The haptic museum,”
       Conference: Proc. of the EVA 2000 Florence Conf. on Electronic Imaging and the Visual Arts
       (March 2000), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229433104_The_Haptic_Museum,
       accessed December 11, 2022.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                137                                          AN-ICON
a virtual object, such as a 3D model of a piece of pottery or art
glass.11
                             Although presumably the first example of a
               haptic museum equipped with exosomatic technologies,12
               Derrida’s case includes many factors that have become
               constitutive in subsequent museological proposals. By in-
               teracting with the PHANToM haptic device13 or wearing
               the exoskeleton glove CyberGrasp,14 at those times fu-
               turistic apparatuses, visitors could proceed to the manual
               exploration of virtual artifacts, digitized by employing 3D
               cameras such as ColorScan or Virtuoso.15 Technically, the
              “haptic human-computer interaction (HCI)” requires a struc-
               tural triad composed of “human user, interface device, and
               virtual environment synthesized by computer.”16 Through
              “haptic-rendering algorithms,”17 the device provides spe-
               cific stimuli arising from the interaction between the “hap-
               tic device representation” (the user’s avatar) and the

       11 M.L. Mclaughlin et al., “The haptic museum:” w.p.
       12 Among the twentieth-century experiences, one of the first tactile museum exhibitions
       dedicated to blind people was organized by The American Museum of New York in 1909.
       While in the 1970s, numerous worldwide museums realized tactile pathways dedicated to
       the visually impaired, the first Haptic Gallery was opened by the National Portrait Gallery
       in Washington D.C. on March 1st 1979, as the Smithsonian Archive documentation
       testifies. See in this respect: H.F. Osborn, The American Museum of Natural History: its
       origin, its history, the growth of its departments to December 31, 1909 (New York: The
       American Museum of Natural History, 1909): 148; Chronology of Smithsonian History,
      “NPH Haptic Gallery Opens” (March 1st 1979): https://siris-sihistory.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.
       jsp?&profile=all&source=~!sichronology&uri=full=3100001~!1462~!0#focus accessed
       December 11, 2022; Council on Museums and Education in the Visual Arts, The art museum
       as educator: a collection of studies as guides to practice and policy (Berkeley: University of
       California Press, 1978).
       13 Designed by the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1994, “PHANToM is a convenient
       desktop device which provides a force-reflecting interface between a human user and a
       computer.” Inserting the index fingertip into a thimble or interacting with a stick, PHANToM
       consists in “a system capable of presenting convincing sensations of contact, constrained
       motion, surface compliance, surface friction, texture and other mechanical attributes of virtual
       objects.” T.H. Massie, J.K. Salisbury, “The PHANToM haptic interface: a device for probing
       virtual objects,” Dynamic Systems and Control 55, no. 1 (1994): w.p.
       14 Commercialized in 2009, “the CyberGrasp device is a lightweight, force-reflecting
       exoskeleton that fits over a CyberGlove data glove (wired version) and adds resistive
       force feedback to each finger. With the CyberGrasp force feedback system, users are
       able to feel the size and shape of computer-generated 3D objects in a simulated virtual
       world.” Please see: CyberGrasp, CyberGlove System: https://static1.squarespace.com/
       static/559c381ee4b0ff7423b6b6a4/t/5602fc01e4b07ebf58d480fb/1443036161782/
       CyberGrasp_Brochure.pdf, accessed December 11, 2022.
       15 M.L. Mclaughlin et al., “The haptic museum:” w.p.
       16 D. Wang et al., “Haptic display for virtual reality: progress and challenges,” Virtual Reality
       & Intelligent Hardware 1, no. 2 (April 2019): 137 https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.2096-
       5796.2019.0008.
       17 Ibid.: 141-143.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                 138                                           AN-ICON
               photogrammetric restitution of the object in a virtual en-
               vironment (the haptic image).18 Hence, according to the
               object-relational data model, users receive tactile and kin-
               esthetic feedback geared towards the stimulation of the
               mechanoreceptors on the fingertip (for PHANToM) and on
               the whole hand surface (if wearing CyberGrasp) during the
               exploration of the virtual object.19 More specifically, the sub-
               ject perceives vibrotactile feedback which should make him
               or her feel those sensations that are connotative of touching
               the physical object,20 absent in its ilemorphic habitus albeit
               realistically tangible in its morphological properties of size,
               weight, surface, and texture.21
                             Beyond the issues more strictly related to the
               physiology of the experience, it is here relevant to examine
               how these researchers have recorded the act of touching
               a virtual object. Unexpectedly, the members of the Califor-
               nian IMSC, as well as the French philosopher, feel the need
               to put in inverted commas locutions such as “touching,”
              “remote touching,” or “realistic sensations of touching.”22
               The grammatical escamotage of the quotation marks clear-
               ly betrays the necessity, be it more or less incidental, to
               denounce the presence of expressions bent to a “special
               or translated” use. In the technical gesture that the Haptic
               Museum visitor makes exploring virtual artifacts, Derrida
               glimpses the theoretical locus where “immediate contact”23
               discloses its own illusory and ontologically fictitious dimen-
               sion, opening a chasm within the very meaning of touch:
               ultimately, what is the object of touch? Is this an illusion of

       18 K. Salisbury, F. Conti, F. Barbagli, “Haptic rendering: introductory concepts,” IEEE
       Computer Society 24, no. 2 (March/April 2004): 25-26, https://doi.org/10.1109/
       MCG.2004.1274058.
       19 P.P. Pott, “Haptic Interfaces,” in L. Manfredi, ed., Endorobotics. Design, R&D, Future Trends
       (Academic Press, 2022).
       20 Even if, according to Salisbury and Srinivasan “the resulting sensations prove startling, and
       many first-time users are quite surprised at the compelling sense of physical presence they
       encounter when touching virtual objects,” the improvement of haptic feedback constitutes one
       of the main purposes of this kind of technology. J.K. Salisbury, M.A. Srinivasan, “Phantom-
       based haptic interaction with virtual objects,” IEEE (September/October 1997): 6-10, https://
       doi.org/10.1109/MCG.1997.1626171.
       21 As Derrida notes, describing the above-mentioned experience, “we can thus feel
       the weight, form, and structure of the surface of a Chinese vase while ‘holding’ a three-
       dimensional digital model,” J. Derrida, On Touching: 301.
       22 Ibid.
       23 Ibid.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                139                                          AN-ICON
               touch or what Madalina Diacuno prefers to define in terms
               of “illusionary touch”?24 If so, how to illustrate the phenom-
               enology of such an illusion?
                             The noun “illusion,” from the Latin illudere (in,
              “against,” ludere “to play”), describes an “act of deception;
               deceptive appearance, apparition; delusion of the mind.”25
               However, in the specialist lexicon on haptic perception
               the expression “haptic illusion” more rigorously recounts
               a “disruption of the physical coherence between real move-
               ment and feedback forces, used to create the illusion of
               a non-existent feature or to compensate with the illusion
               the sensation of an undesired detail.”26 As convincingly
               established by the critical literature since Révész, several
               haptic illusions have been codified and are currently under
               investigation.27 It should also be noted that a similar illusion,
               even though different in terms of the neurological reaction
               experienced with haptic prostheses in virtual environments,
               is daily negotiated by the user in the interaction with touch
               screens. The most recent media-archeological studies have
               investigated this ambiguous nature of “touching,” recording
               the hiatus which systematically occurs when the consum-
               er digitally interacts with the contents that pass through
               the “display.”28 In this regard, Simone Arcagni has recently
               pointed out how touch screens solicit a kind of experience
              “as if there were no longer a mediation between the idea
               of doing and the action that takes place in our hands” by

       24 M. Diaconu, “Illusionary touch, and touching illusions,” in A. Tymieniecka, ed., Analecta
       Husserliana. The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research. Human Creation Between Reality
       and Illusion, vol. 87 (Cham: Springer, 2005): 115-125.
       25 “Illusion,” Online Etymology Dictionary: https://www.etymonline.com/word/illusion,
       accessed December 11, 2022.
       26 M. Grunwald, ed., Human Haptic Perception. Basics and Applications (Basel: Birkhäuser,
       2008): 649.
       27 The main haptic illusions include “size-weight illusion,” a tangible version of the “Muller-
       Lyer illusion,” the “horizontal-vertical illusion” and the “Ponzio illusion.” See in this regard:
       M.A. Heller, E. Gentaz, “Illusions,” in M.A. Heller, E. Gentaz, eds., Psychology of Touch and
       Blindness (New York-London: Psychology Press - Taylor & Francis Group, 2014): 61-78.
       28 F. Casetti, “Primal screens,” in C. Buckley, R. Campe, F. Casetti, eds., Screen Genealogies.
       From Optical Device to Environmental Medium (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press,
       2019): 45; F. Casetti, “Che cos’è uno schermo, oggi?,” Rivista di Estetica 55 (2014): 28-
       34 https://doi.org/10.4000/estetica.969. According to Francesco Casetti, touch screens
       represent the most effective type of display (ibid.: 29), a device that the author links to an
       instant, “passive” and disengaged communication. Consistently to the current hypertrophic
       consumption of images, Casetti’s display “exhibits, not reveals. It offers, not engages” (ibid.)
       and this happens because the touch screen “puts images in our hands” (ibid.).

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                 140                                          AN-ICON
                intensifying the sensation of proximity between user and
                content.29 Raising attention to the dangers inherent in the
                automation of touching, David Parisi has introduced the mil-
                itary phrase “Fingerbombing,” highlighting the “distanced,
                detached and destructive” nature of interaction with the
                touchscreen of a Nintendo DS.30 Furthermore, citing Thom-
                as Hirschhorn’s brutal video clip Touching Reality (2012),
                Wanda Strauven has denounced the moral and technical
                break between screen and display, whereby the object of
                touch results in the screen and not the images passing
                through it.31 Once more, what do the subjects touch and
                what do they perceive by touching and consuming?32
                             In light of this ontological uncertainty, the abil-
                ity to confer and simulate the highest degree of realism
                to the haptic experience of virtual content through a het-
                erogeneous range of devices – among the most futuristic
                devices should be mentioned AirPiano,33 VibroWeight,34
                WeHAPTIC35 – is generally considered one of the overriding



       29 S. Arcagni, Visioni Digitali: Video, Web e Nuove tecnologie (Torino: Einaudi, 2016): 301.
       30 D. Parisi, “Fingerbombing, or ‘Touching is Good’: The Cultural Construction of
       Technologized Touch,” in M. Elo, M. Luoto, eds., Figure of Touch: Sense, Technics,
       Body (Helsinki: The Academy of Fine Arts at the University of the Arts Helsinki, Tallinna
       Raamatutrükikoja OÜ, 2018): 83.
       31 W. Strauven, Touchscreen Archeology (Lüneberg: Meson Press, 2021): 112-116. Cfr. W.
       Strauven, “Marinetti’s tattilismo revisited hand travels, tactile screens, and touch cinema in the
       21st Century,” in R. Catanese, ed., Futurist Cinema (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press,
       2018): 70.
       32 See in this respect: M. Racat, S. Capelli, “Touching without touching: the paradox of the
       digital age,” in M. Racat, S. Capelli, eds., Haptic Sensation and Consumer Behavior. The
       Influence of Tactile Stimulation in Physical and Online Environments (Nature Switzerland:
       Springer, 2020).
       33 AirPiano constitutes “an enhanced music playing system to provide touchable experiences
       in HMD-based virtual reality with mid-air haptic feedback”. For more information see: I. Hwang
       et. al., “AirPiano: enhancing music playing experience in virtual reality with mid-air haptic
       feedback,” 2017 IEEE World Haptics Conference (WHC): 213-218 https://doi.org/10.1109/
       WHC.2017.7989903.
       34 VibroWeight represents “low-cost hardware prototype with liquid metal” employing
      “bimodal feedback cues in VR, driven by adaptive absolute mass (weights) and gravity shift:” X.
       Wang et. al., “VibroWeight: simulating weight and center of gravity changes of objects in virtual
       reality for enhanced realism,” Human Computer Interaction (2022): https://doi.org/10.48550/
       arXiv.2201.07078.
       35 WeHAPTIC (Wearable Haptic interface for Accurate Position Tracking and Interactive force
       Control) “shows improved performances in terms of finger motion measurement and force
       feedback compared with existing systems such as finger joint angle calculation and precise
       force control:” Y. Park et. al., “WeHAPTIC: a Wearable Haptic interface for Accurate Position
       Tracking and Interactive force Control,” Mechanism and Machine Theory 153, (November
       2020): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mechmachtheory.2020.104005.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                 141                                           AN-ICON
                objectives for improving these technologies.36 Furthermore,
                even though since the invention of the first haptic device in
                194837 continuous improvements have been made, contem-
                porary interfaces present both a qualitative and quantitative
                deficit compared to the human haptic sensitivity, calling for
               “urgent requirement to improve the realism of haptic feed-
                back for VR systems, and thus to achieve equivalent sen-
                sation comparable to the interaction in a physical world.”38
                             While the expression “haptic realism,” coined
                by the philosopher of science Mazviita Chirimuuta in 2016,
                opens the hypothesis of a scientific perspectivism based
                on interaction with the world,39 the same expression when
                related to haptic interfaces assumes a more technical con-
                notation. As Sushma Subramanian points out in a conversa-
                tion during the 2020 World Haptics Conference with Ed Col-
                gate, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern
                University, although haptic technologies still go through
                a “primitive” state, the short-term goal in their design is
                to “develop a new tactile language that mimics the kinds
                of maneuvers we make with three-dimensional objects” in
                which “the challenging part is to make us feel them.”40 A
                leading producer such as the Berlin-based Lofelt attempts
                to make interaction with the touch screen more realistic by
                combining sounds with the corresponding haptic vibrations

       36 A. Brogni, D.G. Caldwell, M. Slater, “Touching sharp virtual objects produces a haptic
       illusion,” in R. Shumaker, ed., Virtual and Mixed Reality (Berlin Heidelberg: Springer, 2011):
       234-242; A. Gallace, M. Girondini, “Social touch in virtual reality,” Current Opinion in Behavioral
       Sciences 43 (February 2022): 249-254, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.11.006. It
       should be noted how the design of “pseudo-haptic feedback” is also nodal to the experience
       of touching in virtual environments. See in this regard A. Maehigashi et. al., “Virtual weight
       illusion: weight perception of virtual objects using weight illusion,” CHI ’21 Extended Abstracts
       (May 2021), https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451842. Furthermore, the design of an effective
       haptic illusion in a virtual environment is related to scale and precisely to the so-called “Body-
       scaling effect”: P. Abtahi, “From illusions to beyond-real interactions in virtual reality,” UIST ‘21:
       The Adjunct Publication of the 34th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and
       Technology (October 2021): 153-157, https://doi.org/10.1145/3474349.3477586.
       37 As David Parisi reports, the invention of the first mechanical force feedback master-
       slave manipulator in nuclear field is due to the engineer Raymond Goertz of the Atomic
       Energy Commission for the Argonne National Laboratory. D. Parisi, Archaeologies of Touch.
       Interfacing with Haptics from Electricity to Computing (Minneapolis, London: University of
       Minnesota Press, 2018): 220-221.
       38 D. Wang, “Haptic display:” 137.
       39 M. Chirimuuta, “Vision, perspectivism, and haptic realism,” Philosophy of Science 83, no. 5
       (December 2016), 746-756 https://doi.org/10.1086/687860.
       40 S. Subramanian, How to Feel. The Science and Meaning of Touch (New York: Columbia
       University Press, 2021): 250-251.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                   142                                            AN-ICON
                so that the user participates in an immersive experience.
                As Lofelt founder Daniel Büttner asserts: “it is all an illu-
                sion, but it seems incredibly real.”41 In a similar direction,
                the most advanced research conducted by the Intelligent
                Haptic program of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligence
                System aims to implement the sensitivity of electrovibra-
                tions.42 Evidence that haptic perception is one of the most
                promising experimental fields for the virtual world is reflect-
                ed in the great number of HORIZON programs supported
                by the European Union in the last five years,43 mainly dedi-
                cated to Mid-Air and Mixed Haptic Feedback technologies.
                Ultrahaptics, launched in 2013, consists in a haptic device
                system in which the force feedback is positioned

above interactive surfaces and requires no contact with either
tool, attaching to the surface itself. Instead, haptic sensations are
projected through a screen and directly onto the user’s hands. It
employs the principle of acoustic radiation force whereby a phased
array of ultrasonic transducers is used to exert forces on a target
in mid-air.44
                            H-Reality devices, on the other hand, employing
                mixed haptic feedback technology “aim at combining the
                contactless haptic technology with the contact haptic tech-
                nology and then apply it into virtual and augmented reality




       41 R. Banham, “Haptic happenings: how touch technologies are taking on new meaning,”
       Dell Technologies (October 21, 2019): https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/perspectives/
       haptic-happenings-how-touch-technologies-are-taking-on-new-meaning/, accessed
       December 11, 2022.
       42 Y. Vardar, K.J. Kuchenbeker, L. Behringer, “Challenging the design of electrovibrations to
       generate a more realistic feel,” Haptic Intelligence Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
       (April 6, 2021): https://hi.is.mpg.de/news/challenging-the-design-of-electrovibrations-to-
       generate-a-more-realistic-feel, accessed December 11, 2022.
       43 Among them we point out: Horizon 2020 (CORDIS), TACTIle Feedback Enriched Virtual
       Interaction through Virtual RealITY and beyond, (July 1, 2019-September 30, 2022): https://
       cordis.europa.eu/project/id/856718/it, accessed December 11, 2022; Horizon 2020 (CORDIS),
       Multimodal Haptic with Touch Devices (March 1, 2020-February 29, 2024): https://cordis.
       europa.eu/project/id/860114/it, accessed December 11.
       44 T. Carter et. al., “Ultrahaptics: multi-point mid-air haptic feedback for touch surfaces,”
       UIST ‘13: Proceedings of the 26th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and
       Technology (St. Andrews, UK: October 8-11, 2013): 505-506.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                 143                                           AN-ICON
                technologies.”45 These projects encourage “to achieve
                high-fidelity sensations through technology that is easy
                and comfortable to use, for both interactive augmented
                reality (AR) and immersive virtual reality (VR) experiences”;46
                rendering potentially less unreachable that horizon of touch
                virtualisation from which Derrida took his cue.
                              In assessing the role that illusion plays for the
                effective functioning of haptic technologies, it can be ques-
                tioned whether this prevalent position is distinctive of the
                digital era or if it represents a consolidated trope in haptic
                historiography, often centered on the theoretical and prac-
                tical opportunity to touch – or not! – sculpture, at times
                accused of being the least illusory of the arts.47 In under-
                taking the investigation from “haptics”48 to “haptic,”49 we
                will proceed in a parallel line to the essentially optical one




       45 “H-Reality,” FET FX. Our future today (2020): http://www.fetfx.eu/project/h-reality/; see
       also: X. de Tinguy, C. Pacchierotti, A. Lécuyer, “Capacitive sensing for improving contact
       rendering with tangible objects in VR,” IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph – IEEE Transactions
       on Visualization and Computer Graphics 27, no. 4 (December 2020): 2481-2487, https://doi.
       org/10.1109/TVCG.2020.3047689.
       46 Horizon 2020 (CORDIS), Mixed Haptic Feedback for Mid-Air Interactions in Virtual and
       Augmented Realities (October 1, 2018- March 31, 2022): https://cordis.europa.eu/project/
       id/801413/it, accessed December 11, 2022.
       47 Is given below the renowned passage in Benedetto Varchi’s Paragone (1547) in which
       painters vituperate sculpture by stating: “They argue again from the difficulty of art, where,
       distinguishing the difficulty into two parts: in fatigue of body, and this as ignoble they leave to
       sculptors: and in fatigue of wit, and this as noble they reserve for them, saying that, besides
       the different manners and ways of working and coloring, in fresco, oil, tempera, glue and
       gouache, painting makes a figure foreshorten, [it] makes it seem round and raised in a flat
       field, making it break through and seem far away with all the appearances and vagueness
       that can be desired, giving to all their works lumens and shadows well observed according to
       the lumens and reverberations, which they hold to be a most difficult thing; and in conclusion
       they say that they make appear what is not: in which thing they seek effort and infinite artifice”,
       B. Varchi, Lezzione. Nella quale si disputa della maggioranza delle arti e qual sia più nobile, la
       scultura o la pittura (Firenze: Fondazione Memofonte, 1547): 38.
       48 The plural noun haptics, deriving from the Greek feminine haptikós and the Neo-Latin
       hapticē, a term coined in 1685 by Isaac Barrow in Lectiones Mathematicae XXIII, is literally
       translated as “science of touch”. Haptics refers to the science of touch in a techno-media
       perspective, denoting the tactile feedback generated by those devices which, by sending
       artificial stimuli at proprioceptive, limbic and muscular levels, simulate the sensation of actual
       contact: “Haptics,” Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online): https://www.merriam-webster.com/
       dictionary/haptics, accessed December 11, 2022.
       49 The Greek etymon haptō, from which derive the word haptos (tangible, sensitive), the
       predicate háptein and the adjective haptikós, from which derive the French haptique, the
       German haptisch/Haptik and the English haptic, means variously “able to come into contact
       with” (haptikós) and “to clasp, grasp, lace” (háptein).

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                 144                                            AN-ICON
                stabilized by Riegl,50 bearer of a critical fortune culminating
                with the later reworkings elaborated by Deleuze,51 Mald-
                iney,52 Dufrenne53, Marks54 and Barker.55 Concerning the
                covertly panoptic conception of the haptic that had been
                spreading in German Kunstwissenschaft since Hildebrand’s
                studies,56 it is necessary to turn our attention to the de-
                velopments taking place in the psychophysiological area
                around the same years. In the wake of Heinrich Weber’s
                pioneering studies on the sense of touch, in which sensory
                illusions after limbs amputation57 (the so-called Phantom
                Sensations)58 were classified as not accidentally probed;
                the first use of the term haptic in 1892 by another eclectic
                Berliner, Max Dessoir, was systematized almost simulta-
                neously by Edward Titchener.59 The rehabilitation of this


       50 As Andrea Pinotti notes via Révész, “It is significant that, the year after the publication of
       Kunstindustrie, in an article in which he argues with Strzygowski, Riegl admits that the term
       taktisch (tastbar, from the Latin tangere) can lead to misunderstandings, and declares himself
       willing to adopt instead the term haptisch (from the Greek hapto), which the physiological
       literature had since long employed in its research on sensoriality. Perhaps a way, that of
       moving from Latin to Greek, to avoid any possible reference to the actual manual palpation
       and reaffirm the fundamental strength of the haptisch,” A. Pinotti, “Guardare o toccare?
       Un’incertezza herderiana,” Aisthesis. Pratiche, linguaggi e saperi dell’estetico 2, no. 1 (2009):
       186, https://doi.org/10.13128/Aisthesis-10953, trans. mine. For a first bibliographical framing
       of Riegl’s haptic construction see: M.R. Olin, Forms of Representation in Alois Riegl’s Theory
       of Art (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992); M. Iversen, Alois Riegl:
       Art History and Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993); S. Melville, “The temptation of
       new perspectives” (1990), in D. Preziosi, ed., The Art Of Art History. A Critic (Oxford: Oxford
       University Press, 2009): 274-283; G. Vasold, “‘Das Erlebnis des Sehens’. Zum Begriff der
       Haptik im Wiener fin de siècle,” Maske und Kothurn 62 (2016): 46-70.
       51 G. Deleuze, Francis Bacon. Logic of Sensation (1981), trans. D.W. Smith (London-New
       York: Continuum, 2003): 122, 189.
       52 See in this regard: A. Pinotti, “Style, rythme, souffle: Maldiney and kunstwissenschaft,”
       in J.-P. Charcosset, ed., Parole Tenue: Colloque du Centenaire du Maldiney á Lyon (Milan:
       Mimesis Edizioni, 2014): 49-59.
       53 See in this respect: A. Pinotti, ed., Alois Riegl. Grammatica storica delle arti figurative
       (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2018), XLVI.
       54 We refer specifically to the postcolonial construct of haptic visuality that Laura Marks
       derives and resemantizes from the lesson of Regl’s heritage: L.U. Marks, Touch: Sensuous
       Theory and Multisensory Media (Minneapolis-London: University of Minnesota Press, 2002):
       4-7; L.U. Marks, The Skin of the Film. Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses
       (Durham-London: Duke University Press, 2000): 162-171.
       55 J.M. Barker, The Tactile Eye. Touch and the Cinematic Experience (Berkeley-Los Angeles-
       London: University of California Press, 2009): 37-38.
       56 See in this regard: A. Pinotti, Il corpo dello stile. Storia dell’arte come storia dell’estetica
       a partire da Semper, Riegl, Wölfflin (Milano: Mimesis, 2001). See specifically the third section
       entitled “Occhio e mano:” 179-221.
       57 M. Grunwald, M. John, “German pioneers of research into human haptic perception,” in M.
       Grunwald, ed., Human Haptic Perception. Basics and Applications (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008):
       19.
       58 T. Weiss, “Phantom sensations,” in M. Grunwald, ed., Human Haptic Perception. Basics
       and Applications (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008): 283-294.
       59 D. Parisi, Archaeologies of Touch: 105.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                  145                                           AN-ICON
               obsolete Greek term, already Homeric and Aristotelian,60
               reflects Dessoir’s will to deepen the investigation on touch
               by distinguishing the sensations of contact from the active
               exploration (Pselaphesie).61 This distinction, destined to
               become normative, emerged in the context of a network of
               experimental psychology laboratories scattered through-
               out the United States and orbiting around the Harvard
               Psychological Laboratory, inaugurated in 1875 by William
               James, although active only since 1892.62 While in 1890,
               James was able to discuss the “fallacy of the senses,” tak-
               ing his cue from the prominent Aristotelic finger illusion,63
               consulting Harvard Laboratory appendix for the two years
               1892-1893 shows how scientific trials on touch proceeded
               simultaneously to the study of optical illusions.64 A similar
               experimental path would culminate in 1893 with the pre-
               sentation of the Apparatus for Simultaneous Touches by
               William Krohn at Clark University.65
                              On the plexus mentioned above, the aestheti-
               cal and historiographical discourses are inserted and inter-
               twined, sanctioning the passage from the properly physio-
               logical illusion of touching to a metaphorical one, embodied
               by the rhetorical figure of “as if,” direct relative of Derrida’s
               inverted commas. That such a rhetorical stratagem con-
               stitutes a much older matter is recalled by the well-known
               querelle of Herderian uncertainty. As already pointed out by
               Andrea Pinotti, in his aesthetic treatise Plastik, Herder seems
               to allude to the possibility of a virtual touch, reproaching
               the sculptor who has never touched, not even in a dream,


       60 M. Perniola, Il Sex Appeal dell’Inorganico (Torino: Einaudi, 1994): 95.
       61 M. Dessoir, Über den Hautsinn (Separat-Abzug aus Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie:
       Physiologische Abtheilung. 1892): 242.
       62 G. Bruno, “Film, aesthetics, science: Hugo Münsterberg’s laboratory of moving images,”
       Grey Room 36 (Summer 2009): 88-113, https://doi.org/10.1162/grey.2009.1.36.88.
       63 W. James, The Principles of Psychology (Ontario: York University, 1890): 87.
       64 H. Munsterberg, Psychological Laboratory of Harvard University (Harvard: Harvard
       University Press, 1893). Munsterberg recorded notes include: “Instrument for studying the
       fusion of touch sensations. After Krohn; made in Cambridge”; “Instrument for touch reaction,
       etc;” “Touch-reaction instrument, with twenty different stimuli. By Elbs, Freiburg. $20”. See
       also: Bruno, “Film”: 101-102.
       65 W.O. Krohn, “Facilities in experimental psychology in the colleges of the United States”
       (1894), in C.D. Green, ed., Classics in the History of Psychology (Toronto: Tork University):
       https://www.sapili.org/subir-depois/en/ps000128.pdf; D. Parisi, Archaeologies: 144-147.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                146                                         AN-ICON
               his creation.66 “The illusion has worked,”67 the philosopher
               will add, when the eye takes on the movements of the hand
               and then of a very thin ray, an emissary of the soul, which
               kinaesthetically embraces the sculpture as it becomes a
               body. In the wake of Konrad Lange’s Illusionsästhetik68 and
               J.H. Kirchmann and E. Von Hartmann’s doctrine of illusional
               feelings, the already mentioned Dessoir would achieve an
               even more drastic conclusion. Declaring that every work of
               art mainly satisfies a single sensory channel, this sensorial
               limitation “guarantees its illusory character,” generating the
               paradoxical situation of “a conscious self-deception, of a
               continued and deliberate confusion of reality and illusion.”69
                             However, it was not until the art-historical de-
               bate of the early 1950s – while the earliest haptic devices
               were designed – that an open polarization was reached
               regarding whether or not sculptures should be touched. On
               the one hand Herbert Read, moving from the psychological
               studies of Arnheim, Wundt, Lowenfeld, and Révész, could
               argue that “for the sculptor, tactile values are not an illusion
               to be created on a two-dimensional plane: they constitute a
               reality of being conveyed directly, as existent mass. Sculp-
               ture is an art of palpation.”70 On the other hand, a fervent
               detractor such as the modernist Greenberg would have
               drastically overturned this assumption.71 Both consistent
               readers of Berenson, whose normative and ambivalent




       66 A. Pinotti, Guardare o toccare: 189; J.G. Herder, Sculpture. Some Observations on Shape
       and Form from Pygmalion’s Creative Dream (1778), ed. J. Gaiger (Chicago-London: The
       University of Chicago Press, 2002): 41.
       67 A. Pinotti, Guardare o toccare: 189; J.G. Herder, Some Observations: 41.
       68 For an introduction to the subject see: D. Romand, “Konrad Lange on ‘the Illusion of
       Materials’ in painting and visual arts: revisiting a psychoaesthetic theory of the perception
       of material properties,” in J. Stumpel, M. Wijntjes, eds., Art and Perception. An International
       Journal of Art and Perception Science, Special Issue: The Skin of Things: On the Perception
       and Depiction of Materials 7, no. 3-4 (2021): 283-289.
       69 M. Dessoir, Aesthetics and Theory of Art. Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft
       (1906), trans. S.A. Emery, (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1970): 53.
       70 H. Read, The Art of Sculpture (London: Faber & Faber, 1954): 49.
       71 We are referring specifically to Greenberg’s harsh and inflexible review of Read’s
       monograph: C. Greenberg, “Roundness isn’t all,” (November 25, 1956), in J. O’ Brian, ed.,
       Clement Greenberg: Collected Essays and Criticism 3 (Chicago: The University of Chicago
       Press, 1995): 272.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                 147                                          AN-ICON
              “tactile values”72 find a more truthful attestation in the cor-
               ollary categories of “ideated sensations,” “ideated satisfac-
               tions” and “ideal sensation of contact,”73 Read and Green-
               berg finally reached an unexpected consonance. Whilst
               Read claimed the experience of sculpture as distinctive of
               haptic perception and, specifically, for the prehensility of
               the hand; Greenberg denied the appropriateness of such
               fruition, attributing tactile stimuli to the visual sphere. Mean-
               while, Herder’s uncertainty remains. Indeed, as David J.
               Getsy noted, it is ultimately unclear whether Read wished
               for a knowledge of the plastic work through its palpation
               or maintained such contact on a substantially preliminary
               and physiological condition.74
                              In order to enrich the corpus of sources of such
               a querelle numerous other examples could be made; none-
               theless, one of the most promising scenarios for its analysis,
               as prophetically announced by Derrida, is offered by the
               exploration through haptic interfaces of digitized artifacts in
               museums. When the veto of touching the work of art lapses
               and the distinction between actual and fictional flattens out,
               which horizons are opened by the possibility of touching?
               Will it be a “tactile vertigo” in the sense of Baudrillard, in
               which the virtual object expired at the status of a trompe-
               l’œil image soliciting a “tactile hyper presence of things, as
               though one could hold them,” despite its phantasmagorical
               essence?75 Can these finally touchable bodies add much


       72 A. Brown, “Bernard Berenson and ‘tactile values’ in Florence,” in J. Connors, ed., Bernard
       Berenson: Formation and Heritage (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Villa I Tatti, The Harvard
       University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, 2014). For an analysis highlighting the subtle
       pantheism underlying Berenson’s work, see: A. Pinotti, “The touchable and the untouchable.
       Merleau-Ponty and Bernard Berenson,” Phenomenology 2005 3, no. 2, (2007): 479-498.
       73 B. Berenson, Aesthetics and History (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1948): 24-25, 74.
       74 As David J. Getsy pointedly notes: “Read did not necessarily argue that the viewer
       must touch the sculpture in order to appreciate it, as Greenberg would have us believe.
       Rather, it was the aggregate experience of tactility that provides us with an ability to assess
       ponderability and the non-visual traits of any object. Our haptic sensibility and our sense of
       the physical environment are both closely tied to our own ever-developing repertoire of tactile
       and physical experiences”; D.J. Getsy, “Tactility or opticality, Henry Moore or David Smith:
       Herbert Read and Clement Greenberg on The Art of Sculpture, 1956,” in R. Peabody, ed.,
       Anglo-American Exchange in Postwar Sculpture, 1945–1975 (Los Angeles: Getty Publication,
       2011): 111-112.
       75 J. Baudrillard, Seduction (1979), trans. B. Singer (Montréal: New World Perspectives.
       Culture Text Series, 1990): 62-63.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                 148                                          AN-ICON
               to the illusory palpation of the work of art on a semantic
               level, if not on a phenomenological one?

                                 Haptic technologies and museums,
                                 the imaginative frontiers of the
                                 phenomenology of touch

                            In order to present a critical account of how
               haptic technologies are being employed in museums, and
               to investigate to what extent the projects designed within
               these environments fully explore the illusory potential of vir-
               tual haptic experiences, a preliminary discussion on analog
               touch in museums is needed. The use of haptic technolo-
               gies within museum settings,76 which has widely increased
               in the last decades, is in fact not something new to cultural
               experiential models,77 and more the reinstatement of prac-
               tices which had been common policies in museums from
               their foundation to the middle of the nineteenth century.
               While today it is “generally taken for granted that museums
               collections are not for touching”78 seventeenth- and eigh-
               teenth-century museum visitors were customarily free to
               pick up precious and delicate relics, enjoying their sense
               of touch as a fundamental part of their overall experience.
               More specifically, touch in early museums was used for
               four different reasons:79 learning (as touching an object
               provided relevant information that through sight could not
               be obtained, like its weight), aesthetic appreciation (touch
               was considered to allow an embodied understanding of the

       76 For a comprehensive account on how the importance of touch has been re-evaluated in
       the museum sector in the past three decades please cfr. G. Black, The Engaging Museum:
       Developing Museums for Visitor Involvement (Oxford: Routledge, 2005); E. Pye, The Power
       of Touch: Handling Objects in Museums and Heritage Contexts (Walnut Creek, CA: Left
       Coast Press, 2007), H. Chatterjee, Touch in Museums: Policy and Practice in Object Handling
       (Oxford: Berg, 2008); F. Candlin, Art, Museums and Touch (Manchester: University of
       Manchester Press: 2010), and S. Dudley, ed., Museum Objects: Experiencing the Properties of
       Things (London: Routledge, 2012).
       77 C. Classen, The Deepest Sense. A Cultural History of Touch (Chicago: University of Illinois
       Press, 2012): 136-146.
       78 Ibid.: 137.
       79 A synthetic account of the reasons why touch was a common practice in museums can be
       found in Classen, The Deepest Sense: 139-142. For other discussions on the topic please cfr.
       D. Howes, “Introduction to sensory museology,” The Senses and Society 9, no. 3 (2014): 259-
       267 https://doi.org/10.2752/174589314X14023847039917 and R.F. Ovenell, The Ashmolean
       Museum, 1683–1894 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                149                                         AN-ICON
               nature of the display), imaginary potential (by holding an ar-
               tifact visitors could get emotionally in touch with its original
               owner or maker) and healing powers (especially religious
               relics, when touched or eaten,80 where deemed able to cure
               illnesses and pains). As it appears evident already from this
               first account, not all yet some of the functions of touch in
               museums had to do with the potential to empower imagina-
               tive accounts, associating the role of touching not only with
               evidentiary information, yet also with intangible and elusive,
               even powerful, qualities. From the mid of the nineteenth
               century touch was banned from museums:81 conservation
               matters became more and more relevant, while parallelly
               touch in itself came to be classified as a secondary sense,
               one “associated with irrationality and primitivism.”82 These
               two reasons account for two extremely different discourses,
               one linked to practical aspects and to the preservation of
               cultural heritage, the second pertaining to a conceptual
               sphere, having to do with epistemic premises and their
               museological consequences.
                             Today, well into the third decade of the 21st
               century, the situation in museums seems to be closer to that
               of three centuries ago than to the end of the last Millenium.
               Touch seems to have regained its epistemic status,83 and
               modern haptic technologies allow its employment without
               the need to endanger precious artifacts. The great differ-
               ence, however, is that machines and proxies mediate the
               haptic experience, defining its phenomenology. The ques-
               tion which arises, at this point, seems to be to what extent
               these technologies are and will be designed with the aim
       80 For a historical account of the healing powers of ancient religious relics cfr. K. Arnold,
      “Skulls, mummies and unicorns’ horns: medicinal chemistry in early english museums,” in
       R.G.W. Anderson et al., Enlightening the British: Knowledge, Discovery and the Museum in the
       Eighteenth Century (London: The British Museum Press, 2003), also E. Brown, An Account
       of Several Travels through a Great Part of Germany (London: Benjamin Tooke, 1677), and
       D. Murray, Museums: Their History and Use, vol. 1. (Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons,
       1904): 40, 50, 73.
       81 For an account of the historical reasons which led to this change cfr. Classen, The Deepest
       Sense: 143-146, and F. Candlin, Art, Museums and Touch.
       82 C. Classen, The Deepest Sense. A Cultural History of Touch: XIV.
       83 For a discussion on the epistemic value of touch please cfr. C. Classen, The Book of Touch
       (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2005), M. Peterson, The Senses of Touch (London: Routledge, 2007),
       M.P. Gadoua, “Making sense through touch. Handling collections with Inuit Elders at the
       McCord Museum,” The Senses and Society 9, no. 3 (2014): 323-341 https://doi.org/10.2752/1
       74589314X14023847039719.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE               150                                         AN-ICON
                to mirror the original analog functions of touch, or whether
                they will be built and employed with the goal to expand the
                potential of the haptic experience. With regards to this, it
                will be important to understand on which of the qualities
                of touch – amongst the seventeenth century list aforemen-
                tioned – they will leverage on. Whilst, on the one hand, they
                could aim at faithfully reproducing the phenomenological
                qualities of touch, the paragraphs above have shown how
                there is a wider illusory character that these technologies
                could be aiming at capturing, one which could hopefully
                open up new experiential frontiers.
                              Whilst there isn’t one single comprehensive ac-
                count which maps the state of the arts of haptic technolog-
                ical development in the museum system, literature in this
                field has been growing recently. This thanks to researches
                that discuss the regained relevance of touch in educational
                settings, together with publications which analyze individ-
                ual projects designed and carried through by museum re-
                search centers.84 A vast number of these studies highlight
                how haptic technologies allow visitors to “explore new par-
                adigms of interaction”85 leveraging on the “quality and use-
                fulness of computer-based exhibits.”86 This is granted as
                the sense of touch “is an essential part of how we interact,
                explore, perceive and understand our surroundings”87 and
                therefore incorporating object based learning in museum


       84 For other interesting case studies analyzing the role of haptic technologies in museums
       please cfr. R. Comes, “Haptic devices and tactile experiences in museum exhibitions,”
       Journal of Ancient History and Archeology 3, no. 4 (2016) https://doi.org/10.14795/j.v3i4.205;
       F. Fischnaller “The last supper interactive project. The illusion of reality: perspective and
       perception,” in G. Amoruso, ed., Putting Tradition into Practice: Heritage, Place and Design,
       Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 3, (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018) https://
       doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57937-5_73; M.H. Jamil et al., “The role of haptics in digital
       archaeology and heritage recording processes”, 2018 IEEE International Symposium on
       Haptic, Audio and Visual Environments and Games (HAVE) (2018): 1-6 https://doi.org/10.1109/
       HAVE.2018.8547505.
       85 A. Frisoli et al., “Evaluation of the pure-form haptic displays used for exploration of works of
       art at museums,” report on the project findings, 2005 retrieved at https://www.researchgate.
       net/publication/228584199_Evaluation_of_the_pure-form_haptic_displays_used_for_
       exploration_of_works_of_art_at_museums/ related on the 31/01/2022.
       86 S. Brewster, “The impact of haptic ‘touching’ technology on cultural applications,” in J.
       Hemsley, V. Cappellini, G. Stanke, eds., Digital Applications for Cultural Heritage Institutions,
       (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005): Chap. 30, 273-284, 282.
       87 M. Novak et al., “There is more to touch than meets the eye: haptic exploration in a science
       museum,” International Journal of Science Education 42, no. 18 (2020): 3026-3048 https://doi.
       org/10.1080/09500693.2020.1849855.

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                experiences increases autonomy and satisfaction.88 The
                information that visitors can acquire through touch appears
                today relevant as it did at the beginning of museum histo-
                ry, and it has become obtainable without endangering the
                artifacts. 3D replicas of material artifacts associated with a
                range of wearable or desktop devices are the predominant
                technologies used across museum experiments, engaging
                users through mainly force feedback and kinetic stimuli.89
                While providing an account of the state of the arts of the
                literature and case studies in this sector is not one of the
                goals of this essay, a series of examples have been cho-
                sen as they have been deemed relevant to the research at
                hand: assessing to what extent haptic museum experience
                expand and explore their full – at times illusory – potential.
                             A widely discussed experiment in the field is the
                Museum of Pure Form, “a collective project ran in the early
                2000s by a series of European museums creating 3D digital
                replicas of their artifacts and making available a technology
                which allowed for the haptic experience of them.”90 This
                pivotal program engaged a series of museums across Eu-
                rope91 who collected a shared archive of digital replicas of
                their statues, and then produced a touring exhibition which
                installed wearable devices (exoskeleton wearable arm) and
                or desktop devices (two robotic arms departing from sup-
                port columns placed in front of the visualization screen) in
                front of the original statues.92 Overall, findings on the exper-
                iment registered both amusement (70% of attendees) and
                instructiveness (39%) across visitors.93 The shared belief,
                confirmed by the analysis conducted simultaneously as the

       88 M. Novak et al., “There is more to touch that meets the eye:” 3044.
       89 In the literature it is possible to find studies which evaluate both collaborative endeavors
       and researches ran by single institutions. Overall, the collaboration between universities or
       tech companies and cultural institutions seems a fundamental premise in order to allow for
       trials and studies that evaluate the impact of these projects.
       90 A. Frisoli, “Evaluation of the pure-form haptic displays used for exploration of works of art
       at museums.”
       91 The Galician Centre for Contemporary Arts in Santiago de Compostela, the Museo
       dell’Opera del Duomo in Pisa, the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm, the
       Conservation Centre at National Museums Liverpool and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian
       Archaeology in London.
       92 A. Frisoli, “Evaluation of the pure-form haptic displays used for exploration of works of art
       at museums:” 2.
       93 Ibid.: 6.

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               project, was that the opportunity to use a device to touch
               the digital replica of a statue while looking at it enforced the
               learning experience. Something which, as aforementioned,
               was deemed constitutive of the relevance of touch in early
               museum experiences. As this case study shows, together
               with many that have followed, it seems that one of the main
               concerns of museum professionals and researchers in de-
               signing digital haptic experiences seems to be supplying
               to the lost opportunity to touch the artworks, thus enabling
               the visitor to enjoy a wider range of information regarding
               the statue and, consequently, enriching the learning expe-
               rience. This, however, faces a series of relevant limitations
               on the phenomenological level, as discussed above with
               reference to Wang’s analysis in Haptic Display. It appears,
               from this first account, that the use of haptic technologies
               is not necessarily seen as a strategy to experiment and
               widen the cultural experience, yet instead as a way to re-
               cuperate something that contemporary curatorial practices
               do not allow – namely to touch originals. With reference
               to this point, it is interesting to see that there are several
               researches actually comparing the haptic experience that
               visitors can have touching the replica of an artifact or its
               3D version.94 It appears that “the comparison between the
               haptic device and the replica showed that the multi-finger
               tactile interaction with the replica produced considerably
               richer information than the single-point contact of the hap-
               tic device.”95 What the citation implies is that the technology
               used provided a less phenomenologically rich experience




       94 Interesting accounts on this debate can be found in M. Dima, L. Hurcombe, M. Wright,
      “Touching the past: haptic augmented reality for museum artefacts,” in R. Shumaker, S. Lackey,
       eds., Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality. Applications of Virtual and Augmented Reality.
       VAMR 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 8526. (Cham: Springer, 2014) https://doi.
       org/10.1007/978-3-319-07464-1_1. Also cfr. S. Ceccacci et al., “The role of haptic feedback
       and gamification in virtual museum systems,” Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage
       14, no. 3 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1145/3453074, and F. Stanco et al., “Virtual anastylosis of
       Greek sculpture as museum policy for public outreach and cognitive accessibility,” Journal of
       Electronic Imaging 26, no. 1, 011025 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JEI.26.1.011025.
       95 M. Dima, L. Hurcombe, M. Wright, “Touching the past: haptic augmented reality for
       museum artefacts:” 6.

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               compared to the touching of the printed replica, which if
               possible is deemed a better alternative.
                             As of today, the technical limitations that most
               devices used in museums present contribute to a scenario
               where physical touch, even if of replicas, seems to be fa-
               vored. The reasons why haptic technology is preferred are
               not experiential factors; they have to do with practical and
               managerial concerns, such as the fact that digital replicas
               do not occupy physical space and that they can be expe-
               rienced also remotely. It appears that these technologies, if
               competing on a purely phenomenological level and trying
               to mirror haptic experiences that occur in reality, are des-
               tined to have a limited contribution to cultural experiences,
               being the only alternative yet not a solution which in itself
               holds value.
                             Other case studies can however add further
               layers to the use of haptic technologies in museum set-
               tings, offering opportunities that neither physical statues nor
               printed replicas could elicit. A research published by the
               Journal of Electronic Imaging illustrates the case of the vir-
               tual anastylosis of a Greek sculpture, operated by digitally
               combining a head and a torso held in two different heritage
               sites in Sicily.96 The two ancient pieces, one hosted in the
               Museum of Castello Ursino in Catania and the other in the
               Archeological Museum of Siracusa, were hypothesized by
               archeologists to be parts of the same statue due to stylistic
               features. This theory was, however, never proved as neither
               of their hosting institutions was willing to dislocate one
               of the pieces for the necessary analysis to be performed.
               Through digital imaging and 3D rendering it was however
               possible to demonstrate the perfect match of the two parts
               of the statue, creating a new object that was then made
               accessible through the use of haptic technology – in this
               case the haptic device 3D Systems Touch – and thanks
               to the collaboration with the Center for Virtualization and
               Applied Spatial Technologies, University of South Florida. A

       96 F. Stanco et al., “Virtual anastylosis of Greek sculpture as museum policy for public
       outreach and cognitive accessibility.”

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                dedicated effort was made to ensure that the new technol-
                ogy would account for people with cognitive and physical
                disabilities, another potentiality that haptic technologies
                hold and on which research is being tailored.97 Whilst this
                case highlights the strategic contribution that modern tech-
                nologies can provide to both research and fruition, it could
                be argued that the added value here is given by the fact
                that this statue could have otherwise never been seen or
                felt, yet not in a manner which depends, from a specifically
                phenomenological perspective, on the haptic technology
                itself. Hence reinforcing the understanding that the main
                use of these technologies is directed towards reinstating
                the original – and lost – hard value of touch, not necessarily
                adding new levels of experience.
                              Another case, involving virtually touching the
                torso of Michelangelo’s David at Monash University,98 can
                prove useful to enrich the discussion on the use of haptic
                technologies in museums. What emerges from this study,
                which in terms of research methodology mirrors the vast
                majority of cases in the literature in creating a 3D digital
                replica and then experiencing it through the Phantom, is
                that the images reproduced digitally “allow the user to focus
                on particular details that they may overlook otherwise.”99
                What appears here is that the virtual experiential setting
                creates the opportunity for the user to actually grasp some
                details of the statue that he would have not been able to
                experience with either the original or with a 3D printed

       97 There are a number of experiments within the field of haptic technologies which focus
       specifically on accessibility for people with impared cognitive and physical abilities. An
       interesting research center is the one of the University of Glasgow, which ran two trials in this
       field, one called Senses in Touch II, and the other MultiVis project. A complete account of the
       two researches can be found in Brewster, “The impact of haptic ‘touching’ technology on
       cultural applications:” 279-282. Another interesting research which discusses the potential of
       haptics for the visually impaired is G. Jansson, M. Bergamasco, A. Frisoli, “A new option for
       the visually impaired to experience 3D art at museums: manual exploration of virtual copies,”
       Visual Impairment Research 5, no. 1 (2003): 1-12 https://doi.org/10.1076/vimr.5.1.1.15973.
       Also cfr. R. Vaz, D. Freitas, A. Coelho, “Blind and visually impaired visitors’ experiences in
       museums: increasing accessibility through assistive technologies,” The International Journal of
       the Inclusive Museum 13, no. 2 (June 2020): 57-80, https://doi.org/10.18848/1835-2014/CGP/
       v13i02/57-80.
       98 M. Butler, P. Neave, “Object appreciation through haptic interaction,” Proceedings of
       the 25th Annual Conference of the Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary
       Education (Melbourne: Ascilite, 2008), 133-141.
       99 Ibid.: 140.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE                 155                                          AN-ICON
              replica. The flexibility of digital images, their potential to be
              modulated, modified and enlarged, appears, in this case,
              to actually add a further layer to the visitor experience.
              The higher attention to detail deepens and expands the
              experience in a manner that is specific of, and exclusive
              to, digital haptic technologies.
                           Whilst this last example seems to slightly
              brighten the scenario described, the cases discussed so
              far account for an employment of haptic technologies which
              struggles to emancipate itself from a traditional under-
              standing of touch in cultural experiences. The three cases
              analyzed, far from providing a comprehensive account of
              the multitude of programmes that have been carried out
              across the museum sector in the past years, have how-
              ever been chosen as they are representative of the main
              trends found in the literature. Overall, researchers seem
              to have been focused mainly on trying to bring back an
              aspect of experience which was lost, and less keen on the
              advanced possibilities that haptic technologies might hold.
              With reference to the technological and historical discus-
              sion presented above, regarding haptic illusions, it does not
              appear that these seem to be at the center of experimental
              designs in the museum sector, where the understanding of
              touch seems to recall more the “hard undeniable evidence”
              school than the more subtle and rich understanding of the
              haptic which encompasses its illusory character. This de-
              pends on a number of reasons, related to both cultural,
              professional and economic factors. A further fundamental
              aspect to take into account, when discussing the use of
              haptic technologies in museums, is in fact the high cost of
              these devices. The more sophisticated they are, the higher
              their prices, which makes it difficult for museums to afford
              them, even harder to update them. Main advancements
              with haptic technologies are in fact usually in other fields
              of research with richer funding, such as medicine and engi-
              neering. This leads to the second limitation, namely that to
              innovatively experiment with these technologies, technical
              and diverse professional skills are required. Even though
              most programmes within museums are run in collaboration
VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE      156                              AN-ICON
                with universities and research centers, the degree of com-
                plexity that pertains to these projects needs a pull of pro-
                fessionals which is hard to put together and coordinate in
                the current economic and professional climate.
                             There are, however, a few interesting cases that,
                at times even without the use of high budgets and elevated
                skills, seem to leverage on the wider range of possibilities
                that these technologies offer. Interestingly enough, these
                also relate to two of the original functions of touch valued
                in early museums: the aesthetic enrichment of the expe-
                rience and the emotional potential of haptics. It appears
                that when haptic technologies are being employed with the
                aim of enacting and recalling these elements – as opposed
                to when they try to give back the evidentiary character of
                touch – the result are more imaginative endeavors, allowing
                for the creation of a further semantic level of experience.
                             One first interesting case is a very recent ex-
                periment conducted at University College London, where
                a student has designed a device which, through the use
                of capacitive touch sensors, wants to “help us understand
                what an artist felt at the time they created their work by
                recreating their sensory experiences.”100 The project idea,
                which rests on the theoretical background of embodied
                knowledge as an extension of the mind and of embodied
                practice as a means to feel the emotions of an artist,101 was
                inspired by an artwork: The Face of Christ by Claude Mellan,
                hosted in the UCL Art Museum. By looking closely at the
                artwork, the author of the project realized that the whole
                drawing had been made through the design of one single
                spiraling line, a unique technique. His idea was therefore
                to design a device which could enable the viewer to create

       100 F. Taylor, “Recreating sensory experience: how haptic technology could help us
       experience art in new ways,” UCL Culture Blog, (July 13, 2020) https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/
       museums/2020/07/13/recreating-sensory-experience-how-haptic-technology-could-help-us-
       experience-art-in-new-ways/ on the 31/01/2022, accessed December 11, 2022.
       101 When the author discusses embodied knowledge as an extension of the mind the
       reference is I. Martínková, “Body ecology: avoiding body–mind dualism,” Loisir et Société /
       Society and Leisure 40, no. 1 (2017): 101-112, https://doi.org/10.1080/07053436.2017.1281
       528; whilst when discussing embodied practices as a means to feel emotions of artists the
       specific reference in the literature is D. Freedberg, V. Gallese, “Motion, emotion and empathy
       in esthetic experience,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11, no. 5 (2007): 197-203, https://doi.
       org/10.1016/j.tics.2007.02.003.

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               a contact with the motion that had originated the artwork,
               building a direct emotional connection with the artist. As
               the author describes it “through an audio feedback loop,
               the device I designed takes in touch inputs from a view-
               er of the artwork and returns a religious-sounding choral
               soundtrack when the spiral gesture from the engraving is
               drawn correctly with a finger. The spiral gesture,” he adds,
              “was directly extracted from The Face of Christ with the help
               of a custom python script which made use of various image
               analysis libraries.”102 What can be highlighted in reading
               about this project, which at this point consist of just a first
               artisanal prototype, is the way in which haptic technologies
               are used to explore unusual and often overlooked aspects
               of artworks. Whilst the potential of these technologies in
               broadening the field of aesthetic experience is well estab-
               lished, there are some developments specific to this case
               worth expanding on. Interestingly enough, the author re-
               fers specifically to the idea of building a connection with
               the painter who made The Face of Christ, recuperating
               the same reasoning that mid eighteenth-century museum
               goers had when holding a precious object.103 In comparing
               the attempt to get in touch with the past before and after
               haptic technologies, moreover, the added value brought by
               the device seems clear. Whilst in the original case a visitor
               had to actively exercise the power of imagination in order
               to build a connection, in this instance the device guides
               the user into the experience, leveraging on the emotional
               potential of a multisensory environment which starts from
               the drawn line, develops into an haptic apparatus and is
               then sublimated through sound. What emerges with regards
               to this example, and in contrast with the ones analyzed
               before, is the way in which the designer of the project has
               overcome the need to merely attempt to replicate the touch-
               ing experience, and decided to exploit both the phenom-
               enological and the imaginative potential of the technology
       102 F. Taylor, Recreating sensory experience: How haptic technology could help us experience
       art in new ways.
       103 A detailed account of an emotional and imaginative encounter between a museum goer
       and an artifact can be found in S.A. La Roche, Sophie in London, 1786: Being the Diary of
       Sophie Von La Roche, trans. C. Williams (London: Jonathan Cape, 1933): 107-108.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE               158                                        AN-ICON
              at his disposal. Further, this has been done in an artisanal
              and experimental fashion, not through the use of excessive
              resources and a big team of professionals.
                           Another experimental program worth consid-
              ering, in this case definitely a more costly and collective
              endeavor, is an exhibition held at Tate Britain in 2015, Tate
              Sensorium (Fig. 2).104 The research background behind this
              project refers to a scientific field which experiments with the
              power of haptics to elicit emotions. More specifically, these
              projects study how mid-air haptic technology – a specific
              subset – is able to condition human emotions (e.g., happy,
              sad, excited, afraid) through tactile stimulation.105 While
              the literature in the field of mid haptics is still at a very early
              experimental stage, and definitive conclusions are yet to be
              drawn, progress has been made in mapping the correlation
              between aspects of haptics and emotional states. What
              was done at Tate was to organize an exhibition which built
              a fully sensory environment around four paintings: Interior
              II by Richard Hamilton, Full Stop by John Latham, In the
              Hold by David Bomberg, and Figure in a Landscape by
              Francis Bacon. In a detailed article106 presenting a study
              on the exhibition, the specific experience of Full Stop is
              analyzed. What the curators did was to position a mid-air
              haptic device in front of the painting, and synchronize a
              range of mid-air haptic patterns inside the device with a
              self-developed software that could read Musical Instru-
              ment Digital Interface (MIDI) inputs. The design was curated
              by a sound designer who could control the mid-air haptic
              patterns (frequency, intensity, and movement paths) to cre-
              ate a desired experience synched with music. As detailed
              through the article, this exhibition was the first time that
              mid-air haptic technology was used in a museum context




VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE      159                               AN-ICON
                over a prolonged period of time and integrated with sound
                to enhance the experience of visual art. This “work demon-
                strates how novel mid-air technology can make art more
                emotionally engaging and stimulating, especially abstract
                art that is often open to interpretation,”107 as it was proved
                by collecting positive feedback from over 2500 visitors. The
                aim of the authors, as clearly stated across the research,
                was to advance understanding of multisensory signals in
                relation to art, experiences and design, based on novel
                interactive technologies. Referencing back to the reasons
                why touch was valued in early museums, this experiment
                seems to fit in the category which uses haptics to enhance
                the aesthetic experience of the visitors: anticipating that
                haptics carry value not only on a purely informative sensory
                level, but eliciting a wider level of complexity.

                            Conclusions

                             Overall, there seems to be a wide potential for
                using haptic technologies in museum settings and leverag-
                ing on the ways in which these devices can contribute to the
                cultural experience of artifacts. The two final case studies
                here examined clearly exemplify how haptic technologies
                can help in generating a new experiential layer, one which
                rests on a complex phenomenological understanding of
                the haptics and establishes an active dialogue with the
                entire sensorium of the experiencer. Both cases show a
                designed synchronization between the tactile experience
                and the sense of hearing, suggesting that one of the ways
                to experiment with the haptic is by interrogating a more en-
                vironmental and organic understanding of the relationship
                between the senses. Interestingly, the more complex and
                enhancing experiences are characterized by stimuli that
                do not just mimic the act of touching, thus attempting to
                reinstate the lost chance of touching the artwork, yet play
                with the illusory potential of haptics and with the other


       107 Ibid.: 1.

VALENTINA BARTALESI, ANNA CALISE       160                            AN-ICON
              qualities of touch valued in early museums: the evocative
              and imaginistic potential of the haptic experience.
                           The analysis from the museum sector, when
              linked to the technological and historical accounts regard-
              ing the link between the haptic and the figure of illusion,
              suggests the value of exploring the ways in which haptic
              technologies can emancipate us from a reductive under-
              standing of touch. Certainly, all museum endeavors and
              experiments will have to take into account a variety of prac-
              tical and concrete concerns, which also play an important
              part in defining the destiny of cultural projects. It is not given
              that exploring the illusory potential of haptic technologies
              represents in itself the best choice for a museum research.
              Yet, it can be concluded that when designed in an open
              dialogue with our whole sensorium these technologies ap-
              pear empowered in their visionary potential, making Derri-
              da’s observation more actual than ever: the nexus between
              touch and virtuality is as real as it gets.




        Fig 2. Tate Sensorium exhibition at Tate Britain in 2015, installation
           shot of Full Stop (1961) by John Latham © John Latham Estate.
          Photo: Tate. Illustration of a participant experiencing the second
                             painting combining vision, auditory, and haptic.




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AN-ICON has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Grant agreement No. 834033 AN-ICON.
The project is hosted by the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” – Department of Excellence at the State University of Milan.



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