The Tangible, some thoughts

Hi all !

Sorry for the delay in sending these notes ! I should have written this message the day we had our meeting before I got caught up in everything else !

So here are my thoughts :

I first thought of the tangible as a way to try to take a step back from all the theoretical frenzy surrounding the virtual or the cyberspace and maybe arouse original perspectives on it. To me, this theme also opens the door to ways of thinking about culture that could challenge the postmodernist stance and question the repudiation of our faith in perception and our constant focus on discourse as a way to analyze culture and society (see, below, the references to Belting and Jay).

In art, the tangible can evoke themes such as realism or still lives (it can be interesting to reflect on maybe some actualizations of these themes); modernist issues such as materiality, found objects, waste or trash; or more contemporary practices related to questions as actual as ecology in an era of global warming or, from a more technical point of view, practices that make use of gigantic, architectural or oppressing materiality (think of the Monumenta event in Paris or of the work of Serra, Kapoor, Eliasson,  Christo to name a few artists that are interested in scale and matter).

The tangible might also raises issues related to the spectator's experience and the impact of new technologies on it. I remember, for instance, how this guy working at DHC described people's reaction to the recent exhibition of Ryoji Ikeda and his captivating, almost immersive video installations.  Not suprisingly, the guy noticed that if most visitors really liked the pieces, older visitors (baby-boomers and older) would sometimes have a hard time getting interested in it.

Inevitably, then, the tangible can be related to questions raised by the growing extent, in our everyday lives, of medias, technologies and the virtual extension of our lives and imaginary : should it be opposed or considered as a threat to tangible objects (e.g. newspaper, books, photo albums, cd, etc.) and experiences (e.g. social encounters, sexuality, etc.) or as a mere reconfiguration of them or even, as an evolution ? 

For Hans Belting (An Anthropology of Images) our relations to virtual images are anchored in the same triadic relation between the image, the body and the medium (defined as that which makes the image visible). It seems even inappropriate to say of an image that it is virtual. For an image, as long as it is not mental, is always made visible through a material support (a screen, a computer, a pad, etc.). Therefore, what is transformed in virtual images is merely the surface on which they are made visible. However, the new technologies bear witness to our distrust toward the material world and the utopia of a disembodied reality. What is really threatened by these images is the relation that ties them to places or localizations. In the age of globalization, the physical territory of a culture and its referents is people themselves and their memory.

Seen from that angle, the tangible is deeply connected to anthropological approaches of art and communication as well as to studies on memory. It can give rise to reflections on patrimony, inheritance and spirituality.

But of course, it can also be further developed with reference to affect theory, theories of perception, phenomenology and so on. It is also connected (negatively) to certain forms of iconoclasm, to a valorization of idea or even — from a lacanian perspective — of symbolization (language) against image or imaginary (see, on these issues, Martin Jay's Downcast Eyes, the Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought, 1993).

I put some thoughts into the choice of our keynote speaker and, personally, I really liked the idea of Jane Benett, Bill Brown (although I think he is in sabbatical this year) and David Freedberg. I would also suggest these names : Lorraine Daston (Objectivity, Things that Talks), Constance Classen (The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch, The Book of Touch) and Martin Jay (Downcast Eye).

As for an image, I really like the Carravagio's Doubting Thomas (see Thomasz's post). I have had the same thought. But I am sure we could also think of evocative fonts or the use of a generic image.

That's about it for now ! I hope it helps !

Maryse