Telehaptic Sense-acts and Distancing Effects

Abstract: This article explores the phenomenon of telehaptics, considered at the intersection of concepts of distance, sensation, and imagination. It delves into the complexities of touch as both a physical and psychological sense that indicates the threshold between one and the other, at once connecting and separating. As an aesthetic experience, telehaptics implies self-reflexivity of sensation informed by the awareness of the apparatus of perception as the mediating component, which is pre- and trans-subjective. Through examples like Marnix de Nijs’s TAST and Michel van der Aa’s opera Upload , I investigate how telehaptic interfaces and artistic interpretations create a paradoxical interplay between presence and absence, where the acts of sensing transpose one into the realm of abstract thought and imagination. Seen this way, telehaptics offers a unique form of shared presence that bridges physical and virtual realms while underscoring the inherent separation and mediation in human communication, opening an experience beyond distance.