The Concept of Haptic Perception in Film Theory

Jacek Ostaszewski

jacek.ostaszewski@uj.edu.pl
Jagiellonian University (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1160-4021

Abstract

The starting point of the article is Alois Riegl’s theory of art, with its key distinction between haptic and optical reception. Then, the author outlines from an aesthetic perspective how this concept has been used in various ways in film theory, starting with Walter Benjamin and his understanding of the reconfiguration of modes of art reception in the 20th century. As a bridge to the contemporary debate on haptics in cinema, Annette Michelson’s essay is recalled. During the period when the idea of optical perception dominated theory, she spoke in a prescient way about carnal knowledge, of which haptic sensations are a component. In discussing the multifaceted theoretical debate on haptic vision, spanning the last three decades, a special place is given to Laura U. Marks, whose work redefines the ways in which audiovisuality is received. In the concluding remarks, with the help of several film examples, the author attempts to give an account of the functionality of the concepts presented here.


Keywords:

haptic perception, tactical exploration, haptic visuality, multi-sensory experience, construction of film space

Bal, M. (2012). Wędrujące pojęcia w naukach humanistycznych (tłum. M. Bucholc). Warszawa: Narodowe Centrum Kultury.
  Google Scholar

Balázs, B. (1995). Zur Kunstphilosophie des Films. W: F.-J. Albersmeier (red.), Theorie des Films (ss. 204-226). Stuttgart: Reclam.
  Google Scholar

Bałus, W. (2019). Dotykanie wzrokiem. O pojęciu haptyczności w klasycznej nauce o sztuce. Konteksty, (4), ss. 202-207.
  Google Scholar

Baudry, J.-L. (1985). Ideologiczne skutki funkcjonowania aparatu filmowego (tłum. A. Helman). Powiększenie, (1), ss. 5-12.
  Google Scholar

Benjamin, W. (1975). Dzieło sztuki w dobie reprodukcji technicznej (tłum. J. Sikorski). W: W. Benjamin, Twórca jako wytwórca (ss. 66-105). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.
  Google Scholar

Bergson, H. (2021). Materia i pamięć. O stosunku ciała do ducha (tłum. W. Filewicz). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Vis-à-Vis Etiuda.
  Google Scholar

Bruno, G. (2002). Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. New York: Verso.
  Google Scholar

Burch, N. (1990). Life to Those Shadows (tłum. B. Brewster). Berkeley – Los Angeles: University of California Press.
  Google Scholar

Casetti, F. (1983). Les yeux dans les yeux. Communications, (38), ss. 78-97.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/comm.1983.1569   Google Scholar

Coulthard, L. (2012). Haptic Aurality: Listening to the Films of Michael Haneke. Film-Philosophy, 16 (1), ss. 16-29.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2012.0002   Google Scholar

Deleuze, G. (2008). Kino: 1. Obraz-ruch. 2. Obraz-czas (tłum. J. Margański). Gdańsk: Słowo/obraz terytoria.
  Google Scholar

Deleuze, G. (2018). Bacon. Logika wrażenia (tłum. A. Z. Jaksender). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Eperons-Ostrogi.
  Google Scholar

Deleuze, G., Guattari, F. (2015). Kapitalizm i schizofrenia II: Tysiąc plateau. Warszawa: Fundacja Nowej Kultury Bęc Zmiana.
  Google Scholar

Dessoir, M. (1892). Über den Hautsinn. Archiv für Anatomie, Physiologie, Physiologische Abteilung, ss. 175-339.
  Google Scholar

Gunning, T. (1986). The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde. Wide Angle, 8 (3-4), ss. 63-70.
  Google Scholar

Hansen, M. B. (2012). Cinema and Experience: Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno. Berkeley – Los Angeles – London: University of California Press.
  Google Scholar

Hiltunen, K. (2005). Images of Time, Thought and Emotions: Narration and the Spectator’s Experience in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Late Fiction Films. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä.
  Google Scholar

Kirschall, S. (2017). The Haptic Image Revisited – Zu den ungenutzten Potenzialen eines vielgenutzten Konzeptes. FFK – Journal Film- und Fernsehwissenschaftliches Kolloqium, (2), ss. 47-64.
  Google Scholar

Lant, A. (1995). Haptical Cinema. October, 74, ss. 45-73.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/778820   Google Scholar

Marks, L. U. (2000). The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment and the Senses. Durham – London: Duke University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822381372   Google Scholar

Marks, L. U. (2002). Institute Benjamenta: An Olfactory View. W: L. U. Marks, Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media (ss. 127-132). Minneapolis – London: University of Minnesota Press.
  Google Scholar

McCosker, A. (2013). Intensive Media: Aversive Affect and Visual Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137273512   Google Scholar

Metz, C. (1989). Pragnienie i jego brak (tłum. A. Helman). Film na Świecie, (36), ss. 18-24.
  Google Scholar

Michelson, A. (1969). Bodies in Space: Film as „Carnal Knowledge”. Artforum, 7 (6), ss. 54-63.
  Google Scholar

Mroz, M. (2012). Temporality and Film Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748643462.001.0001   Google Scholar

Nancy, J.-L. (2008). Listening (tłum. C. Mandell). New York: Fordham University Press.
  Google Scholar

Riegl, A. (1901). Die spätrömische Kunstindustrie nach den Funden in Österreich-Ungarn im Zusammenhenge mit der Gesammtentwicklung der bildenden Künste bei der Mittelmervölkern. Wien: Verlag der kaiserlich-königlichen Hof- und Staatsdruckerei.
  Google Scholar

Riegl, A. (1902, 23 kwietnia). Spätrömisch oder orientalisch?. Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung, (93), ss. 153-156.
  Google Scholar

Riegl, A. (1966). Historische Grammatik der bildenden Künste (red. K. M. Swoboda, O. Pächt). Graz – Köln: Böhlau.
  Google Scholar

Ross, M. (2012). The 3-D Aesthetic: Avatar and Hyperhaptic Visuality. Screen, 53 (4), ss. 381-397.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjs035   Google Scholar

Silveirinha, P., Branco, C. (2012). Editorial: Cinema, the Body and Embodiment. Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image, 3, ss. 1-9.
  Google Scholar

Smith, M. (2014). „The Pit of Naturalism”: Neuroscience and the Naturalized Aesthetic of Film. W: T. Nannicelli, P. Taberham (red.), Cognitive Media Theory (ss. 27-45). New York – London: Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Smolińska, M. (2020). Haptyczność poszerzona. Zmysł dotyku w sztuce polskiej drugiej połowy XX wieku i początku XXI wieku. Kraków: Universitas.
  Google Scholar

Sobchack, V. (1992). The Address of the Eye: Phenomenology and Film Experience. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691213279   Google Scholar

Sobchack, V. (2004). What My Fingers Knew: The Cinesthetic Subject, or Vision in the Flesh. W: V. Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture (ss. 53-84). Berkeley – Los Angeles: University of California Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520937826   Google Scholar

Totaro, D. (2001). Book Reviews: “The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses”. Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 10 (1), ss. 106-109.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/cjfs.10.1.106   Google Scholar

Walsh, M. (2003). Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film by Giuliana Bruno. Senses of Cinema, (28). https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/book-reviews/ atlas_of_emotion
  Google Scholar

Wilke, T. (2010). Tacti(ca)lity Reclaimed: Benjamin’s Medium, the Avant-Garde, and the Politics of the Senses. Grey Room, (39), ss. 39-56.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/grey.2010.1.39.39   Google Scholar

Williams, L. (1991). Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess. Film Quarterly, 44 (4), ss. 2-13.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1212758   Google Scholar


Published
2024-10-01

Cited by

Ostaszewski, J. (2024) “The Concept of Haptic Perception in Film Theory”, Kwartalnik Filmowy, (127), pp. 163–192. doi: 10.36744/kf.2841.

Authors

Jacek Ostaszewski 
jacek.ostaszewski@uj.edu.pl
Jagiellonian University Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1160-4021

Professor of humanities at the Institute of Audiovisual Arts, Jagiellonian University. In film studies, he specializes in narratology and film theory. He has published Film i poznanie: Wprowadzenie do kognitywnej teorii filmu [Film and Cognition: An Introduction to Cognitive Film Theory] (1999) Rozumienie opowiadania filmowego and [Understanding the Film Narrative] (1999). Editor of the anthology Kognitywna teoria filmu [Cognitive Film Theory] (1999). With Alicja Helman, he co-authored the textbook Historia myśli filmowej [History of Film Thought] (2007) and co-edited the anthology Film: Język – Rzeczywistość – Osoba [Film: Language – Reality – Person] (1992). In the field of narratology, his most important achievement is the book Historia narracji filmowej [History of Film Narration] (2018).



Statistics

Abstract views: 85
PDF downloads: 86


License

Copyright (c) 2024 Jacek Ostaszewski

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.

In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.