Can one experience a work of art through touch alone?
How is touching different than seeing?
Can touching be a way of knowing?
In the midst of my career as a visual artist, these questions compelled me to make sculptures that offer experiences as rich to touch as to see. I focused on making tactile sculptures, researching tactile perception, and gathering responses from people who encountered them through touch, whether blindfolded or blind.
This book grew out of that exploration.
The Sensing Body in the Visual Arts explores the hidden, unconscious role of the somatic senses in the visual arts, whether experienced as artist or perceiver. Becoming aware of the multiple dimensions of embodied sensitivity opens rich aesthetic, perceptual territory in art making and appreciation. The book proposes a new way of making, experiencing and thinking about art—through the conscious hand and body as well as eye and mind.
Rosalyn Driscoll, September 2020
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-sensing-body-in-the-visual-arts-9781350122239/
