The Eyes of the Skin

~system and the haptic system.83 Steinerianactually utilise no less than 12 senses.8+philosophy assumes that weThe eyes want to collaborate with the other senses. All the senses,including vision, can be regarded as extensions of the sense of touch - asspecialisations of the skin. They define the interface between the skinand the environment - between the opaque interiority of the body andthe exteriorityof the world. In the view of Rene Spitz, 'all perceptionbegins in the oral cavity, which serves as the primeval bridge from innerreception to external perception'. 85 Even the eye touches; the gazeimplies an unconscious touch, bodily mimesis and identification. AsMartinJay remarks when describing Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of thesenses, 'through vision we touch the sun and the stars,.86 PrecedingMerleau-Ponty, the 18th-century Irish philosopher and clergymanGeorge Berkeley related touch with vision and assumed that visualapprehension of materiality, distance and spatial depth would not bepossible at all without the cooperation of the haptic memory. InBerkeley's view, vision needs the help of touch, which provides sensationsof 'solidity, resistance, and protrusion';87 sight detached fromtouch could not 'have any idea of distance, outness, or profundity, norconsequently of space or body'.88 In accord with Berkeley, Hegel claimedthat the only sense which can give a sensation of spatial depth is touch,because touch 'senses the weight, resistance, and three-dimensionalshape (gestalt) of material bodies, and thus makes us aware that thingsextend away from us in all directions'.89Vision reveals what the touch already knows. \Ve could think of thesense of touch as the unconscious of vision. Our eyes stroke distant surfaces,contours and edges, and the unconscious tactile sensation determinesthe agreeableness or unpleasantnessand the near are experiencedof the experience. The distantwith the same intensity, and they mergeinto one coherent experience. In the words of lVIerlcau-Ponty:'eVesee the depth, the smoothness, the softness, the hardness of objects;Cezanneeven claimed that we see their odour. If the painter is to expressTHE CITY OF PARTICIPATION - THE CITY OF ALIENATION1112The city of sensory engagement.The modern city of sensory deprivation.Peter Bruegel the Elder, Children's Games,The commercial section of Brasilia, Brasil,1560. Detail.1968.Kunsthistorisches Museum mit MVK undPhoto Juhani Pallasmaa.OTM, Vienna.42THE EYES OFTHE SKINPART 2 43