László Tarnay

It has become almost a commonplace to say that the real withdrew from our sight with the arrival of the digital image. But was it ever in sight? Even at cursory glance at the history of philosophy and the arts we note that what is said to document the real as it is is in fact bound to fail. The present paper is based on the idea that with the arrival of new media technology we are – or maybe we are going to – witness a new change in moving image production and consumption: an orientation toward the use of the sense of touch closely connected with a growing demand for haptic images, or more properly put and as also argued recently by Vivian Sobchack, Laura Marks and Jennifer Barker, the haptic character of moving images. The paper argues that the »haptic turn« is about to overshadow the so-called »visual turn« heralded by theorist like W.J.T Mitchell for three reasons. Firstly, as a result of 3D cinema and virtual helmets, among other technical novelties, the graphical rendition of the world, virtual or real, has become so seamless and impeccable that progress in the sensory field of sight is running into a dead end unless it could be combined with the sense which the Greeks had once denounced as the meanest, touch. Secondly, the demand for haptic experience is rooted deep in the evolution of the human mind both cognitively understood (see, e.g. the detection of couching predators by identifying them through camouflage) and socially (see the need for social binding and group belonging through physical and symbolic interaction). And thirdly, there is also a possibility of understanding haptic sight as aesthetically more binding than pure representation and simulation (see the relevance of neuroaesthetics developed by V. Ramachandran and the contact aesthetics proposed by W. Mules). The paper is aimed at presenting some independent evidences to buttress each of the three claims by focusing on using animation in documentary films.

László Tarnay teaches aesthetics and film theory at the Faculty of the Humanities of the University of Pécs. He has taught courses in French phenomenology, philosophy of language and the mind, aesthetics, argumentation, cognitive linguistics and cognitive film theory. He is a fellow of the Society for the Cognitive Study of the Moving Image. He received his habilitation title for his newly finished booklength work, »The Phenomenology of New Media« in 2015.

His current main research interests are the phenomenology of film, cognitive studies, film theory and the new media. He is the co-author of »Specificity recognition and social cognition« (Peter Lang, 2004). He has published articles in English and in Hungarian in the journals »Degrés«, »Journal of Cinema Studies«, »Apertura«, »Magyar Filozófiai Szemle«, »Passim«, and »Metropolis«. His most recent papers appeared in the edited books of »New Waves« (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), »The Key Debates. Mutations and appropriations in European film studies.« Vol. 1. »Ostranenie« (Amsterdam UP, 2009), and »Words and images on the screen: language, literature and moving pictures.« (Oxford UP, 2008). He has also translated two books from the French philosopher, Emmanuel Lévinas (»Totalité et infini« and a volume of selected essays called »Language et proximité«).