Touch is essential for survival. A touch can provide security, it can give comfort or protection, it can electrify and excite. The sense of touch is the first sense that an embryo develops long before it can see, hear or smell. A person who is not touched atrophies - socially and physically. But touch can also hurt, disgust, injure and frighten. It is the dilemma of touch: everyone longs for it, but fears it at the same time.
In the cultural history of mankind, touch becomes an important yardstick: the way people touch each other - across different cultures and epochs - and the way art explores the tension between closeness and distance reveals a lot about a society's attitude to life, moods and values.
The cultural documentary delves into the phenomenon of touch and takes an interdisciplinary look at it from the perspective of art history, history, haptics research, philosophy and communication science. It meets artists, thinkers, scientists and a newborn baby and takes the viewer on a journey through the cultural history of touch - from the kiss of peace to social distancing.
SKIN ON SKIN - A brief cultural history of touch
Touch is essential for survival. A touch can provide security, it can give comfort or protection, it can electrify and excite. The sense of touch is the first sense that an embryo develops long before it can see, hear or smell. A person who is not touched atrophies - socially and physically. But touch can also hurt, disgust, injure and frighten. It is the dilemma of touch: everyone longs for it, but fears it at the same time.
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