Reviewed by:

• Archaeologies of Touch: Interfacing with Haptics from Electricity to Computers by David Parisi
• Rachel Plotnick (bio)

At present, technologized touch is subtle and yet seemingly ubiquitous: in the vibrations beneath one's fingers on a smartphone; in the slides, glides, and swipes of a touchscreen; and in the rumbles of videogame controllers one can find technological and electrical experiences designed to stimulate feeling in the hands and to create a "new" kind of tactility in the twenty-first century. David Parisi's Archaeologies of Touch: Interfacing with Hap-tics from Electricity to Computers meets this historical moment and complicates it with a rich, deeply researched and thoughtful analysis spanning the eighteenth century to the present.

In Parisi's words, "This is a book about touch's impossible complexity: about the dreams of connecting bodies seamlessly through networks, and about the recurrent efforts to unleash a touch transformed by technoscience as a positive, productive, and liberatory force" (p. xvi). The author's [End Page 1229] task is no small one—to write a history of what he calls "tactile modernity" and the "haptic subject." In the vein of Jonathan Crary's Techniques of the Observer (a history of "recoding" the eye, MIT Press, 1990) and Jonathan Sterne's The Audible Past (Duke University Press, 2003), imagining an "ensoniment," an historical moment of conceptualizing hearing and listening in new ways, the book aims to carve a space for a historicized understanding of touch as distinct and unique from other senses. Parisi calls this work a "haptocentric media archaeology," drawing on influential media scholars like Erkki Huhtamo and Friedrich Kittler to make a case for archaeological approaches to history. Yet he also argues for the linear, fairly conventional form the book takes as an antidote to the dearth of work on touch and technology. As Parisi notes, there is currently no canon to resist or existing narrative to complicate. In this regard, Archaeologies of Touch offers readers not only a historical account, but it also tries to carve out a field of study that would provide fertile ground for future scholars.

To this end, the text is comprised of five "interfaces" that take readers inside laboratories and corporations to understand how touch has been made legible through scientific experimentation, material technologies, and marketing materials. Parisi's main actors are psychophysicists, physicians, computer scientists, and roboticists. And, while many of his objects of study will be familiar to historians of technology, he makes them new in his work by attending to their tactile dimensions: the Leyden jar, shock therapy, computers, and virtual reality (VR) each take on new meaning through the book's sensitivity to touch. Readers will encounter new and riveting tales, too, in descriptions of devices like the "Teletactor" and the "Vibratese," and in the inner workings of research labs such as the Cutaneous Communication Lab at Princeton (run by Frank Geldard) and the Vibro-Tactile Research Laboratory (run by Robert Gault).

One of Parisi's most notable contributions is his coining of the phrase "perpetual immanence" to show that haptic technologies seem always on the cusp of revolutionizing how people interface with machines. His fifth interface details how laboratory studies in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries give rise (though perhaps not always directly or intentionally) to a techno-utopian emphasis on touch in the twenty-first century. Parisi charts how corporations commercialize haptic technologies for mass consumption: examples such as Apple's "Touching is believing" campaign for its iPhone and Oculus (gaming/VR) promises of a revelatory and transformational device each demonstrate a cultural hunger to bring the haptic subject closer to "feeling" the digital. Interestingly, while such a revolution has yet to occur, it is the more mundane uses of haptics in smart-phones and computers that have trained and acculturated users to expect a particular tactile experience with their devices.

Archaeologies of Touch is an ambitious book chock-full of fascinating experiments and anecdotes. Parisi demonstrates an impressive command of scientific and technical literature, reading across disparate fields to make [End Page 1230] sense of...

审核人：

• 接触考古学：与触觉的接触，从电力到计算机，作者David Parisi
• 雷切尔·普洛特尼克（生物）

目前，技术化的触摸是微妙的，但似乎无处不在。在触摸屏的幻灯片，滑动和滑动中；在电子游戏控制器的隆隆声中，人们可以找到旨在刺激双手感觉并在二十一世纪创造一种“新”触觉的技术和电气体验。戴维·帕里（David Parisi）的“接触考古学：与从电力到计算机的触觉交界”遇到了这个历史性时刻，并使之复杂化，并进行了横跨18世纪的深入研究和深思熟虑的分析。

用Parisi的话来说，“这是一本关于触摸不可能实现的复杂性的书：关于通过网络无缝地连接物体的梦想，以及为释放由技术科学转变为一种积极的，生产力的和解放的力量而进行的反复努力”（第xvi页） ）。作者的[End Page 1229]任务不小-写出他所谓的“触觉现代性”和“触觉主题”的历史。与乔纳森·克雷（Jonathan Crary）的《观察者的技术》（《重新记录眼睛的历史》，麻省理工学院出版社，1990年）和乔纳森·斯特恩（Jonathan Sterne）的《可听的过去》有关（杜克大学出版社，2003年），该书设想了“沉迷”，这是用新的方式概念化听觉和听觉的历史性时刻，其目的是为历史性理解触摸与其他感觉的独特区别开辟一个空间。Parisi将这项工作称为“以触觉为中心的媒体考古学”，它借鉴了有影响力的媒体学者，例如Erkki Huhtamo和Friedrich Kittler，为历史的考古学方法提供了依据。然而，他还主张该书采用线性的，相当传统的形式，以解决缺乏触摸和技术方面的工作。正如巴黎人所指出的那样，目前没有任何标准可以抗拒，也没有现有的叙述可以使之复杂化。在这方面，接触考古不仅为读者提供了历史记载，而且还试图开拓一个研究领域，为将来的学者提供沃土。

为此，本文由五个“接口”组成，这些接口使实验室和公司内部的读者了解如何通过科学实验，材料技术和市场营销材料使触摸变得清晰。Parisi的主要演员是心理物理学家，医师，计算机科学家和机器人专家。而且，尽管他的许多研究对象对于技术史学家来说都是熟悉的，但他通过关注触觉尺寸使它们在他们的工作中崭新：莱顿震击器，电击疗法，计算机和虚拟现实（VR）各自具有新的意义。意思是通过本书对触摸的敏感性。读者也会在“ Teletactor”和“ Vibratese”等设备的描述中遇到新的和引人入胜的故事。

Parisi最著名的贡献之一是他创造了“永久内在性”一词，以表明触觉技术似乎总是在革新人们与机器的交互方式的风口浪尖上。他的第五个界面详细介绍了18世纪，19世纪和20世纪的实验室研究如何（尽管可能并不总是直接或有意地）引起二十一世纪的技术乌托邦式的触摸。Parisi绘制了企业如何将触觉技术商业化以进行大规模消费的图表：例如苹果为其iPhone和Oculus（游戏机/ VR）发起的“触摸就是相信”运动，这些示例都希望提供一种具有启发性和变革性的设备，这都表明了一种文化上的渴望，使触觉主题更加接近“感受”数字。有趣的是

接触考古学是一本雄心勃勃的书，里面充满了有趣的实验和轶事。Parisi展示了令人钦佩的科学技术文献知识，可以跨领域阅读，以使[End Page 1230]充满...