A video installation presented by the Romanian artist Cristi Poga ˘ceanu at the exhibition Blut & Honig. Die Zukunft liegt am Balkan (curator: Harald Szeemann, Collection Essl, Klosterneuburg/Vienna, 2003) shows an old master painting of Thomas touching Christ with, however, a slight difference: it sets the unbeliever's hand into motion, causing it to touch the Savior's wounds over and over again, as if he were still distrustful of their reality. He has confidence neither in Christ's image, nor in his words -both phenomena of the ''theoretical senses'' (Hegel) -, but only in his own hands.Since Thomas, and at least until the metaphysics of the late 19th century, touch was considered the most reliable of our senses and the proof of existence par excellence. Apart from haptic illusions while dreaming or in pathological cases, both philosophy and common sense have always put their confidence in touch as the vital sense that could not mistake or mislead. Indeed, touch functions frequently as a corrective for likely visual illusions: looking at frescos or paintings en trompe l'oeil or observing objects of an indefinite material (such as ''marble'' columns in Baroque cathedrals or even artificial plants in our daily life), one is tempted to get near them and verify his visual impressions by touching them. But are there possible phenomena which trompent la main itself ?The deeply rooted conviction about touch as the sense of reality was challenged in the last century from three main directions: 1. philosophers and psychologists examining the experience of blind persons and their aesthetic perception; 2. technology and electronic art experimenting with virtual reality and attempting to simulate touch; finally, 3. an increasing understanding of neurotic or even psychotic disorders, which made clear how vulnerable touch itself can be in encountering what we usually call reality. My paper attempts to outline and evaluate these three directions and their consequences for interpreting touch.
