Phenomenology of Photography and Scratch

This study uses phenomenology as a theoretical methodology to research the sense of touch as embedded in the viewing experience of photographs. With touch excluded from the most popular discourse of both perception and aesthetic reception of photography, it argues that photography is in fact a haptic experience. By connecting touch to vision, this study proposes a more attentive look at haptic relationship with a quintessentially visual medium.

The pathway to accomplish that starts with the theory of perceptual experience of French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who proposes intentionality as a mode of subject relating to the world and insists on touch as an indispensable component of perception. As Kendall Walton famously argued that differently from other types of images, “Photographs are transparent. We see the world through them", this methodological proposal for viewing photography draws attention to the process of perception of photographs as physical objects, in which touch - even when denied or not recognized - is paramount. The case study of scratch and scratching is used, with examples from the work of artists like Julia Margaret Cameron, Nino Migliori, Carol Golemboski and others who have used scratch to evoke viewers' intentionality by including it in the photographic form. Ultimately, the study argues for the necessity of inclusion of touch in the education of aesthetic perception.