Touching: a research method in art and design

When we want to check the facts, to verify our ‘epistemic grip on reality’, as the philosopher Ophelia Deroy puts it, the sense for which we reach is touch. And while touch can certainly be used to elicit and ‘grip’ knowledge, it can also be used in a more tentative and probing modality — to feel our way toward truths that are both within and yet always beyond the grasp.

Whether engaging with materials to give tangible form to ideas, or using materials as the very starting point of a creative process, artists and designers recognise that this kind of feeling-toward-knowing requires deep patience and an openness to what a material is willing to impart.