TOUCH AND THE TECHNOBODY

Abstract

This paper analyzes the role of the body and touch in contemporary technologically mediated culture, focusing on their significance in the process of creating a visual work of art. Drawing on contemporary theories of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and virtual reality, the body is considered as an object of reduction and technical interpretation,
with its materiality and tactility marginalized in favor of visual and digital forms of communication. The paper draws on the concepts of philosophy and haptics, to reaffirm the role of the body as a bearer of cognition, creativity, and cultural meaning. It is particularly emphasized that artistic creation, despite the dominance of the visual, is an essentially tactile process, in which touch functions as a mediator between thought, body, and matter. In this sense, the historical and contemporary relationship between the visual and tactile dimensions of art is analyzed, from traditional media to digital practices. Special attention is paid to the transformation of the artist in a digital context, where the idea is separated from the material realization, which leads to the loss of bodily participation and the reduction of the tactile component of the creative process. This phenomenon is considered in the broader context of the technocratic and transhumanist paradigm, which tends to overcome the biological body. The conclusion indicates that, despite technological innovations, touch and corporeality remain fundamental to artistic creation and human experience. Their suppression represents not only an aesthetic, but also an anthropological reduction, which
calls into question the very nature of creativity and humanity.