In the text we analyse selected traits of the hypertech contemporaneity and argue that they push the human relationship with touch into a liminal state, bearing liminal forms of touch. We commence by contrasting touch theories from key thinkers, which leads to a ten-part definition of touch. The definition enables us to conceive touch as a disruption within the Lacanian chain of signifiers or the elusive “object a”. We turn to Lacan’s and Kristeva’s psychoanalytic postulates to operationalize touch as a mechanism of emergence of the Symbolic. We show that the momentary exit from the Symbolic represents an opposite dimension of touch. Bataille’s “eroticism” helps conceptualize such a temporary exit. Due to touch’s inherent ambivalence, which makes it both a productive as well as a destructive force for the subject, we understand it as an instance of the sacred. Therefore, a radical transformation of the concept of touch brings about a general state of liminality. We claim that liminal forms of touch imply an instant adaptation to the prevalent “crisis of touch”. We examine (1) ASMR, (2) touch of the humanoid robot, and (3) touch during the pandemic. Our intention is to place the selected liminal forms of touch within the polar relation between the sacred and the Symbolic. We find that liminal forms of touch are characterized by an ambivalent crossing between touch (as sacred and as “object a”) and the reproduction of the signifying chain, which ordains the functioning of the Lacanian Symbolic and establishes the distinction between the object and the subject.
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