Touching and Imagining

Jan Svankmajer wrote this remarkable book on tactile art when he stopped directing films and experimented intensively with tactile art after repeated censorship by the communist governmnent of Czechoslovakia. Illustrated with over 100 imges, this book is organised around many reproductions of Svanmajker's wondrous tactile art objects, tactile poems, experiments and games. It includes dialogues with, and artworks by, other collaborating artists from the Group of Czech and Slovak Surrealists. Svankmajer also gathers together as contributors such notable exponents of tactical experience as Edgar Allan Poe, Guillaume Appollinaire, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Meret Oppenheim, Edith Clifford Williams, Ay-O, Valie Export, F.T. Marinetti and Karel Teige.

Czech Surrealist, Jan Aevankmajer, is best known for his extraordinary animated films, Alice, Faust, Little Otik among them. His work far exceeds the limits of film and, whether film, visual or literary, is connected with the collective activities of the Group of Czech & Slovak Surrealists.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Translator's Note
Editor's Preface
Introduction to the English Language Edition
Tactilism
Touch
1. Introduction
2. Between Utilitarianism and Imagination
3. Restorer
4. Sources of Tactile Imagination
5. Short Anthology of Tactile Art
6. Inside
Afterword: Tactilism Reviewed
Notes
Bibliography
Index