David Parisi

David Parisi is the Dibner Family Chair in the History and Philosophy of Technology and Science and Associate Professor in the Department of Technology, Culture, and Society. His research investigates the past, present, and future of touching with digital technologies. Parisi’s book Archaeologies of Touch: Interfacing with Haptics from Electricity to Computing (University of Minnesota Press, 2018) explores the technological transformations of touch necessary for the invention of touch-based computer interfaces. Opening with an examination of touch’s role in apprehending the mysteries of eighteenth century electrical machines, and closing with an analysis of new computing technologies that digitally synthesize haptic sensations, Archaeologies of Touch traces the iterative development of a technoscientific haptics across four centuries. Along the way, he shows how electric shock, experimental psychology, cybernetics, aesthetics, telemanipulation robotics, and virtual reality each participated in a reconceptualization of touch necessary for its integration into contemporary computing technologies. Parisi’s work has been published in venues such as Real Life, Logic, Open!, ROMchip, New Media & Society, Journal of Games Criticism, Convergence, and Game Studies. His perspectives on the intersection of touch and digital media have been featured on Flash Forward, The Haptics Club, Internet of the Senses, and INIT. He currently serves as an editor for ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories.