the human touch

“i thought of…my body and all the men in the world who would never sleep with it.” – from the dud avocado; elaine dundy


there are scientists building robots. it turns out that of all the five senses, touch is the hardest to replicate in mechanical form.

think of the irresistible urge to run your fingers through his hair each time you see him. every strand and follicle registered by a map of pressure points distributed across your skin. it’s as if you could see texture with your fingertips.

each man felt different in your hands. blindfolded, you could still probably identify who was who according to the invisible sensors embedded under the skin of your fingers. (yes, there is scent, of course – but now you learn that scent can be manufactured and easily replicated.)

the same scientists tried to replicate human skin by creating thin sheets of plastic embedded with layer upon layer of what they called “nanoparticles.” when this film of gold and semiconductors “touches” an object, a small electric current causes some of the nanoparticles to LIGHT UP.

more pressure, more light. less pressure, the lesser it lights up.

right now, they’re still looking for the appropriate “detector” to capture this map of lights and register the image, texture, and feel of the objects being touched. it’s hard to say if robots will be wearing this skin any time soon.

but for now, each time a hand touches the back of someone’s neck, or grazes a naked shoulder – you imagine the entire city lights up in a blink of an eye and goes out just as quickly.