If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is one touchable picture worth? Tactile Mind, a handmade book consisting of 17 2-dimensional nude images is now available from Toronto photographer Lisa Murphy for $225 (CAD). You do the math.
I champion accessible books of all kinds, so I applaud this one. I bet it gets more media hype than actual sales, though. News stories tout it as “Braille porn” but the staggering price and hand-crafted construction, albeit with plastic thermoform paper and spiral binding, make it more of an art book. Each copy is numbered and signed by the artist, who volunteers at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB).
Like many accessible technologies, it sounds like a clever concept but economies of scale put it beyond the reach of most blind people. A thousand sexy words are cheaper.
Here’s how the story was spun by flashnews.com:
TORONTO (Wireless Flash - FlashNews) – Porn has never been so touching – especially now that there’s a Braille version for the blind.
Photographer Lisa J. Murphy has just created Tactile Mind, a book of nude images sculpted on thermoform plastic pages – the same material used in Braille paper.
All the lines, ridges, and crevices of the body parts are touchable, so the pictures can be enjoyed by the visually impaired. To fully feel the erotica, they each come with an accompanying description in Braille.
Murphy, who’s a volunteer at the Canadian National Institute For The Blind, calls the book a “labor of love.”
Each sexy image took her about 50 hours to sculpt so it would be interpreted accurately by the sightless.
Her tactile creations include a woman’s naked breasts, an uncircumcised penis and testicles, and a shaved vagina.
None of her art seems to be getting lost in translation because in her words, “Blind folks say my work is good. Wink, wink.”
![Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie). 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2009/02/gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day_1877_wiki.jpg "gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day")
![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2008/04/isle_royale_fog.jpg "Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]")
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in 
Listen to Lisa Murphy’s interview with the BBC. Geoffrey Long, who has been blind since birth, argues for different paths to arousal. Good discussion.
According to the Toronto Star:
The notion of touchable art reminds me of a photo I shot in the courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art 35 years ago. I was still shooting film then, though I was on the cusp of giving it up. I had a Pentax SLR and telephoto lens that I focused on a small boy as he climbed into the lap of a marble nude to cup her breast. Now that was tactile erotica! CLICK. It would have been the best photo I ever took had the roll of film not reached its awkward end.
Hi there,
My name is Lisa J. Murphy - I am the artist behind ‘tactile mind’: A book of nude (3-d) photographs for the blind/vision impaired.
Thank you for writing about my work.
I just wanted to let you know that I have never described my work as pornographic. People everywhere have added their own opinions to this work, and have let them be known…….it has been called everything; erotic, original art, fetish-orientated, pornography - and some people don’t like it at all. I just put it out as an interesting book of nude photographs for the blind/vision impaired - tactile mind is a cool book of my photographs.
In terms of the price, I have always sold individual pages from my website. As a 1 person publishing house producing my own work, I have always tried to make it affordable to those who can’t afford the entire book. - Guess that part isn’t newsworthy.
Thank you again.
lisa
http://www.tactilemindbook.com
TACTILE MIND STUDIO LIMITED