Tactile vs Digital: A Meditation on Medium and Meaning

Recently I watched 3 versions of King Kong, the OG from 1933, the campy Jeff Bridges one from 1976 and the epic Peter Jackson version. After finishing them all I sat with it for a while on which one I gravitated towards the most. Interestingly enough it was the 1976 version with the OG being a close second, now why this is interesting is because it arguably had the worst acting and screenplay (the actress literally says she was fatefully saved by the movie “Deep Throat”…) but it had this charm about it that was undeniable. It was the most human out of all three, and there was this artisanal texture to it that made it feel timeless. I wanted to unpack this not just in a subjective coffee shop debate with your friend kind of way… I wanted to get into the science, the nitty gritty detail of it all.

The Evolution of Us 

Before the cursor, there was the hand.

Before pixels, paint. Before automation, intention.

Alright I’m done with my 2001 a Space Odyssey opening, here’s where I’m going with this:  

In a world where AI dreams in perfect gradients and frictionless forms, something essential is at risk of being forgotten.. The lost item being the residue of the human spirit which is left behind in every beautiful imperfection. This is not a rejection of digital tools—but a reckoning with their limits. The way we shape a medium shapes us in return and our human experience. Art and craftsmanship isn’t relegated to the cesspool of content; it’s a mirror of ourselves, the shards cutting into our flesh as we pour ourselves into our work. Digital in its own right offers us the ability to scale our imagination , however there is a time and place to leverage it.

This is a meditation on that divide.

The Power of Artisanal Touchpoints 

Let’s start this grand discussion by addressing the image above.

“Ai vs real photo.”

The image was generated by AI relatively easily but the idea came completely from me. Its purpose was to show the dichotomy of our shift from a rugged artform to precision. There was no image like this in stock footage obviously and I wasn’t going to sit down and create this myself for our brand agencies article. Branding is a fast paced world that doesn’t wait for anyone and we have to call a spade a spade moving forward. However, this is a great use case of when quickly generated content with intentionality can amplify a deliverable. So when do artisanal touchpoints come into play and what are they? 

What Are Artisanal Touchpoints? 

Simply put, artisanal touchpoints are the steps in the creative process and our decision to either handle them with digital precision and speed or artisan nuance and intentionality. I believe the decision isn’t so black and white ,at the very least it’s definitely not one size fits all. So when do we go digital and when the hell do we commit to tactile? 

When The Human Eye Craves the Perfect

The craving for the perfect taps into something deep, something primal. It’s hardwired into our very being by our culture and biology. From architecture to facial attractiveness the brain perceives structural hierarchy and depth with certain reverence. 

The Need For Symmetry 

Symmetry provides a balance our neurology desires, and is often associated with health and genetic fitness. Our brains are wired to favor symmetrical faces, balanced proportions, and clean lines. This is not only in humans but also architecture and compositional mediums like photography, painting and graphic design. Symmetry often provides a pleasing guideline for artists, architects, and designers to follow to garner eye pleasing results. 

When The Human Eye Craves the Imperfect

The popular belief is that beauty is only married to symmetry. This is actually a logical fallacy; symmetry can be aesthetically pleasing in many contexts, but it’s not a universal measure of beauty. Our eye craves imperfection in subtle asymmetries and textures that suggest authenticity and emotional depth. It’s like a thread from our hearts to our hands and we are connected through neural empathy. 

Why Do We Crave Imperfection? 

Imperfections trigger microsaccades—tiny, involuntary eye movements that increase attention and deepen visual scanning. 

Neuroaesthetics reveals that tactile mediums—especially when experienced by fellow artists—activate the somatosensory mirror neuron system, forging a subtle, empathetic bond with the creator’s hand. This embodied resonance deepens viewer engagement, anchoring perception in the physicality of the creative process.

Key brain regions are consistently activated:

• The primary visual cortex processes fine detail and contrast.
  
• The mirror neuron system picks up on rhythm, flow, and subtle imperfections in linework.
  
• The orbitofrontal cortex, associated with emotional and aesthetic pleasure, responds most strongly to intuitive, human-made choices.
  
• The fusiform face area (FFA)—which detects familiar patterns—lights up more intensely when it senses micro-variations and asymmetry, often interpreted by the brain as signs of human presence.
  

For instance, manual color grading—with its nuanced, emotionally driven choices—activates more of the limbic system than automated AI color balancing. The hand of the artist subtly carries intention, emotion, and rhythm.

AI-generated art often exhibits hyper-consistency, over-smoothed surfaces, or idealized symmetry. These traits bypass the usual visual tension the eye seeks, leading to less engagement over time. 
Studies show that highly synthetic imagery (e.g., GAN-generated faces or overly clean concept art) elicits less emotional arousal and lower memory encoding, especially when viewed passively.

In a nutshell, AI-generated images may activate pattern recognition centers but fail to stimulate mirror neuron empathy circuits, leading to a subconscious sense of distance or coldness.

Texture is Truth

AI-generated images may activate pattern recognition centers but fail to stimulate mirror neuron empathy circuits, leading to a subconscious sense of distance or coldness.

In a world increasingly flooded with AI-generated images—perfect, seamless, and eerily flawless—there’s an undeniable paradox at play. These images, though crafted by neural networks and capable of mimicking intricate details, often fall flat in their emotional resonance. They may successfully activate the brain’s pattern recognition centers, tricking us momentarily into believing in their realism. But they rarely, if ever, stimulate the deeper human faculties—those tied to memory, intuition, and embodiment. They don’t awaken the mirror neurons that fire when we see a brushstroke, a thumbprint in clay, or a wrinkle in fabric shaped by time and effort.

True texture carries history. It carries intention. It carries the signature of struggle, the residue of imperfection, the poetic inconsistency of real life. The fibers of a torn canvas, the sporadic grain of an analog frame, the uneven buildup of oil on wood, these things are not mere visual stimuli; they are ghosts of someone’s presence and commitment. They remind us that someone was there, someone who felt, who doubted, who labored, and who loved. This is why texture is not just an aesthetic… texture is truth.

To touch the truth is not to witness the perfect, but to feel the irregular. The slight shift in pressure in a charcoal line. The brush bristles caught in paint. The sculptor’s fingerprint fossilized in drying clay. These are not flaws—they are the soul of the piece.

AI can learn to imitate texture, but it cannot embed the human story behind it. It cannot embody intention, nor wrestle with uncertainty mid-stroke. It lacks vulnerability and even though that may sound like weakness, as humans that’s our strength. 

In the realm of storytelling, image-making, and art, texture is more than skin-deep—it is emotional topology. It is the terrain through which the viewer walks, discovering the crevices of emotion, the peaks of revelation, and the valleys of quiet thought. It invites not just sight, but empathy. And empathy—true, embodied empathy—cannot be reverse-engineered.

So as the world leans into sleek perfection, let us not forget the beauty of palpable human imperfection.

Austin Phalin