Surfaces

A two-dimensional boundary or interface that separates or delineates one thing from another. Planar phenomena?

Early modern surfaces, scientifically and atomically speaking, were discovered to be a hilly, steamy rind of reality, characterized less by a common-sense solidity of objects than by their poor borders, leaky in all directions. — Kevin Killeen, “Microscopy, Surfaces and the Unknowable in Seventeenth-Century Natural Philosophy (from Lucretius to Margaret Cavendish)” (2017)

What kind of ontological status are surfaces afforded? How do surfaces function as edges and interfaces delimiting the interiors and exteriors of spaces and materials, or as zones of exchange between two substances, bodies, or areas? How do we sense or apprehend surfaces? How are surfaces related to more traditional spatial concepts such as space, place, and region, as well as concepts such as representation, sensation, and materiality? — Isla Forsyth et al., “What are surfaces?” (2013)

Surfaces and interfaces can be productive, enlivening, and enchanting spaces, where diverse materialities meet to produce physical and aesthetic mixtures, fluidities, turbulence, and movement; whether we are talking about the meeting of paint and canvas, sea water and air, rubber and tarmac, ink and paper, or concrete and soil. — Isla Forsyth et al., “What are surfaces?” (2013)

Surfaces are our skins. They are the epidermis of our bodies, the coat of paint on our walls, the façade of a building, the fabric of a painting’s canvas, the plane for the projection of images. Surfaces, that is, are not superficial. They envelop us at all times in our lives. In this sense, surface is something temporal. Any surface is constantly exposed to the effects of time, the ambiance it lives within, and the environment that surrounds it. Surface also can be dressed, and even dressed up. This is an envelope that is sported and worn. But in wearing, a surface wears out. These surfaces that we call skin, fabric, canvas, wall and screen are all membranes that are positively ‘consumed’. In the course of being worn they wear off. In other words, surface really wears. It is weathered. — Giuliana Bruno, “Surface Matters” (2020)

Length and width, but negligable depth. Key to how we perceive and conceive of objects as distinct entities occupying space.

Screen, canvas, wall?

Surface tension?

Sites of interaction, inscription? Porosity and permeability? A superficiality/depth dichotomy?

Surface friction? Opaque enclosures, black-boxed artifacts?

Metaphorically, and sometimes literally, skin.

Surface of the earth. Writing surfaces?

Haptics?

• [⎈] In computer graphics, 3D objects are represented by their surface geometry, often approximated as a polygon mesh.¹ Simulating the appearance of surfaces under different lighting is a key challenge. How has our understanding of real surfaces informed digital surface representations and rendering techniques?
• [⎈] Surfaces can be engineered to have special properties; hydrophobic, self-cleaning, anti-microbial, etc. What are some functional surfaces in nature?
• [?] How have conceptions of surfaces evolved historically and across different fields or domains?
• [?] How does culture shape our perception and valuation of different kinds of surfaces?
• [?] How do interactive digital interfaces remediate our embodied experience of surfaces?
• [&] See also: interfaces, photogrammetry?

Backlinks

: Colloids : Jagged noetic substrates