Visualizing Surfaces, Surfacing Vision: Introduction

Abstract

In this Introduction to a special section on Visualising Surfaces, Surfacing Vision, we argue that to conceive vision in the contemporary world it is necessary to examine its embedding within, expression via and organisation on the surface. First, we review recent social and cultural theories to demonstrate how and why an attention to surfaces is salient today. Second, we consider how vision may be understood in terms of surfaces, discussing the emergence of the term 'surface', and its transhistorical relationship with vision. Third, we introduce the contributions to the special section, which cover written articles and artworks. We make connections between them, including their exploration of reflexivity and recursion, observation, objectivity and agency, ontology and epistemology, relationality, process, and twoand three-dimensionality. Fourth, we consider some implications of an understanding of visualising surfaces/surfacing vision.

Appearance and Origin

“…In short, first of all, separating the internal from the external is not simple when looking at varied DNA regions, and second, while origin and appearance are often aligned, this is not always the case, which adds a further layer of complexity to the circulation between DNA and the visible. The question of privacy therefore necessarily comes up against difficulties or even contradictions as it omits the fact that in this case the visible is constituted by its relationship to technology (Coleman and Oakley-Brown 2017). This makes it difficult to maintain the position outlined earlier, associating privacy with secrecy and norms of good practice with what is apparent.…”

“…Geneticists produce circulation between the molecular body and the apparent body via geography (Asia, Africa, etc.). This shows that more than "a surface [that] presents form" what we are dealing with is "an interface [that] performs a shaping" (Hookway 1988:14) or a "fold" between the external and the internal (Coleman and Oakley-Brown 2017). In this way, understanding the role of vision in the development of uses of DNA encourages us to go beyond traditional dichotomies opposing the internal and the external, the visible and the invisible, because the surface can work not only as a dividing line, but also as a "fold" between what is outside and what is inside (Coleman and Oakley-Brown 2017;Lafrance 2018).…”

“…This shows that more than "a surface [that] presents form" what we are dealing with is "an interface [that] performs a shaping" (Hookway 1988:14) or a "fold" between the external and the internal (Coleman and Oakley-Brown 2017). In this way, understanding the role of vision in the development of uses of DNA encourages us to go beyond traditional dichotomies opposing the internal and the external, the visible and the invisible, because the surface can work not only as a dividing line, but also as a "fold" between what is outside and what is inside (Coleman and Oakley-Brown 2017;Lafrance 2018). And this means that visible appearance deduced from DNA can offer some understanding of the complex relationship between public life and privacy when considered through the lens of appearance, as we shall see below.…”

Postcards from Google Earth

“…1, (Spring 2018):87-103, https://necsusejms.org/resolution-digital-materialities-thresholds-of-visibility/ <accessed on December 3, 2020> 81. For some recent research on "surfaces" see Giuliana Bruno, Surface: Matters of Aesthetics, Materiality, and Media (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2014); Rebecca Coleman andLiz Oakley-Brown, "Visualizing Surfaces, Surfacing Vision: Introduction," Theory, Culture &Society 34, no. 7-8, (2017): 5-27, andTim Ingold, "Surface Visions", Theory, Culture &Society 34, no.…”

Book Review: Giuliana Bruno Surface: Matters of Aesthetics, Materiality, and Media

“…If the organized world is imagined as a 'flat' constellation or assemblage of human bodies, actants of all sorts, technologies, narratives and affects, then attention is due to the conjunctions of heterogeneous things and forces as they appear on the surface. Following theoretical movements such as actor network theory, new materialism, design theory, affect theory and 'nonrepresentational' spatial theory, there is an emphasis on the surface as the plane where spaces and times, affects and materialities interact, and where these interactions or intra-actions can be traced (Coleman & Oakley-Brown, 2017). In an idiom perhaps closer to home, such a turn to the surface corresponds with a resolutely processual and materialist notion of organizing.…”