Article:

Dressing the surface

This text presents some key issues that drive the author’s ongoing investigation of materiality, hapticity, and surface conditions, in the realm of media, contemporary art, and visual culture. What is the place of materiality in our contemporary visual world of rapidly changing materials and media? Engaging this haptic ‘matter’, the text focuses on the fabrics of the visual, their surfaces, weaves, and textures. In arguing for textural models of ‘fashioning’ images, it exposes patterns of wearing and wearing out. Particular attention in this regard is given to the fabric of the screen, and the material transformations that occur in the surface tension of media.