On the concept of surface

Ezio Manzini defines the surface, that is, the skin of things, as an organ specialized in the interface between inside and outside, as an "osmotic membrane," capable of also serving as a medium for static or dynamic communication. Through this vision, I began to look at the surface as a place where experiences are layered, where the history of objects and environments unfolds, as a skin that bears, more or less visibly, the traces of lived history and therefore of the people who leave them, of society and the psychology of touching, of mechanical modification, and of consumption.

I began with hands, with skin, with the traces left on and by them, because I wanted to think of objects and environments as second skins and the organism as the primary habitat.

Scarifications, tattoos, and physical modifications that fashion, ritual, and social custom trace back to symbols and models are not only messages to the outside world, a way of letting the body speak, but also a way of telling the body and oneself something in an absolutely profound, sometimes indelible, and not necessarily negative way: definitively characterizing the skin means carrying within oneself the events that have led to the formation of an identity, not being afraid to layer the past upon oneself, not forcing oneself to be neutral, new, and expendable anywhere.

Similarly, I have considered human and natural traces, voluntary or otherwise, as a constitutive element of presence, of contact. Fractures and burns speak of what has happened to materials; geography bears the marks of human influence. In this regard, I thought it interesting to mention the theme of the labyrinth, from an ancient path, laden with diverse symbols and present in many civilizations, to a symbol of the city, of construction, just as the labyrinth builder is the metaphor for the architect, the tracer of paths, of routes designed for the community. In this sense, building and producing means defining future imprints.

Writing is one of these imprints, one of those that most speaks of humanity, from books to road signs to personal messages outside or in the home experienced as a place to write about oneself (on blackboard walls, on fabrics, on appliances), to Braille (touch again), to the interactions between humans and computers in which writing, reading, and choosing are increasingly matters of touch. On the other hand, it's true that even ordinary gestures leave traces on behavior; The interface always involves two fields in contact and confrontation, and if it's true that we influence the environment, it's equally true that context influences us. In this sense, even habit is a modifiable and stratified surface-interface.

The traces of humans, seen from the perspective of the senses that capture mechanical impulses (touch and hearing), can also be found in voices and noises. The surface is therefore a world constructed to be "played," in the sense of being predisposed to function as a reactant upon contact, to be touched, struck, walked upon, and to respond in appropriate ways (soundproofing, acoustic insulation, or conversely, enhancing the sonic aspects of materials and constructing environments that act as soundboards). Here too, the choice toward one direction or the other reveals the occasion, the function, the preference, and the specific uses of the surface and the material.

Language comes to our aid: imparting a rhythm to a surface can mean characterizing it with a texture, that is, with repeated and interconnected marks, or striking it at regular intervals. In both cases, the surface plays its role as an interface between the characteristics of the material/object and the user/actor.

The continuous exchange of information and energy that occurs at the surface level can mean a transformation on both fronts: the stratifications of traces become the history of places, from dwellings to cities, whether these traces are slow and imperceptible or drastic and violent, in any case almost never definitive: frequenting means consuming and characterizing surfaces on a daily basis, modifying, destroying, rebuilding. In this sense, the surface is a place of continuous metamorphosis, and therefore a revelation of "substance" and not an entity opposed to it. Even when surfaces, such as floors and wall coverings, are constructed to be as resistant as possible to external agents, "traces" of time and human passage, they speak of their intended use (non-slip, rustproof, washable) and therefore of the world to which they refer. The desire to preserve objects and environments from excessive imprints means allowing the possibility of leaving many of them (for example, in highly frequented environments, in public places) without saturating the surface with past presences, allowing the numerous and theoretically infinite possible users to feel free to follow their own trail, improvising, without constantly feeling like they're in a museum of past imprints.

Even in pedagogy, it's taught that every human being possesses a "trace satisfaction," that is, a feeling of identification, existence, self-confidence, and happiness in doing and being there while producing and observing signs of their own making. This principle underlies artistic production as well as every form of manifestation of human existence. While it's true that presence is always a more or less accentuated stratification of traces, it's equally true that to leave one's mark, one often feels the need for a corner of blank paper, a clean world. Based on these considerations, it is possible to interpret the dialectic between high-touch, clean, new, and culturalized degradation, bearer of values ​​such as the "patina of time," the antique, the "vintage," as different visions and needs expressed in the evaluation of the trace, one's own and that of others, as an alternation between the need to be pleased and coexist with the signs of what has happened, what is happening, to materials and to us, with the history of things and society and with the imprints of what produced it and, conversely, the need to have a less marked context at one's disposal, a blank sheet (or at least not completely covered in traces), ready to serve as a support for one's own imprints, for one's own existential performance (extemporaneous, daily, present and future) expressed through frequenting, living, using, consuming.