What happens when we blur time and allow ourselves to haunt or to become haunted by ghosts of the past? Drawing on archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data, Blurring Timescapes, Subverting Erasure demonstrates the value of conceiving of ghosts not just as metaphors, but as mechanisms for making the past more concrete and allowing the negative specters of enduring historical legacies, such as colonialism and capitalism, to be exorcised.

Volume 23, Issue 3-4, November - December 2024, Page 219-244.

In attending to surfaces, as they wrap, layer and grow within sentient bodies, material formations and cosmological sates, this volume presents a series of ten anthropological studies stretching across five continents and in observation of earthly practices of making, knowing, living and dying. Through theoretically reflecting on time spent with Aymara and Mapuche Andean cultures, the Malagasy people of Madagascar, craftspeople and designers across Europe and Oceania, amongst the architectures of Australia and South Korea, and within the folds of (...) books, screens, landscape and the sea, the anthropologists in this volume communicate diverse ways of considering, working with and knowing surfaces. Together, these writings advance a knowledge of the world which resists any definitive settlement of existential categories and rather seeks to know the world in its emergence and transformation, as entities grow, cohere, shift, dissolve, decay and rebirth through the contact and exchange of surfaces, persisting with varying time, power and effect. The book principally invites readers from anthropology, the creative arts and environmental studies, but also across the wider humanities and social sciences as well as those in neighbouring scientific fields of archeology, biology, geography, geoscience, material science, neurology and psychology interested in the intersections of mind, body, materials and world. (shrink)

Surface has become an important consideration of sensory film theory, conceived of in various forms: the screen itself as less a barrier than a permeable skin, the site of a meaningful interaction between film and audience; the image as a surface to be experienced haptically, the eye functioning as a hand that brushes across and engages with the field of vision; surfaces within the film, be they organic or fabricated, presenting a tactile appeal. Surface evokes contact and touch, the (...) look or sound it produces inviting consideration of its materiality, and perhaps even a tactile interchange. If the surface of film, across its varied associations, presents the possibility of an intersubjective contact between film and audience, this article seeks to include another body: that of the filmmaker. There are many people who contribute to the material constitution of a film and I would suggest that we might seek to appreciate its textures just as we might that of a painting. Focus on the fine... (shrink)

In our paper "Surface and Deep Interpretation," we sought to provide detail and texture to Arthur Danto's views on interpretation, thereby explicating and defending them (as published in Mark Rollins, ed., Danto and His Critics (Blackwell, originally published 1993; second edition 2012). Leddy objects to our views; in the end, Danto's view, given our explication of it, remains tenable.

Surface and line elements in three-dimensional space are given in terms of the delta function. We extend the representation to N-dimensional phase space to obtain the relation between the equi-energy surface and the density of states.

If aesthetics is both surface and depth, impassioned immediacy yet also critical distance of judgment, how can this doubleness be held together in one ...

On Surface and Place is a rich and poetic exploration of surfaces which foregrounds their significance in our understanding and experience of place. Adopting weaving as its overarching metaphor, it departs from Gottfried Semper's discussion of correspondences between architecture and textiles, and emerges from the reading of photographs, a swatch of Harris Tweed and curtain wall façade juxtaposed. In juxtaposing the fabric of the city with the weave of Harris Tweed the book charts an original course across a range (...) of connected ideas and questions, combining many different themes, writers and disciplines. It presents integrated and innovative rethinkings on a number of fundamental relationships, including correlations between body and building, word and image, and between the rural and the metropolitan, and the hand-crafted and the mass-reproduced. In doing so, it seeks to foreground the very interrelationship of surface and place, as it makes a claim for the relational nature of the world in which we live. (shrink)

This study aimed to explore the psychophysical bases of multisensory surface stickiness perception by investigating how sensitively humans perceive different levels of stickiness intensity conveyed by auditory, tactile, and visual cues. First, we sorted five different sticky stimuli by perceived intensity in ascending order for each modality separately and evaluated the discrimination sensitivities of each participant using a fitted psychometric curve. Results showed that perceptual intensity orders were not identical to physical intensity order and that the sequential order of perceived (...) intensities for different modalities was inconsistent. Moreover, estimated perceptual sensitivities to surface stickiness indicated that auditory cues result in better discrimination sensitivity than tactile and visual cues. Second, we calculated the relative perceptual distances of stickiness intensities using multidimensional scaling. A follow-up statistical test demonstrated that the perceptual mapping of vision and touch are similar but that auditory perception is different. These results suggest that the discriminability of stickiness intensity is best served by auditory cues and that texture information processing in the auditory domain is distinctive from that of other modalities. (shrink)

Many disciplines in the arts and social sciences are currently redirecting their attention to surfaces, and ways of treating them, as primary conditions for the generation of meaning. With regard to visual perception, this has entailed a switch from its optical to its haptic modality. How does this switch affect the way surfaces are understood? It is argued that with haptic vision, the emphasis is not on conformation but texture, as revealed in flows of material composition and in (...) patterns of self-shadowing – or in a word, in complexion. This makes the surface, whether of face, skin or landscape, quite distinct from that of a body or an object. Drawing on the ideas of John Ruskin, the haptically perceived surface is compared to a veil that is worn in the double sense of adornment and erosion, of affective expression and weathering. The article concludes that it is in the relations between such surfaces that social life is lived. (shrink)

The determination of amino acid sequences representing the cell‐surface receptors for transferrin,1 asialoglycoprotein,2 polymeric immunoglobulin (IgA/IgM),3 epidermal growth factor (EGF),4 lowdensity lipoprotein (LDL)5 and insulin6 has produced new paradingms for receptor architecture. This review examines common features of the protiens and describes the intriguing functional and evolutionary puzzles that have arisen from them.

This chapter contains sections titled: Analogy with Human Action The Dependency Theses Are Deep Interpretations Weakly Dependent on Surface Interpretations? Consequences for the Constitutive Dependency Thesis.

In this work we analyze the case of resistive conductor plates carrying constant currents, utilizing surface charge distributions. We obtain the electric potential in the plates and in the space surrounding them. We obtain a non-vanishing electric field outside the conductors. We compare the theoretical results with experimental data present in the literature.

Although there is empirical evidence of neural filling-in, this does not necessarily entail “isomorphic” theory. Most cortical neurons do not respond to a uniform surface and are instead sensitive to surface size and quality. I propose that a population of such neurons encodes the presence of a surface. This scheme is different from either the “cognitive” or “isomorphic” theories.

First published in 1937 as the fourth edition of a 1915 original, this book provides a readable account of the earth's surface and the changes that take place upon it, and shows how human activities are influenced by physical and climactic factors. Pickles generally manages to transcend the colonial ideals of his time, illustrating the text with many pertinent diagrams and photographs of natural and man-made geographical points of interest. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest (...) in geography or the history of education. (shrink)

In this article I set out an argument that skins and screens, once distinctly different types of surface, are merging. I show how in contemporary highly mediatized worlds skins are required to be visually expressive while also noting a parallel movement whereby screens are becoming more affective. Using the ‘designer vagina’ – specifically labiaplasty – as a case study I show how ideal bodies exist simultaneously as screen and as skin, as image and as affect. In turn, I argue that (...) two-dimensional images and three-dimensional ‘real life’ bodies are blending in ways that parallel skin–screen mergers. (shrink)

Graham McFee; VI*—The Surface Grammar of Dreaming, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 94, Issue 1, 1 June 1994, Pages 95–116, https://doi.org/10.10.

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

In this paper, I consider a view that explains colour experience by the independent representation of surface and illumination. This view implies that surface colour is a phenomenal perceptual content. I argue from facts of colour phenomenology to the conclusion that surface colour is not a phenomenal perceptual content. I then argue from results of surface-matching experiments to the conclusion that surface colour is neither a perceptual content of any kind nor any sort of computational output of the perceptual system. (...) These conclusions contradict widely accepted views in both the philosophy of perception and colour science. I finish by considering and rejecting a competing account of the surface-matching results, according to which surface colour is represented indeterminately in perception. (shrink)

The development of explicit theories of dynamic context change has led to a fundamentally new perspective on the interpretation of discourse. In this paper I show that this development also opens up the possibility of approaching subclausal composition along similar lines. More specifically, I argue that a dynamic theory where type-driven rules apply directly to overt surface structures and fill in missing information by building anaphoric bridges is more faithful to natural language semantics than the classical Montagovian approach.

The paper investigates Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of body and space and Gilles Deleuze’s reading of Francis Bacon’s work, in order to derive a renegotiated interrelation between habitual body, phenomenal space, preferential plane and constructive line. The resulting system is ap- plied as a filter to understand the sartorial fashion of Rei Kawakubo and Hussein Chalayan and their potential as a spatial prosthesis: the operative third skin. If the evolutionary nature of culture demands a constant change, how does the surface of (...) a third skin, which embodies the generative of stable/ unstable, respond to changes of context? The fleeting, shifting conditions of contemporary culture/ lifestyle rely upon, result in, and reflect one constant, change: change of working conditions, family structures, modes of inhabitation, relation networks, of userprofile and identity, of social and territorial boundaries. We occupy the shift- ing spatial parameters of a transitional supermodern environment. Culture, as enacted or embodied through each of these fields, is regulated by a number of abstract and factual variables that interplay constantly: time, space, movement, surface, individual, and data. Elizabeth Grosz argues that culture is an evolutionary effect: it regenerates itself in order to ensure the survival of the species. Each “prosthetic” expression of culture – language, fashion, architecture, etc. – changes repeatedly. Here change is not an end in itself, but a means. And the most successful prosthesis may not be the one that is able to answer the largest number of challenges, but one which itself undergoes a process of learning, self-modification, and differentiation – in short, a process of evolution. Any prosthesis is by nature an extension of the body. In the case of architecture and fashion the prosthesis addressing change is most often external to the body – a “cultural fur” or a surface phenomenon, that is, a highly profiled supplementary skin. As with all prostheses, their respective life-span depends on their ability to reflect a change in context and value systems. They are adapted or updated, if not, they vanish. Any situation of change is processed as a differentiation between the actual and the virtual of a given context. Grosz identifies distinctions between the actual and virtual, the real and the possible: the possible is a preformed real that has not yet received its final materiality, and thus delineates a range of options of becoming. The real is the blueprint of the possible, negotiated by factual limitations, and it is conjoint with the actual through a process of differentiation and divergence. The virtual comprises alternate variations of the actual, it defines a realm of deviation from the blueprint. In order to be responsive to change, the balance between the actual and virtual thus must be rendered unstable: “The virtual requires the actual to diverge, to differentiate itself, to proceed by way of division and disruption, forging modes of actualisation that will transform this virtual into others unforeseen or uncontained within it.” 4 The integration of the virtual allows a re-ordering of the blueprint, a return to the crossroad of possibilities, unlimiting and processing an alternative real, and establishing a state of continual change. A repeated change – not as a choice between a number of options but as a gradual process – marks the moment of evolution, and requires a dynamic system. Such a dynamic can be rendered as an adaptable, flexible, modular, mobile, or morphing system of change. The key lies with the fluency and ability of adaptation for the proposed differentiation between actual and virtual – thus it is an elastic change that is required. The nature of this elasticity is encoded in a repeated repositioning of the variables: a constant fine-tuning of a maximum number of parameters that engineer, alter and define the blueprint. When looking for a dynamic system that incorporates a transformation of skin or space, we are in search of dynamics through an operative surface, controlled by means of the constructive line. Both operative surface and constructive line are generative methods for the formation and form finding of the second and third skin of sartorial fashion and architecture respectively, as they both produce inhabitable or wearable envelopes with a specific responsiveness. Both professions share communication, coding and signage, form information programs, pattern charts, volume outlines, texture fields, surface operations, and implement electronic or digital extensions. In both, the constructive line shapes the surface twice: before production and in operation. The surface demarcates space, spatial envelope, enclosing garment, field of action. In which way can an operative system of the surface with stable/ unstable conditioning generate a phenomenological or evolutionary change in the reconstruction of body and context? How do time, space, movement, surface, individual and data interact in this framework? What is the impact of surface strategies and constructive line on that system? (shrink)

The first section of this issue brings together four essays on “surfaces” – a subject matter which might seem conspicuous or, indeed, palpable enough. Just think of the sheets of paper, window panes, and haptic interfaces surrounding you: the world, evidently, is diffused with surfaces, membranes, and boundaries of all sorts. Some of these things have been salient, for obvious reasons in fields such as media studies, or implicit in notions such as “boundary object”: the retina, photographic plates, (...) basilar membranes, the skin, or various forms of “displays” immediately come to mind. Not even mentioning their immense metaphoricity, surfaces are the entities that make things visible, inscribable, or knowable. But not all of them have been so salient. In fact, most surface-phenomena arguably – and, typically, for similarly obvious reasons – haven't received much scholarly notice at all: plastic wraps, lacquers, lubricants, coatings, silicon wavers, cell membranes, glass, plant leaves, the ozone layer. (shrink)

Peter Bornedalprovides an interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole in the context of 19th century philosophy of mind and cognition.

Shows how analogy-making pervades human thought at all levels, influencing the choice of words and phrases in speech, providing guidance in unfamiliar situations, and giving rise to great acts of imagination.

Marshall McLuhan understood television as a tactile medium. This understanding implied what Bruno Latour might call a ‘symmetrical’ conception of tactility. According to McLuhan, not only human actors are endowed with the sense of touch. In addition, TV, digital computers and other ‘electric media’ use light beams and similar scanning techniques for ceaselessly ‘caressing the contours’ of their surroundings. This notion of tactility was crucially shaped by the holistic aesthetics of the early Bauhaus. To get at the specific features of (...) the TV image, McLuhan relied on the writings of László Moholy-Nagy and Sigfried Giedion, in particular their use of photography for capturing and highlighting the ‘texture’ of surfaces. However, he hardly reflected the social and political factors that, in the age of electric media, contribute to the ‘symmetricization’ of touch. (shrink)

A simple working taxonomy with three classes of pictorial completion is proposed as an alternative to Pessoa et al.'s classification: area, surface, and contour completion. The classification is based on psychophysical evidence, not on the different phenomenal attributes of the stimuli, showing that pictorial completion is likely to involve mechanistic interactions in the visual system at different levels of processing. Whether the concept of “filling-in” is an appropriate metaphor for the visual mechanisms that may underlie perceptual completion is questioned.

Picornaviruses can be divided into at least six receptor families based on results of competition binding and receptor antibody studies. It has been proposed that a canyon present within the virion capsid harbors the viral attachment site for this group of viruses. Cell surface proteins involved in viral attachment have been identified for both rhinoviruses and coxsackie B viruses. Several monoclonal antibodies have been isolated which specifically block the binding of some picornaviruses.

This is a collection of articles on two central topics in epistemology: certainty and surfaces. Of the ten articles, four discuss Avrum Stroll's Surfaces. The topics explored have been the subject of intense philosophical debate since ancient times.

What is the place of materiality—the expression or condition of physical substance—in our visual age of rapidly changing materials and media? How is it fashioned in the arts or manifested in virtual forms? In Surface, cultural critic and theorist Giuliana Bruno deftly explores these questions, seeking to understand materiality in the contemporary world. Arguing that materiality is not a question of the materials themselves but rather the substance of material relations, Bruno investigates the space of those relations, examining how they (...) appear on the surface of different media—on film and video screens, in gallery installations, or on the skins of buildings and people. The object of visual studies, she contends, goes well beyond the image and engages the surface as a place of contact between people and art objects. As Bruno threads through these surface encounters, she unveils the fabrics of the visual—the textural qualities of works of art, whether manifested on canvas, wall, or screen. Illuminating the modern surface condition, she notes how façades are becoming virtual screens and the art of projection is reinvented on gallery walls. She traverses the light spaces of artists Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Tacita Dean, and Anthony McCall; touches on the textured surfaces of Isaac Julien’s and Wong Kar-wai’s filmic screens; and travels across the surface materiality in the architectural practices of Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Herzog & de Meuron to the art of Doris Salcedo and Rachel Whiteread, where the surface tension of media becomes concrete. In performing these critical operations on the surface, she articulates it as a site in which different forms of mediation, memory, and transformation can take place. Surveying object relations across art, architecture, fashion, design, film, and new media, Surface is a magisterial account of contemporary visual culture. (shrink)

Looking Beneath the Surface explores Arab-Islamic and Western perspectives on medical ethical issues: genetic research and treatment, abortion, organ donation, and palliative sedation and euthanasia. The contributions in this volume discuss the state of the art, the role of laws, counseling, and spiritual counseling in the decision-making process. The different approaches to the ethical issues, ways of moral reasoning, become clear in these contributions, especially the role of tradition for Islam and the importance of autonomy for the West. Beneath the (...) differences, however, the reader will also discover common values, such as the role of dignity and the value of life, and similar practices. Some of the main differences are sociocultural in nature, rather than religious as such. Well-known experts in the fields of medicine and ethics have contributed to this volume from different religious and secular backgrounds. The book offers a carefully written introduction and final chapter on intercultural comparisons. Looking Beneath the Surface is more than a collection of writings on issues in medical ethics: it helps the reader to compare different paradigms of accountability and moral reasoning. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the dominant view of musical sampling embodies an impoverished conception of the expressive capabilities of sampling. There are two respects in which it goes wrong. First, it overlooks the possibility of samples representing their sample sources. Second, it overlooks the possibility of samples that are not instances of their sample sources. En route to bringing out why the dominant view is impoverished, I introduce a theoretical framework that illuminates some of the ways in which (...) sample-based musical works can function as realistic representations of their sample sources. (shrink)

This paper describes a Bayesian method for constructing a super-resolved surface model by combining information from a set of images of the given surface. We develop the theory and algorithms in detail for the 2-D reconstruction problem, appropriate for the case where all images are taken from roughly the same direction and under similar lighting conditions. We show the results of this 2-D reconstruction on Viking Martian data. These results show dramatic improvements in both spatial and gray-scale resolution. The Bayesian (...) approach uses a neighbor correlation model as well as pixel data from the image set. Some extensions of this method are discussed, including 3-D surface reconstruction and the resolution of diffraction blurred images. (shrink)