Depth must be hidden

During Dutch Design Week seven designers presented at La Terrasse their exploration of the dimensions that shape the surface in the context of aesthetics and materials.

"La Terrasse Vol 1: Surfaces", view of the exhibition

Surfaces unite contradictory qualities.

They simultaneously denote a superficial external skin and demarcate the silent depth assimilated within the object.

This meeting point between inside and outside involves an intensity of materials and an investment of thoughts, presumptions, and curiosities.

Elisa Strozyk, Ceramic surface reflections. — Elisa Strozyk, Ceramic surface reflections

Smooth, curved, flat, plain, soft—surfaces unveil fragments of the designer’s yesterday and construct his or her tomorrow, building an interwoven manifestation of cultural attributions and incorporeal existence.

As Hugo Von Hofmannsthal stated in Book of Friends, “Depth must be hidden. Where? On the surface.” This presentation of work explored the dimensions that shape the surface in the context of aesthetics and materials.

Tuomas Markunpoika, Distant Light. In Distant Lights, the viewer sees an acrylic Fresnel lens square in front of a ring of LEDs, which casts a geometric pattern of light on the wall behind it. While the geometric pattern is a relatively stable consequence of the distances between the ring, lens, and wall surface, the image that the viewer sees in the lens itself is entirely based on his or her position. From the front, the lens portrays a series of concentric circles of coloured light, but shifting one’s perspective from side to side renders the light as a three-dimensional impression of two circular paraboloids. The viewer is thus confronted by the transience of their perception of the object—or of the object itself—in contrast to the static pattern of light cast on the wall. While the object has its own logic, the viewer can only experience their impermanent and immaterial perception of the light, an active construction of the eyes in negotiation with the object and the environment.

Each designer presented his or her own interpretation of surface, respecting these prescriptions: the surface has to be defined in a frame of 20x20cm; this surface then generates its own unique object; this object demands its own utopia from its designer. This exhibition is thus less about past process than about future possibilities.

As the surface constitutes the membrane between the knowable, visual and tactile reality and the unknowable depths that spark imaginative questioning, so each project transcends its physical limits to suggest the hypothetical world that surrounds it.

Alan Boom, Interea 3.0. The Latin word for mask is persona: the whole determination of someone’s entity, a social role or an actor playing a character. Generally one’s physical appearance is the first thing that meets the eye. Though simultaneously we’re looking through invisible layers like interpretation and preoccupation, constantly playing with our mind. Unequal, soft, humid, strong, stretchy and pocked; our biggest organ is a constantly changing and breathing surface, in-between all sorts of physical and emotional interaction. Where Leonardo da Vinci in the sixteenth century made Mona Lisa’s skin ‘real’ with a glare by building layers of transparent oils, in the 1960’s Madame Orlan applied plastic surgery as a medium to change her physical appearance into something unreal. The medium itself was also often treated as a skin. Within moving image, avant-garde filmmakers applied scarification directly to film layers, redefining film by changing its foundation. Interea 3.0 – lets visitors interact with different media and – their own – bodies at the same time, forming a new surface together. The work needs the human body to be complete. It is a relationship in terms of spatial representation and narrative.

Erez Nevi Pana, Lot’s Wife. Photo By Ronald Smith. In this project Nevi Pana chose to perforate the pedestal, pouring salt into it. Combining clay and salt, some of the objects were fired to a high degree to form a strong material, which is water resistant and complete. Other objects are made from salt and clay that were fired separately, and then combined. In the latter combination, as the salt was peeled, the ceramic core is discovered. Its usage was changed, revealing the notion of times. The pedestal is transformed to a series of vessels. Its purpose is to contain instead of exhibit. No longer as a formal classic stand; a new meaning is poured into it, invisible, yet present. Whether full or empty, within or not, burned separately from the salt or together, the visible surface on top is emptied and our perspective and focus is derived to what is inside the pedestal.

Francesco Zorzi, Contemporary Archeology. Photo By Ronald Smith. Thermal paper is the focus of this project as it represents surface in its faceted nature, mysterious and full of contradictions. It is candid and immaculate as it is also ephemeral and delicate, artificial and deceitful, all in one. It is a single story made of many smaller stories. Thermal paper re-inventing itself, visualizing the potential that lies in its depth. Beyond the surface.

Francesco Zorzi, Contemporary Archeology

Tal Erez, The surface is a black hole. In the not-so-distant future, we may no longer be required to see depth, there will be no Z-axis. Only surface. But within this two-dimensional boundaries immense depths are unrevealing. In this virtual landscape, old questions that have been lost in flatness arise again: Functionality and ergonomics, semantics and tactility, experience and usability. In this new world, where we can no longer fathom neither the mechanics nor the electronics of the digital product, we are left with trusting them, turning our gaze to things we can cope with. So applications have taken the role of products, and design is renamed UX. The world within this flattened surface is becoming a black hole. It is collapsing the material environment, drawing into its boundaries more and more once physical products: notebooks and clocks, radios and cameras, picture frames and levels, switches, flashlights, sound systems and libraries, to name a few. the surface is swallowing the third dimension into its midst, reflecting back its two-dimensionality into the physical world. We accept its boundaries as axioms, as new rules of nature.

La Terrasse Vol 1: Surfaces
curated by Erez Nevi Pana
graphics: Camille Bulteau Barreau
illustration: Konrad Bialowas
La Terrasse
Gas Fabriek
Nachtegaallaan 15, Eindhoven

Depth must be hidden

During Dutch Design Week seven designers presented at La Terrasse their exploration of the dimensions that shape the surface in the context of aesthetics and materials.

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