Oberfläche und Oberflächlichkeit:  Was hat Gore-Tex mit de​r Impermeabilität sozialer Strukturen in Zeiten sozialer Flexibilität zu tun?
Von Diego Castro

Von gefälschten Doktorarbeiten prominenter Politiker über kurzlebige elektronische Billigprodukte bis zur Flüchtigkeit zwischenmenschlicher Beziehungen beim sogenannten "Networking": Oberflächlichkeit scheint sich zum Schlüsselbegriff für weitreichende Entwicklungen unserer spätkapitalistischen Gesellschaft zu entwickeln.

Mangelnde Nachhaltigkeit, geplante Obsoleszenz von industriellen Produkten, mangelnde Handwerklichkeit und beschleunigter Konsum sind heutzutage Probleme, die nicht nur ökologische Konsequenzen mit sich ziehen. Einer Idee Richard Sennetts folgend, soll heute Abend -in Teilaspekten- der graduellen Entfremdung nachgegangen werden, die gleichsam die kurzlebigen Beziehung zwischen Menschen und Menschen, beziehungsweise Menschen und Dingen betrifft.

Wie verhält sich der Begriff der Oberflächlichkeit zu Neuerungen in der Oberflächengestaltung? Auf welche Weise wird an der Membran zwischen Objekt und Benutzer Oberflächlichkeit sichtbar, insbesondere wenn diese, sei es ein Touchscreen oder eine Sitzbank in einem McDonalds Restaurant, den Benutzer abweisen? Und wie verhält es sich mit dem öffentlichen Leben, wenn wir den urbanen Raum in seiner Tradition als Bühne einer öffentlichen und unentrinnbaren Aufführung verstehen?

Hat sich an einem von Intimitätsterror geprägten öffentlichen Leben bereits die Auflösung alter Rollen gezeigt -weil die Grenzen von Privatheit und Öffentlichkeit sich verwischen-, so hat in diesem -einst den Rollenspielen von Erwachsenen vorbehaltenen- Bereich ein Wandel stattgefunden: Seit der Entdeckung des ökonomischen Potenzials von Teenagern ab den 1950er Jahren und der daraufhin erforderlichen Teilhabe der jüngeren Generation am öffentlichen Leben, war die Rollenverteilung von Akteuren und Zuschauern ins Wanken geraten.

Die zunehmende Privatisierung der öffentlichen Sphäre, der neoliberale Rückzug des Staates aus seiner regulierenden und verteilenden Rolle in allen Bereichen, haben diese Entwicklung vorangetrieben. So finden an der Membran der öffentlichen Sphäre Veränderungen statt, die weit reichende Veränderungen nicht nur in Erscheinung treten lassen, sondern letztlich auch hervorrufen.

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SCRATCHING AT THE SURFACE: Physical Thoughts on Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette”

By Megan Steinman

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Surfaces and their spatial representations surround us.  In many ways, every individual acts as a surface: our bodies operate as interfaces between us and the world.  “Scratching at the Surface” refers to a daily process during which we intake, evaluate and output a complex series of gestures influenced by, and which influence, our external cultural and internal dispositions.  As of late, however, the body as operator of this system, is repeatedly denied.  Examples of this are everywhere.   Men and women are dying in wars throughout the world, but their lifeless bodies are never seen and therefore disregarded.  They are transformed from person to statistic. In the United States, recent congressional hearings meant to decide upon the reproductive rights of women meet without a single female body present.  Our ‘Social Media Made Selves’ are composed of data that describes where we go, the Mayors of those locations, what we “Like,” what we’ve FFFound, what are our Pinterests, who we are with, and when.  Maybe “It’s Complicated” because all that data can’t wrap its arms around us at night.

What I’d like to explore here is how an active role of viewership might get us beyond - or below - the surface.  I want to return to the words “satisfying” and “enjoyable” - because they tether the critique to the critic (i.e. me).   If we begin by acknowledging ourselves and our dual roles as both receivers and interpreters, then we are also acknowledging an active thought process that defines our spatial relationship to various surfaces.  From this position we can begin to deconstruct -and decide how to navigate - the information we encounter on these surfaces.  Coppola uses a series of formal visual aspects to activate her viewers and the surface of her film as a place to connect herself both to her viewers and to Marie Antoinette's historical biography.

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On Superficialization – Part 1

By Fred Dewey

We tend to think of the superficial as harmless, of what is shallow as dismissable, bearable, as a passing problem. It’s fun, entertaining, nothing to worry about. Maybe we avoid it, maybe we run from it. But what happens when it doesn’t go away, when it is unbearable, when you can’t avoid it? When it is everywhere? When it is bearing down on all of us like an aircraft carrier? When it assaults us, and saturates us, and rots out everything in sight? Perhaps you find it inside yourself and you can’t and won’t shake it because, well, frankly, it’s a help. The problem arises when every last thing is taken from you and from others and handed back - in superficial form. You think you’re so and so. But here’s a little wakeup call, buster.

At a certain point, this becomes political. We have to superficialize all we say, do, think, and feel in order to survive, to not be erased, to not be forgotten, to make a living. To tolerate a job. And maybe the job doesn’t pay. What a beautiful, what a handsome face. We are only genes. The earth is a resource. Greece needs to get its house in order. America on top of everyone. Germany on top of everyone. Russia or China on top of everyone. The market on top of everyone. I have to upload what I want people to know about, because if I’m not online I just don’t exist. Look at all my friends.

German existentialist Karl Jaspers, addressing the University of Heidelberg and an audience full of ex-Nazis right after World War II, with rubble to every horizon, had the extraordinary courage to say something odd: that everything real and important had been hidden by “an enforced superficial community.” I think it’s worth it to take this very seriously. The point has nothing to do now with Germany. Jaspers was trying to talk about guilt and deeds done, and this could be well proposed for America, or Russia, or China, or Brazil, or Hungary, or whoever now rules the Antarctic, or will. For Jaspers, the thing that became a nightmare and horror was superficial and enforced and a community, or rather, a superficial community, an enforced superficial community. Jaspers had many very, very under-appreciated things to say, and this is one of them.

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