My work questions how material relations can appear on the surface of
different media—on film and video screens, in gallery installations, or on
the skins of buildings and people. In response to these issues, I propose to
approach materiality as a surface condition. Focusing on screen surface, I
show that technologies of light can produce new forms of materiality. In
this text, the screen emerges as a site of encounter and admixture. Various
experiments of screening are considered, ranging from those envisaged
by László Moholy-Nagy to the contemporary installations of Krzysztof
Wodiczko. In these configurations of the act of screening, different forms
of mediation, memory, and transformation can take place. This is what I
call ‘the surface tension of media’.