“I mean let’s come clean, engaging with the surfaces of things is not to be mistaken with being superficial. There is a great essay written on this by Ulrika Dalh called Surface Tensions: Femininities, Feminisms, Femme Figurations. She uses the idea of a surface tension to describe the constitutive tension between an “inside” that’s supposed to be authentic and an outside that’s read as superficial. She uses that to talk about femininity. Accusing something of being superficial, reveals some sort of disappointment or need for the “authentic” or “the genuine” (the performative genuine) or the “real deal.” There is something very disturbing and idealistic about that, which reminds me of when people talk about women wearing “too much” make up, that they prefer the “natural look.” And just as the “natural woman” is a construction, there are certain aesthetics for coming across as “socially and politically engaged.” It’s a bit sad and potentially also conformist, when one asks art to fulfill one’s own ideas about one’s self as somebody who cares about politically urgent matters.”
