Whether tangible or not, textures offer stimuli to perception
What do you think about… textures? Among the Latin words related to texere (to weave) are the nouns textus, textum, and textura (fabric, web, context, structure; makeup, style) which were applied to the context of the spoken and written word very early on. Texture is considered a fundamental element of design, like form or color.
There is no surface without a texture, even if it is as smooth as glass. In design, texture is used, on the one hand, as an immediate, tactile (3-D) or visual (2-D) surface quality and, on the other, in a metaphorical sense, as a stylistic expression or syntactic chain of signs, writing, images, or actions. The entire surface of the world can be read as a web of signs if one follows a structuralist understanding of textuality.
The question as to whether textures are representations of deep structures and hidden truths or simply phenomena perceived by the senses is one raised by all designed surfaces. Many modern debates in the history of design (from Semper’s principle of Bekleidung [cladding, dressing] to the appropriateness of materials or the prohibition on ornament) can be considered from this perspective.
With the advent of postmodernism, the design of the surfaces of products, also known as styling, became an essential factor in designing products that appealed to individuals in specific target groups and to represent the spirit of the times.
Textures take on the same communicative functions as the objects they are applied to: the functions of retextured clothes, wristwatches, mobile phones, tennis shoes, and furniture can be perceived entirely differently once their surfaces have been altered, even if their essential forms remain the same.
The dichotomy of shell and core continues in the twenty-first century, if perhaps less marked by moralistic claims to truth though the core is becoming increasingly dematerialized and the shell is becoming increasingly autonomous. Newly developed textiles take on the function of technical interfaces; haptic displays organize communications or give “force feedbacks” in which resistance is perceived as a material quality.
In digital parallel universes (at Google Earth, for example) and virtual game realities, by contrast, the focus is on the illusionistic function of texture. In order to simulate materiality in CAD models ( CAD/CAM/ CIM/CNC), material surfaces so-called pattern textures from preexisting texture libraries for designers and architects (much like nineteenth-century pattern books) are mapped onto renderings of volumes.
Whether tangible or not, textures offer stimuli to perception and remain with varying degrees of semantic transparency (or intelligence) communicative interfaces between people and things.