Some of the more enjoyable surfaces (for example, the grain of a fine mahogany table top or a Japanese sword) have an interplay between pattern and texture which, though two-dimensional, suggests the unseen internal three-dimensional array.
As we draw closer, we see that the three-faceted planes of the museum are fabricated out of rectangular panels made of white bronze that was poured directly into dammed forms on the concrete floor of the foundry, producing a surface texture similar to both metal and stone.
I’m now more inclined to attribute Looseleaf’s power to its visual texture than to some cognitive media-style abstraction. And the visual texture owes more to the beauty (yes, beauty!) of the original pdfs from the Vasulka Archive. Perhaps the demo is best understood not as a prototype generic tool, but as a specific curated experience in its own right, with form and content claiming equal importance in its overall success.
Even so, I think there are some general lessons that can be drawn from this demo:
Content is not inert
Visual texture lets content breathe
Visual texture lets the eye wander without losing itself
In the case of the seeming egalitarianism and beneficence of the voice from the cloud that says “You Are Not Your User,” what I hear in that voice is the ringing of a cash register, and the creaking of the crank on the side of a box that software development efforts disappear into, and that money comes out of.
A mechanism that would seize up instantly if some still small voice were to propose the opposite of what the thunder says: that you and your user are one.