Studio Note 04 – June 2026
A note on material friction, human trace and the search for authenticity.
There is a strange kind of emptiness that can sit inside perfection.
We see it in images that are too smooth and in words that sound polished but strangely unrooted. We also feel it in spaces designed to please the eye, but that leave nothing for the hand, the memory, or the body to hold onto.
At first, it can be hard to name.
Nothing is technically wrong. The image is clean. The sentence works. The surface is impressive. The finish is precise. And yet something in us hesitates. We look, but we don’t quite feel.
Perhaps this is one reason so many of us seem to be reaching back towards texture, process, imperfection, materiality and trace. Towards notebooks, handmade objects, visible brushstrokes, old photographs, physical books, worn garments, handwritten notes, slow craft and original art.
Not because the digital world has no value. But because a world without friction can begin to feel strangely weightless.
Why can digital perfection feel emotionally empty?
Digital perfection can feel empty when there is no visible trace of origin.
We are surrounded by images, posts, products, interiors, captions and designs that appear instantly and effortlessly. They arrive fully formed, polished, optimised and ready to be consumed But often, we cannot feel where they came from. We’re not exposed to the hesitation behind them. The revisions remain hidden. The drafts disappear. There is no residue of effort, no visible decision-making, no sense that a human being had to wrestle with the thing before it appeared. And whilst this is something we have long accepted from big brands, it feels different when it comes from artists, writers, makers and independent creators. We expect advertising to be polished. We know a brand campaign has been shaped, edited, lit, tested and optimised to influence us. We understand the transaction, even when we are drawn in by it. But when we turn towards art, writing, handmade objects or independent creative work, we are often looking for something else. Not just a convincing surface, but a human presence. A sense that someone was there.
What I am not saying is that digital work is empty by default. Some digital work carries enormous depth, thought, authorship and emotional truth. The human behind the work can be evident in every pixel.
For me, the emptiness is not in the digital. It’s in the absence of trace.
We are not only asking whether something looks good. Increasingly, we are asking whether it feels as though it came from somewhere real.
What is material friction?
Material friction is the resistance that tells us something has passed through a process.
It might be the drag of pencil across paper. The uneven edge of ink. The texture of cloth. The delay between an idea and its finished form, or the mark that could not have been made twice in exactly the same way. But material friction is not only physical.
There is also intellectual friction. Emotional friction. Creative friction. The friction of choosing, rejecting, revising, doubting, returning, noticing, layering and refining.
A painting can carry friction, so can a poem, a piece of clothing and a digitally finished artwork – if the human process behind it is still present. Friction is not failure – it is evidence.
It tells us that something has not simply been produced, but encountered. Worked with. Shaped. Questioned. Carried.
Are people searching for authenticity because everything feels the same?
I think many people are.
There is a sameness emerging across visual culture. Not because everyone lacks originality, but because so much of what we see is now shaped by the same systems of visibility.
Social media curates what reaches us. Algorithms predict what we might want before we fully know ourselves. Trends repeat until they become visual weather. Templates flatten difference into recognisable formats. The result? Aesthetic success begins to look like imitation. And perhaps this is where some creative work begins to lose its centre. Not because tools like AI are being used, but because too often they are used as a shortcut to output rather than as part of a deeper process of authorship.
Prompt engineering may produce an image, a paragraph, or a surface. But without presence engineering – without the artist, writer or maker bringing their own source material, judgement, memory, restraint, taste and responsibility into the process – the result can begin to drift towards sameness. The creator has not necessarily used technology too much. They may simply have left too much of themselves outside the work. Over time, this does something to us. We may not always notice it consciously, but we begin to feel the narrowing. The repetition. The strange sense that everything has been pre-selected, pre-smoothed, pre-approved and placed in front of us before we had the chance to search for ourselves. Perhaps the craving for authenticity is partly a response to that. A quiet psychological rebellion against being constantly curated.
A desire to find things that have not been over-optimised for us.
Things with edge.
Things with evidence.
Things with human irregularity.
Things that remind us there is still a person behind the surface.
Is AI the problem, or is the problem loss of authorship?
I think this is where the conversation needs care.
It’s too easy to say that human-made work is authentic and AI-assisted work is not. That’s far too simple.
Many artists, writers and creators are now using AI as a thinking partner, sketching tool, extension of process, or way to test possibilities that would otherwise remain unreachable. In those cases, the presence of AI does not automatically erase authorship.
An AI label can tell us that a tool was involved. It cannot always tell us what happened behind the scenes. It cannot show the original sketch, the years of visual language, the instinctive selection, the rejected versions, the emotional judgement, the hand that began the work, the eye that refined it, or the human responsibility that shaped the final outcome. But equally, we have to acknowledge the world we are now in.
People are encountering more and more images, words and objects whose origins are unclear. Some are deeply authored. Some are barely authored at all. Some are made with care. Some are generated at speed. Some carry human intention. Others carry little more than prompt, surface and output.
So perhaps the better question is not: Was AI involved?
Perhaps the better question is:
Can we feel a human presence in the choices?
Why does human trace matter in art, writing and creativity?
Human trace matters because it gives us something to meet.
When we encounter a piece of art, a page of writing, a handmade object, or even a digitally finished work that carries evidence of human choice, we are not only looking at an outcome. We are sensing a mind, a body, a history, a temperament, a set of decisions. We feel that someone was there. Not perfectly and not always visibly. But somehow.
That trace creates connection. It allows us as viewers, readers or wearers to feel less like consumers and more like participants in meaning. The work does not arrive as a sealed surface. It gives us somewhere to enter. This is why some imperfect things stay with us while flawless things disappear.
The flaw is not always the point and the perfection is not always the problem.
The question is whether the work gives us anything human to hold.
Why are people looking for space?
Alongside the search for authenticity, there seems to be another search taking place.
A search for space.
Not just physical space, though that matters too. But mental space. Emotional space. Creative space. Interpretive space.
So much of our modern digital life is compressed. Timelines move quickly. Platforms decide what appears next. Content stacks itself endlessly. The eye is stimulated, but the mind is rarely allowed to settle. And I think we are beginning to recognise what that has done to us. Our minds have become accustomed to constant movement, constant input, constant refresh. We are shown more than we can absorb, and yet part of us is craving something slower. Something with room around it. And so the search for space may be part of the same deeper movement as the search for originality, personal meaning and material friction.
People are not only looking for things to look at. They are looking for room to feel. Room to choose, to interpret, to remember themselves and room to encounter something without being immediately pushed towards the next thing.
Perhaps that is why slower creative work matters now.
Not because slowness is nostalgic, but because it offers resistance to a culture of constant acceleration.
What are we really searching for when we search for authenticity?
I don’t think we are searching only for handmade objects.
I don’t think we are rejecting technology.
I don’t think we are trying to return to a simpler past that never fully existed.
I think we are searching for presence.
For work that feels located and for objects that feel touched by intention. For writing that sounds as though it has been lived with and for art that carries evidence of seeing.
In short what we are searching for is creativity that has not been flattened into pure output.
The truth is not always in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes the beholder can feel when something is missing. Not because they know the whole process and not because they can explain it technically. But because human beings are sensitive to trace, even when we cannot name it.
We know when something has weight.
We know when something has been handled with care.
We know when a surface is beautiful but sealed.
And perhaps that knowing is becoming more important now. In a world of increasing polish, sameness and speed, friction may be one of the things that brings us back to ourselves.
Not friction as difficulty for its own sake. Friction as evidence of contact. And perhaps friction is only the first word for it. Perhaps what we are really looking for is source. The mark of a hand. The pressure of a choice. The presence of a human being.
That may be what we are really searching for.
Not perfection.
Just something we can feel.