In Living Surfaces, Abelardo Gil-Fournier and Jussi Parikka invite the reader to envision the Earth as a giant photographic negative. Analogous to a sensitive skin, the planetary surface— conceptualized here as a “media-natural” sphere covered in plants, glass, and sensors— records and reacts to solar energy and the intervention of media technology. With this site of proximity and merger between vegetal life and technical images in mind, the authors define the “living surface” as an interface where the natural and the artificial are integrated through the registration of light. Such a vision compels us to consider our planetary existence as an operational environment, where the plant cell, the agricultural plot, and the planetary biosphere are more than mere biological presences; rather, they are persistently entangled with human fabrication as a multiscalar epistemic unit.

Gil-Fournier and Parikka draw from an extensive and diverse array of literary, scientific, and theoretical references to construct the concept of the “living surface.” Their bibliography spans nineteenth-century plant physiology, Cold War military manuals, contemporary media theory, and avant-garde cinema. To define the notion of surface as an entanglement of the material and the visual, the authors also engage with the theoretical work of Giuliana Bruno, Bernhard Siegert, and Jean-Luc Nancy. The book is organized thematically rather than chronologically, traversing a range of contemporary practices that foreground responsiveness, transformation, and environmental entanglement. Through case studies drawn from artistic experimentation, architectural design, and research-based practice, the authors demonstrate how surfaces can register temporal change, mediate ecological processes, and generate new forms of sensorial engagement. This structure allows the book to remain accessible to readers from different disciplinary backgrounds while maintaining conceptual coherence. Throughout this multiscalar exploration, the authors investigate the history of glass as an interscalar vehicle, nineteenthcentury plant physiologist Julius Wiesner’s application of photography to measure biological growth, and Spanish “Inner Colonization” as a precursor to contemporary precision farming. Furthermore, they examine how remote sensing transforms the physical earth into a "datafied" ground, priming it for the "fake geographies" produced by machine learning models.

A central strength of Living Surfaces lies in its attention to process and experimentation, as well as its ability to integrate disparate fields. The authors successfully bridge scientific research on responsive materials with artistic and design practices that foreground tactility, temporality, and environmental entanglement. Particularly compelling is the emphasis on process-based experimentation, where surfaces are understood as evolving conditions rather than fixed outcomes. This is concretely illustrated through their examination of fields ranging from biogeochemistry to military intelligence and experimental art. The authors argue that sensing and imaging technologies do not merely observe nature but actively transform it. Whether discussing Cold War “photobotany” or the use of weather warfare to seed clouds in Vietnam, the authors demonstrate that the "living surface" is a site of constant fabrication and management.

Nevertheless, while the term “living surfaces” is central to the book’s argument, it is applied to a wide range of phenomena—from bio-responsive materials to metaphorically “active” architectural skins—without always sufficiently distinguishing between biological life, technological responsiveness, and phenomenological vitality. As a result, the conceptual boundaries of “living” remain somewhat elastic, and readers may occasionally find it difficult to assess the analytical stakes of the term across different contexts.

Another limitation lies in the book’s engagement with history. Although the authors situate their discussion within recent materialist and ecological discourse, earlier art historical and architectural precedents are largely treated as background rather than as active interlocutors. Practices that similarly destabilized the fixity of surfaces, including experimental modernist architecture and craft-based art, are referenced only briefly. While the book gestures toward historical precedents, a more sustained engagement with them could have further situated “living surfaces” within a longer genealogy of material thinking.

Despite these limitations, Living Surfaces provides a critical framework for understanding the Anthropocene as a radical shift in the conditions of visuality. It is an essential read for those interested in how the Earth has become a sensitive recording medium, a giant photographic plate continuously printed and programmed through the interplay of light, data, and power.