Winter arrived suddenly last week, in this humid city we didn’t see much snow the last years. Now there was. I felt it would stay cold for a while now, degrees rarely crawling above 0. The lake next to the studio grew a skin within the two days I estimated. One element becoming two, inside and out, water and ice, a lightweight cover- up.
Water reaches its highest density around 4 degrees Celsius and if being cooled further will expand and get lighter, separating from itself at 0 degrees, ice floats on top of water. Particle densities and levels of activity distinguish the states of matter that surround us.
Each matter and environment comes with its own breakpoints for phase transitions, easing into ionization and recombination, condensation and vaporization, freezing and melting, deposition and sublimation. But what is a Breakpoint when phases transition?
A mediums density and therefore weight switches according to changes in external conditions, like temperature or pressure. Allowing particles to move further apart or closer together, breaking into activity or fixed structure.
An ideal text justification aims for an even, solid textual surface, no leaking rivers, does this feel light? Lighter maybe than the ragged margin that spills its waves unruly.
Although attempts of onthological principles have been made, our surroundings are always inital in defining our matters breakpoints. You can’t cook food on top of the Mount Everest. Due to a drop in air pressure, water will cook with an earlier breakpoint, at 70 degrees Celsius, a breakpoint at which no food can cook properly.
Asking for breakpoints is asking for different modes, for other accesses. What is a density that carries but doesnt confine you?
Hidden to most users, the web is full of breakpoints that conform content to the different devices we are browsing with. Adjusting font-size and layout to a screens width here is no longer an advanced feature but has grown into an expected functionality. Liquid, subtly conforming their shape to their containers, gaseous, occupying a whole space, the new sites can break into all the states.