maybe this helps...
Nonhuman animals are sometimes thought to exist in surface only, that is, lacking the interiority of humans. Ron Broglio (2011) subverts the negative association of this claim, proposing surface as a productive site of interaction.
...he proposes becoming-animal and interacting through surfaces
(Kathleen Mary Collier, 2014, Wellington, NZ)
What it is like to be an animal? Ron Broglio wants to know from the inside, from underneath the fur and feathers. In examining this question, he bypasses the perspectives of biology or natural history to explore how one can construct an animal phenomenology, to think and feel as an animal other&;or any other.
Until now phenomenology has grappled with how humans are embedded in their world. According to philosophical tradition, animals do not practice the self-reflexive thought that provides humans with depth of being. Without human interiority, philosophers have believed, animals live on the surface of things. But, Broglio argues, the surface can be a site of productive engagement with the world of animals, and as such he turns to humans who work with surfaces: contemporary artists.
(Amazon Book description for Ron Broglio’s „Surface Encounters“ 2011)