In favorable circumstances, topological 4-manifolds and surfaces in them can be classified. In contrast, little is known about smooth 4-manifolds and smooth surfaces. Several of the hardest problems in 4-dimensional topology (eg. the Poincare conjecture) simply ask whether the topological classification fails in the smooth setting; such failures are called exotica. In this talk, I will discuss some historic and recent progress towards detecting exotic phenomena, and outline some promising approaches. Speaker(s): Lisa Piccirillo (MIT)