EMPTIER
Interactive Object, 2014
EMPTIER is an interactive device invented to capture emptiness, nothingness, and air. Sitting in front of this instrument with absolute stillness, the blind-folded artist waits for the happening of emptiness. If anyone in the space is moving or talking, the capturing process will be disrupted. Audience who wish to witness the moment of emptiness must stay quiet and stop moving the body in a similar meditating gesture as the artist does, so that a collective peace could be achieved. At the perfect point of a peaceful moment, the inner part of the device will start to spin and capture emptiness. A weak motor sound could be heard indicating the functioning state of the device. If anyone starts to move again or disrupts the peacefulness, the device will stop immediately and won’t restart again until the next peaceful moment. It requires an extremely high level of consensus from everyone who are staying inside the space.
Measure of Nothingness
Measurements, including practices such as zooming in or examining something with a probe, don't just happen (in the abstract)- they require specific measurement apparatuses. Measurements are agential practices, which are not simply revelatory but performative: they help constitute and are a constitutive part of what is being measured. 3 In other words, measurements are intra-actions (not interactions): the agencies of observation are inseparable from that which is observed. Measurements are world-making: matter and meaning do not preexist, but rather are co-constituted via measurement intra-actions.
by Karen Barad
Medium, Process & Tools
Material: steam-bent wood, strings, metals
Electronics: PIR sensor, motor, arduino
Performance duration: 20 mins
