VOIDALISM: Of, In and Beyond the Void

“Everyone is actually someone in whose stead no one can enter.”

Nishida Kitaro

As part of artist residency at Plas Bodfa (Ynys Môn) with Charlie Blake, investigating the nature and being of the void.

The term follows from the Latin term vocitare, “to make empty”.  In Welsh ‘gwagle’ or ‘annilys’ (with a familiar latinate ‘nil’ or ‘null’ present), referring to that which is empty, and also invalid.  Legally, there are many connotations here invoking states of exception (where emergency state measures may ensue and rights are suspended).  It can also infer a terra nullis, a land occupied by noone, a legal claim to settlement used as a justification for colonisation .. and now we of course know, that no land is occupied by noone. 

So the void can be controversial, not least for its connotation to lack or the female vacuum.  And yet there are so many understandings of it, from quantum physics, to religious and existential experiences of breakdown and breakthrough, it feels important to examine its very (non)existence - and not avoid the void altogether, and really try and make use of it - even if it doesn’t exist!  Seeming as we are on a perpetual, and ever accelerating, edge …

I will be trawling Bangor High Street (North Wales) and other similar haunts to get an idea of what people think.  It is very easy to have an intellectual conception of it (if that is your incline), but really, how easy is it to grasp otherwise?  Or is it the most fundamental question that we all face, so we are all experts at the void really?  

So many thanks to everyone at Plas Bodfa for such wonderful support and opportunity to make use of their incredible space, to give these ideas a structure and a home.  And the catalysing work‘Void Faction’ by Julie Upmeyer and Marirose Pritchard which has been a true magnet for my voidal incursions.  

One of the reasons I became so infatuated with the void was after reading critical theorist and quantum physicist Karen Barad’s text, “What defines scale in the void? What is the metric of emptiness? What is the measure of nothingness?” Barad, K. (2012), “What is the Measure of Nothingness? Infinity, Virtuality, Justice”. There is a version of it here to read to prompt thinking.