MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

a conversational drama

I come from outer space yet placing myself on ear th

I stand alone yet maintaining different relations
I am absent yet signif ying presence
I am part yet my own whole
I am formless yet shaping any form
I am not understood yet speaking any language
I am no thing yet i am
I am void yet never empty
SYNONYMS to VOID

abandoned, arid, bare, barren, blank, bleak, clear, deprived, drained, empty,
emptied, free, lacking, scant, scarce, stark, short, shy, bereft, destitute, devoid,
tenantless, unfilled, unfurnished, unoccupied, vacant, vacuous, without
I don‘t exist without the o t h e r, the solid.
nothing, no thing, absence, zero, great void, supernova, black hole, lack,
deficiency, dearth, Ye t not knowing what kind of relationship
we have. Are we lovers, siblings, parent

ETYMOLOGY to VOID and child? We fight like Kane and Abel or

Romulus and Remus, we love like Romeo and
„unoccupied, vacant,“ from Anglo-French and Old French voide, viude „empty,
vast, wide, hollow, waste, uncultivated, fallow,“ as a noun, „opening, hole; loss,“ Juliet, we argue like Zeus with his father
from Latin vocivos „unoccupied, vacant,“ related to vacare „be empty,“ from K r o n o s . I t ‘ s a s t o r y. I t ‘ s a s p e c t a c l e . I t ‘ s a
PIE *wak-, extended form of root *eue- „to leave, abandon, give out.“ Meaning
„lacking or wanting“ (something) is recorded from early 15c. Meaning „legally drama. It is a conversation.
invalid, without legal efficacy“ is attested from mid-15c.

used as a noun „unfilled space, gap“ from about 1616.

ETYMOLOGY to ZERO

The word zero came into the English language via French zéro from Italian zero,
Italian contraction of Venetian zevero form of ‚Italian zefiro via şafira or şifr.In
pre-Islamic time the word şifr had the meaning „empty“. Şifr evolved to mean
zero when it was used to translate şunya from India.
 I come from outer space yet placing myself on ear th

“Voids occupy most of the universe,” says Michael Vogeley, an astrophysicist

at Drexel University in Philadelphia. “We find that over 60 percent of the
universe is in voids.”

Voids have a deep relation with their cosmic opposites called walls or
filaments. Voids are cosmic regions with a very low cosmic mean density
and a lower gravitational attraction. So matter is fleeing towards walls and
filaments. It seems as if voids are pushing the matter around.

“We still do not have a universal definition of what a void is,” notes van de
Weygaert. (http://discovermagazine.com/2016/dec/nothing-really-matters,
Zugriff 19.12.2017)

This is very true, not only for astronomy. As we all know the word void, our
perception and understanding of its concept is not very clear. Sometimes it
is used as a synonym for space, yet it is a part of it.

The relationship between void and solid shape our spaces, the reality of the
spaces we live in.

In Japanese philosophy void is one of five elements: earth, water, fire, air
and void. So one can say our physical reality, built up by the 4 elements, still
has this component which is immaterial but sometimes get materialized. A
paradox. Ambiguous. A presence for an absence.
Similar to the number zero, which entered the european mathematical world
in the early 13th century and changed the conception of nothing and affected
mathematics and accounting. Suddenly there was a signifier, a placeholder
for the absence of something else. A number. A cypher.
Abbildung: http://discovermagazine.com/2016/dec/nothing-really-matters

3
After all the world we live in today, with the technology surrounded, the
smartphones and computers, our devices were all affected by the upcoming
of the Zero.

Where there’s nothing, everything is possible.

Where there is architecture, nothing (else) is possible.
Rem Koolhaas, Imagining Nothingness

Abbildung: http://www.void.high-res.net

The void and its wider range of concepts like the nothing is matter to artistic,
philosophical, theological thinking and concepts.
As of all it can be considered as the ground for imagination. Void is the
symbol for whatever might be possible. A blank page, a blank surface, a
gap, an in-between space, an unfilled space, left out words or characters.
All matter to our imagination. Void is where the real and the imaginative
come together to give presence to anything possible as well as emphasizing
anything already there.
The relaionship between the void and the world is as old as times.
Though the Greeks refused to accept the presence of void, due to „[...] the
disruption, chaos and anarchy that they feared would issue from granting
signification and presence to that which is not“ (S.61, Rotman, 1987). The
Greeks believed in Gods creation of the world out of „[...] primitive matter,
which was itself eternal and uncreated; [therefore] the world was an artifice
of God, God was its architect, not its maker.“ (S.60, Rotman, 1987)
The Old Testment on the other hand prays the creation of the world, the
universe, matter, form and design, even humans ex nihilo - out of nothing.
Void as matter of contradiction.
Sartre in his phenomenological essay being and nothingness stresses the
philosophical question about nothing and non-being and its relation to the
being. For Sartre nothingness is a reality and part of a totality which is hence
modified by the nothingness at the same time.
Void as part of a relation.
5
I stand alone yet maintaining different relations
Shakespeare adresses the fundamental question of nothing in his work,
especially in King Lear where Nothing becomes the motor of his tragedy.
Nothing shapes the relationship with his daughter Cordelia and results in his
madness. Chaos. Disruption.
Chaos and Disruption on another level caused the 2009 art show Void: A
Retrospective at the Centre Pompidou where they left the exhibition rooms
empty. The walls were just left white and within this „just whiteness [, t]hings
like the emergency signs suddenly seem superfluous, intrusive“(https://
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/mar/02/pompidou-centre-vides-
exhibition)“
John Cage‘s piece 4‘33“ works on a similar level. A piece with the absence
of music but the presence of musicians leaving the spectator in an unsual
terrain while emphasizing the sound of the enviornment and making the
audience the producing object and so the subject.
French novelist Georges Perec dedicated a whole book to the void whose
original title is la disparition meaning vanishing or disappearance, in this
case the letter e.
In all the cases the void gets materialized through a first chaotic disruptive
and unusual state and finds a new shape in sound, written words and
thoughts or even human beings.
Perhaps I have encountered only spaces of transformation, singular spots or
slack varieties. The simplest of these, absolutely, is the void, [...].
Michel Serres, the parasite, S. 72
 I am absent yet signif ying presence

What can be absent and present at the same time?

Myths, stories, speech? Fluctuating in space building letters up to words

and sentences, once being spoken the letters and words are vanishing in the
air leaving a presence behind and building a relation with the one hearing.
A picture or sound, taste or smell? Capturing a moment of sensation, an Das Werk tritt aus der Hölle heraus, aus den unterirdischen Gefilden, in
event, leaving out the past or future. Giving shape to an idea or feeling,
denen Worte, Begriffe, Bilder, Namen und Schatten schweben; es zieht diese
leaving a trace of memory presenting the imaginative and building a relation
Schatten aus der Unterwelt hervor, gibt ihnen einen Körper durch Anrufung
with the receptor. A door, a window? Cut out of a material forming an empty
space, an opening and therefore building a relation with a third. Light? The oder Beschwörung; das betäubte oder frigide Nomen erwacht. Konstruktion.
spectrum of different lengths, the representation of speed through space Michel Serres, Die fünf Sinne, S. 175
reflecting the third in its shadows and giving it a body.

Void as matter of construction.

7
 ‘„[Connections], wholes and not wholes, convergent divergent, consonant
dissonant, from all things one and from one thing all.“ This suggests that the
world is both whole and parts in a dynamic unity’
Paul F. Emmons quoting Heraclitus

Abbildung: Filmstill - IAMX - ‚The Void‘ (Official Video)

 I am par t yet my own whole

The relationship between the void and the solid is a story about parts and the
whole, about unitiy and variety, an argument which occupies philosophers
and theorists since a long time.
The concepts of parts and its underpriviledged role concerning the whole is
related to a lot of concepts of society.
mereotopological architecture reveals that infinity is intrinsic to parts, unities
and discrete objects.“ (Contagious architecture, S. xii)
Infinity shapes the holistic approach, so we can argue that wholes can
become parts and vice versa in a dynamic and changing process.

Humans, built up by God, man and women as imperfect parts lacking gods But where does that leave the void and the solid and their relationship in
perfection. Similar to the Greek myths, where Prometheus built up humas time and space?
from the ashes consisting of parts of the (bad) Titans and Zeus (good) son
Zagreus, and therefore lacking the perfection of the Gods.

Our scientific view the smallest units, the atoms, which are parts of a greater
whole.

Though the ethymological definition of part [from the Latin word pars -
share] does not imply the meaning to be a piece of a whole, the common
understanding is that parts are lacking a kind of wholeness which is meant
to be persued.

So wholeness - also in the theory of architecture - is seen as something that

must be achieved and is something similar to a religious value. Everything
less could be considered a blasphemy, which leads again to the whole
being superior to the part.

The quality of the part is therefore dependent from the whole. Paul Alan
Johnson argues that „parts [hold] the possibility of wholes..., and it is
possible to have wholish parts.“ (The Theory of Architecture, S. 102)

Similar is the argument of Luciana Parisi, who claims that „[...]

9
 ‘Moulding clay into a vessel, we find the utility in its hollowness;
Cutting doors and windows for a house, we find the utility in its empty space.
Therefore the being of things is profitable,
the non being of things is serviceable.’
Lao Tzu, The Tao of Architecture

Abbildung: http://www.lehmtonerde.at/de/projekte/projekt.php?pID=7

Voids and solids find their properties in the materialization of either one
of them and Architecture could be seen as the coming to form of their
relationship.
There are two ways that this relation can be expressed, claims Paola Iacucci.
One that the solid defines the form of the void, the other that the void defines
the form of the solid. In the fist case the void is an enclosed space within the
shape of the solid, it is cicumscribed and measured.
The latter on the other hand, describes how the void has infinite possibilities
of expansion and continuity and [...] „is the maker of form, an active element,
which gives life and form to architecture.“ (P. Iacucci, S.66)
For her [...] „void [becomes] a measured distance that allows for other
natural matters to appear and to cross.“ (P. Iacucci, S. 223)
Peter Eisenmans thoughts about the void are deeply connected his thoughts
about semiotic, interiority of architecture as well as the diagram.
For his undertanding the difficulties are in the western oppositional
understanding absence and presence. He describes how on the contrary
the japanese tradition of concepts like „ma“, „wu“ and „ku“ have the
meaning of in-between spaces or gaps, an absence inside presence
(Absenz in Präsenz, Eisenman, S. 292). For him absence and presence
have no dialectial relation anymore but are folded into each other and are
existing together.
The diagram is the possibility to get closer to the void, because it means
the possibility to be a form or function or even itself being a presence.
(Eisenman, S.16)
Rem Koolhaas‘ understanding of the void takes form in vertical and horizontal
lines as was (and probably its memory still is) the Berlin Wall „not an object
11
I am formless yet shaping any form
but an erasure, a freshly created absence.“ (Rem Koolhas, S,M,L,XL) As is
an elevator, a vertical void that links a variety of different worlds, programs
and events in a dynamic movement.
Marieluise Jonas‘ and Heike Jahmann‘s definition of urban voids expresses
the transitional moment of spaces in transformation, a gap which allows for
other things to appear and to develop something else.
The possibilites that this emptiness gives is described by Kenya Hara, MUJI
art director, as „creative receptacle“ (https://quartzy.qz.com), a [...] „simple
form that gives users the freedom to develop their own way of handling an
object.“ (http://www.muji.com/) This simplicity of form though is not poor of
ideas or materials, as he stresses out, but a steady „readiness to receive
inspiration from outside“ (https://quartzy.qz.com)
So void is a vision, an idea, taking any present form possible, existing within
it and having somthing of that interiority.
An inspiration, could also be an interpretation, a meaning, a communication
which would need a certain language.
 ‘In der Architektur sind „sprechen“ als auch „schreiben“ nützliche
Ausdrücke, weil sie Wege eröffnen, die vorherrschenden Ideen der Disziplin
der Architektur zu befragen, ohne unbedingt zu einem linguistischen oder
semiotischen Modell zurückzukehren.’
Peter Eisenman, ins Leere geschrieben

Abbildung: http://anishkapoor.com/73/void-field
 I am not understood yet speaking any language

Letters make words, words compose the language, but we need grammar,
the knowledge of syntax, to make sense of it and the knowledge of its
meaning which is inscribed in memory. The memory of a place of storage,
a place of grouping together the knowledge and experiences. A place of
order.
in space. When relations change every minute or every second new
information is collected? When we have new ways of relating things to each
other, of linking things which seem to be so distant to each other or have -
on the surface - no proximity at all? What and where could be that common
ground? The common topos?

„Order is, at one and the same time, that which is given in things as their „ [...]it is only in the blank spaces of this grid that order manifests itself
inner law, the hidden network that determines the way they confront one in depth as though already there, waiting in silence for the moment of its
another, and also that which has no existence except in the grid created by expression“ (Foucault, preface xxi).
a glance, an examination, a language [...]“ (Foucault, preface xxi)

Noam Chomsky wrote that a person who knows a language has mastered
a set of rules and principles (Chomsky, S. 303). These rules and principles
exist in the relationship between thought and communication but are not
fixed. They change within their space and time. As some words disappear,
they borrow new terms somewhere else and some expressions have
different and multiple meanings or concepts. They may evolve with time
and lose their innitial meanings or get lost in translation.

We can charge or emphasize meaning with pronounciation. Wheter it is a

word, an object, a picture, a city, a building, a site....., the list is sheer endless.
With the act of emphasizing, we give the various things an importance or
an irrelevance, we divide, we separate, we group together, hence we order.
Thus the understanding of our world comes through language. It is a way to
order our world, to find the expressions for it and to be able to localize the
information in a chain.

But how do we find the information, how we do find meaning and order in
our world today, as the order of things is constantly moving and floating Abbildung: http://www.123freebrushes.com/grunge-236/

13
‘I am over there, there where I am not, a sort of shadow that gives me my own
visibility, that enables me to see myself there where I am absent.
Utopia of the mirror.’
Michel Foucault, Of other spaces

Abbildung: https://mymodernmet.com/the-infinity-room/
 I am no thing yet i am

The myth tells that the Titans invented the mirror. They invented the mirror to
allure Zagreus out of his den and kill him. As Zagreus saw himself reflected
in the mirror, he carelessly went out of his cave to see who is there, who and
what it is, what he sees.
Unknowingly it was himself, he sees the virtual reflection of his real actual
body, making him step outside of his place.

As for Foucault the mirror is utopia and heterotopia. Utopia because „[...]
it is a place without place“ and heterotopia because „[...] the mirror does
really exist [...] (Foucault, of other spaces, S.17)

The void is a utopia as well as a heterotopia and even atopia.

Utopia as the Non-place, an imaginative place, any possible place;
heterotopia as the other place, as a real and effective place, where all the
real emplacements are „[...] simultaneously represented, contested and
inverted [...] (Foucault, of other spaces, S. 17) and atopia as the loss or
absence of place.

The mirror reflects these places and shows the ambuigity of things, of what
is real and virtual or what Deleuze calles virtual opposing actual and real
opposing possible.
Abbildung: http://void.hi-res.net

The void. A virtual place. A constructive place.

I a m v o i d y e t n e v e r e m p t y.

15
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h t t p :/ / www.wu s s u . c o m / l a o t z u / l a o t z u 11 . h t m l ( Zu g r iff: 20 . 12 . 20 17 )
h t t p :/ / d i s c o ver m a g a z in e . c o m / 2 01 6/ d e c / n o t h in g - re a l l y- m a t t e r s ( Zu g r iff:
2 0 .1 2 .2 0 1 7 )
h t t p s :/ / www.et ym o n l in e . c o m / w o rd / v o id ( Zu g r iff: 21 . 12 . 20 17 )
h t t p s :/ / www.t h e g u a rd ia n . c o m / a r t a n d d e s ig n / 2 00 9/ m a r / 02 / p o m p id o u -
c en t re-vi d es -exh ib it io n ( Zu g r iff: 01 . 12 . 20 17 )
h t t p :/ / vo i d .h i -re s . n e t / b l a c k ic e ( Zu g r iff: 2 0. 1 0. 2 01 7)
h t t p s :/ / en .wi ki pe d ia . o rg / w ik i/ Me re o l o g y ( Zu g r iff: 20 . 12 . 20 17 )
h t t p :/ / www.mu j i . c o m / u s / fl a g s h ip / h u a ih a i75 5/ a rc h iv e / h a r a . h t m l ( Zu g r iff:
2 0 .0 1 .2 0 1 8 )
h t t p s :/ / q u a r t zy.qz . c o m / 11 40 18 2/ m u j is - d e s ig n - p h il o s o p h y- is - e m p t in e s s -
n o t -mi n i m a l i s m - s a y s - k e n y a - h a r a / ( Zu g r iff: 20 . 01 . 20 18 )
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