The Space Between

In the late nineteen sixties, astrophysicist Vera Rubin measured the velocity of the stars along the outer edge of the Andromeda Galaxy and discovered something odd. Unlike a planetary system, like our solar system, where objects further out have slower orbital periods around their host star, the Andromeda Galaxy wasn’t following the same rules of Newtonian gravity. The outer stars were rotating around the galactic center at the same rate as the inner stars. Being a good scientist she checked 60 other galaxies and every single one followed this oddity. Not so odd it turns out. So, either we had gravity wrong or there’s some unknown force helping these stars not fly off into interstellar space. That unknown and unseen force is what has been termed Dark Energy. And if you extrapolate the visual matter of the universe, the stuff we can physically see, it only makes up 20% of the entire mass of the universe. Emptiness is actually where the thing is. Empty space pulls the feeling like dark energy pulls these systems.

As in life, as in art. The Japanese call it ‘ma’, the artistic interpretation of this negative space. It makes sense in a culture where artistic reduction is paramount, from haiku to bonsai. We in the west don’t have a definitive term for it, the closest is negative space. But calling it negative implies something unfavorable, almost contrary, and this is falsehood. A rooms function is the space between the walls, a cup is only a cup because of the empty space inside that holds something. The very essence of these things lie in their inherent emptiness, what is not there. Writing does it wordlessly, showing through allusion. Acting does it in the pauses between. In music it’s called rest. Visual art does it with subjectless tonality.

But if pushed too far an image can become bland and subjectless. Like turning a corner in an art museum to see a blank wall presented as art. That’s the curious thing, in art this empty space cannot support itself, it requires a subject to create a foundation. 

I’ve been fascinated with this space from the beginning. From broad skies to open bodies of water, from uniform forest tonalities to sweeping sand beaches, all are used to enhance subject isolation and to allude to something unseen. 

2015 - Northern Washington, Puget Sound
The morning light is a rich hue of deep blue. The small rocky beach we stand on is a scattering of pebbles, broken shells, dried seaweed. The water is still and smells of salt and ocean detritus. The horizon is awash with softly flowing clouds and low moving fog, swirling around distant headlands. My tripod is extended into the water, my composition removes all foreground except water and tonality. I relax my eye over the viewfinder, the magnified view projects onto the ground glass. This needs a long exposure, I want the water to become a rich grayed smoothness and the cloud layer overhead to flow slightly toward me. I add ten stops of neutral density filtration to my lens and load a roll of black and white film. I screw a cable release into the shutter port, lock it open, and start my stopwatch. I have several minutes to wait for the exposure to finish. I step away from the tripod and look down the beach to where my mother stands. She too is another watcher of things. When I’m back in Northern Washington, she often comes with me on these mornings to photograph. She’s too far away to talk with and anyway she has her own thoughts and I don’t want to disturb her. This will be the last time she comes with me, in twelve months the cancer that this morning must be moving into her spine will finish its task. But I don’t know that yet. She might. I sip a little coffee from my paper cup and close my shutter, wind the film and start another exposure. 

As in art, as in life. The empty space created.