Felt Oscillation as Ma
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of
MASTER OF FINE ART
School of Art
FACULTY OF THE VICTORIAN COLLEGE OF THE ARTSThe University of Melbourne

Utako Shindo
October 2008

CERTIFICATIONI hereby certify that, except where due acknowledgement has
been made to other material, the research paper and exhibition
submitted to fulfil requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Art(VCA) comprise only my original work.

…………………………………………………
(name of candidate)

/

/2008

MFA SYNOPSIS
Utako Shindo‘Felt Oscillation as Ma’Student Gallery, School of Art, Victorian College of the Arts
Entrance via Gate 4 on Dodds Street, South Bank.
Hours: 10am to 5pm, Wednesday to Friday.
Opening at 5pm on Tuesday October 14th, closing October 18th 2008.

Felt Oscillation as Ma is a research project consisting of studio-based research
manifesting mainly in photographic format, theoretical research, and threemajor audio-visual installations. The project is informed by the Japanese spatial
and temporal concept known as ‘ma’, which is articulated spatially by creating
an immersive audio-visual environment. The aim of working with the idea ofma, and of attempting to express it through the practice of audio-visual
installation, is in order to produce a situation where an audience may directly
experience the sensation of an ‘oscillation’ – involving a movement between
memory, anticipation, body, image, sound and space. I propose that in theprocess of a viewer becoming aware of this oscillation, that the idea andexperience of ma is activated.
During the course of this research, a wide range of theoretical and embodied(or studio-based) research processes have been engaged. These processes
have involved studio-based research; such as the generation of photo-basedwall installations and site-specific audio-visual installations, as well as textual
research involving contemporary theoretical texts and art historical references.
The notion of a haptic aesthetic has been particularly informative for both theresearch and the construction of the installations. Investigation of this aesthetic
has opened up the ideas of a body as being both a material and nonmaterial“site” for exploration. Through this aesthetic, I aim to stimulate an audiences’
haptic perception and for them to tune into a ‘shared’ memory and anticipationthat may be embedded in sites, by generating installations that engage thebody of the audience with that of architecture and of artwork.
The installation projects that comprise Felt Oscillation as Ma predominantly
consist of layered images and sounds within an architectural interior. The spacethat is produced through these installations has become a kind of ‘Artificial
Nature’, which I understand to be highly visceral spaces that are constructed
for engaging and immersing an audience. The particular qualities of this‘Artificial Nature’ are that it appears to be an immanent landscape, full ofimperfect lines and empty luminosities, generated through interrelated forms of
multi-media.
Overall, Felt Oscillation as Ma is a project involving audio-visual installations
that attempt to both reveal and activate notions of ma space and time and toconstruct a multi-sensory environment that immerses an audience into an
oscillating acoustic and visual world.

Contents
ImagesAudio-visual materials in Disc 1-2
Introduction

1

Chapter 1: Haptic Aesthetic

3· Body in “intensities”

3· “figure: sensation”

5· Tactile sensation

6· Sonorous rhythm8· Accumulation of image

9· Artificial Nature

11

Chapter 2: Ma space and time

14

· What is ma?

14· Void, Empty ground15· Atmosphere: signs of presence18· Accumulation of stillness

20· Relation of emergence

22

Chapter 3: Index of qualities: ‘immanent landscape’25· Imperfect line

25

· Empty luminosity

28· Double reference

30

Conclusion

35

Bibliography

37

Appendix43

[Figure 1] p.4
Utako Shindo
Oscillating Landscape (a section of panel-4), 2008
Digital print transfer on rice paper, 180 by 135 cm (each panel)[Figure 2] p.5
Debra Philips
Untitled #2 and Untitled #4 [Centennial Avenue], 1997
Gelatin silver print, 18.5 by 18.5 cm

[Figure 3] p.5
Claude Cézanne
Fruit-Bowl, Cloth, Glass and Apples, 1978-80
Oil on canvas, 46 by 55cm

[Figure 4]
Francis Bacon
Study for a portrait of John Edwards, 1984 (middle panel out of three panels)
Oil on canvas, 198 by 147.5cm

[Figure 5] p.7
Utako Shindo
Feet Through, 2008 (installation shots at Conical Inc. Melbourne)
Four video projections on the walls of gallery, dimension variable[Figure 6] p.8, p.11, p.12
Oscillating Landscape, 2008 (installation shots at WestSpace, Melbourne)
Four rice paper window screens, sound, light, 180 by 135 cm each[Figure 7] p.9
Francis Bacon
Self-Portrait, 1973
Oil on canvas, 198 by 147.5 cm[Figure 8] p. 9
Tohaku Hasegawa, 16th century
Pine Trees
Pair of six-fold screens, ink on paper, 156.8 by 365cm each[Figure 9] p.11
Claude Cézanne
St. Victoire Mount from les lauves, 1904-1906
Oil on canvas, 60 by 72cm

[Figure 10] p. 12
Left

Maruyama Okyo, Young Pine Trees in Fields and Mountains, 1974
Ink on paper with scattered gold leaf particles in the Landscape Room

Right

Gan Tai, Flowers and Birds at the Waterside, 1844
Colour and gold leaf on paper in the Iris Room, 177.5 by 90.5 each

Both rooms located in Kompira-gu Shrine, built in 17th-18th century

[Figure 11] p.15
Noh Theatre stage at Misogi Shrine, Japan[Figure 12] p.16, p.17
Utako Shindo
Returning Yesterday 2007
Digital print transfer on the gallery walls, painting made from oyster shells, 90 by 267 cm

[Figure 13] p.18
Utako Shindo
Feet through 2008
Four video projections with sound[Figure 14] p. 20, p.28
Utako Shindo
Sun Play 2007 (still from video)
DVD 1min 30sec

[Figure 15] p.21
Utako Shindo
Oscillating Landscape 2008 (section of panel 1 and 3)
Digital print transfer on rice paper, clear pine frame, light and sound[Figure 16] p.22
Utako Shindo
Returnings (studies) 2007
Digital image, dimension variable

[Figure 17] p.23
Liza Ryan
Untitled (something tells me she didn’t look back) from series Fluid, 2006
Lightjet prints, graphite, collage, 396.2 by 213.4 cm[Figure 18] p.25
Utako Shindo
Oscillating Landscape 2007
Digital print transfer on rice paper, clear pine frame, light and sound, 180 by 135 each[Figure 19] p.25
Utako Shindo
Feet Through 2007
Still from the video[Figure 20] p.26
Utako Shindo 2008
My view of Tree
Mixed media digital print, 73 by 58cm

[Figure 21] p.27
Agnes Martin
Ocean Water 1960
Ink on paper, 32.5 by 32.5 cm[Figure 22] p.27
Agnes Martin
Little Children Playing With Love 2001
Acrylic and graphite on canvas, 152 by 152 cm

[Figure 23] p.29
James Welling
LA-C 33 from series Los Angeles Architecture 1977
Gelatin silver print, 12 by 9 cm

[Figure 22] p.29
James Welling
Meriden from series Light Sources
Vegetable dye on rag paper, 90 by 69 cm

[Figure 25] p.31
Utako Shindo
Oscillating Landscape 2008 (panel 1-2)
Digital print transfer, rice paper, clear pine, sound, light with colour film
180 by135 cm each

[Figure 26] p.32
Bruce Nauman
Green Light Corridor, 1970-1971
Painted wallboard, fluorescent light fixtures with green lamp,
Approx. 305 by 1220 by 30.5 cm

DISC-1*[Video 1] p.8, p.18
Utako Shindo
Feet ThroughFour video projections, 1min 30sec (loop)[Video 2] p.20, p.26, p.28
Utako Shindo
Sun Play
DVD 1min 25sec (loop)[Track 1-1] p.8, p.26
Utako ShindoSound for ‘Oscillating Landscape’
8min 30sec[Track 1-2] p.8, p.26
Utako Shindo
Section from ‘Sound for “Oscillating Landscape”’
1min 29sec

DISC-2*The documentation images from my MFA Examination Exhibition, held at VCA Student
Gallery, 14-17 Oct. 2008

*Please find discs that are attached at the side of the back cover.

Felt Oscillation as Ma

Introduction
My art practice has taken the form of ‘a multi-disciplinary’ installations for thelast few years. This has involved photography and drawing based installations
with sound and performance components. Within these works, I have come toconsider that the audience’s presence within installation plays an active role
within the work as a whole, since an audience’s bodily presences affects theatmosphere of the space to some degree. In this respect, it is becoming
important for me to provide conceptual frameworks that articulate the overall
aesthetic of ‘multi-disciplinary’ work, in order to investigate the relationshipbetween space, time, an art object and an audience’s body, which are present
in the context of installation work. I believe that this articulation will also
clarify the content of my artwork, which is to express my sensuous
engagement with a surrounding environment and in turn to make work whichevokes the sensations of an audience. Therefore, my research aims toarticulate how my installation work produces a situation in which an audience
may directly experience the sensation of an ‘oscillation’ – involving a
movement between memory, anticipation, body, material, image, sound andspace.
In chapter one, I will discuss the concept of “haptic aesthetic” as a condition
that orients both the content of an artwork and its spatial installation in ways
which stimulates audience’s ‘tactile sensation’, by producing a sense of
immersion within a gallery context. This aesthetic is also an idea that has
been informative in creating audio-visual installations that work to integratewith their surrounding contexts, thereby activating a shared environment. In
chapter two, I will discuss the Japanese spatio-temporal concept of “ma”,
which articulates the idea of time and space as an interval, gap or void.
Further this idea of “ma” describes a situation of being ‘among’, which, I
believe, explains the relationship between time, space and body within thecontext of installation.
In chapter 3, I will discuss three qualities as active across my studio-based (or1Felt Oscillation as Ma

exhibition) research projects: ‘imperfect line’, ‘empty luminosity’ and ‘body’s
double reference’, which comprise a field of visual and aural relations, which
are collected together under the concept of ‘Immanent1 Landscape’. I willfurther discuss the idea of ‘Immanent Landscape’ as a highly sensuous andvisceral space, which works to stimulate the sensation of longing and theembedded shared memory and anticipation of some experience.
The method with which I have been engaging during the research project
combines textual based research, studio based research, and field researchsuch as visiting exhibitions and attending lectures and conferences. The
textual research has been informed by three influential texts: Claire
Colebrook’s conference paper, “The sonorous, the Haptic and the Intensive”,
Richard Pilgrim’s essay “Intervals (Ma) in space and time”, and Elizabeth
Grosz’s essay “Ontologies of becoming”. I have investigated these texts inconjunction with the following texts: Gilles Deleuze’s book Francis Bacon: the
Logic of Sensation, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s essay “Cézanne’s Doubt”, theexhibition catalogue Ma Espace-Temps du Japon, and Clair Bishop’s book
Installation Art. For the studio research, I have worked on installation
projects within studio and exhibition contexts. In this paper, I will discussprojects, Oscillating Landscape, Feet Through, Sun Play, and Returning
Yesterday. The discussion of my work will be framed in conjunction withparticular concepts which have emerged from the textual research inconjunction with the discussion of other artists work and other art forms, suchas Cézanne and Francis Bacon’s paintings, Debora Philips’ photography,
Japanese traditional theatre and music, Liza Lyan’s photography, Agnes
Martin’s paintings, James Welling’s photography, and Bruce Nauman’s
installation work.
In the bibliography and appendix, I will present the other research materials
and projects which I have taken for my Master’s research.

1

According to Oxford Dictionary of English, the concept of immanent generally indicatessomething existing or operating within; inherent.

2Felt Oscillation as Ma

Chapter 1: Haptic Aesthetic
This chapter will explore the concept of “haptic aesthetic”, by considering it asa particular condition of an artwork which stimulates an audience’s ‘tactile
sensation’, thereby activating an opportunity for sensorial immersion within ina gallery context. A haptic aesthetic is something to be perceived not
exclusively by touch, but is an idea that includes other senses such as seeing
and hearing. Thus, even though it can be felt physically, it does notnecessarily require a direct bodily interaction. In this chapter, I will take Claire
Colebrook’s conference paper, “The Sonorous, the Haptic and the Intensive”,
as a departure point, in order to investigate the theoretical background of a
haptic aesthetic. I will also explore six related concerns connected to thehaptic aesthetic including: ‘bodies in intensities’, ‘figure: sensation’, ‘tactile
sensation’, ‘sonorous rhythm’, ‘accumulation of image’ and ‘artificial nature’. I
will look into how these ideas are embodied in visual and aural artworks inhistorical and contemporary contexts, as well as within my studio andexhibition-based work. I will also attempt to make a link between the haptic
aesthetic and the concept of ma2, as both ideas exist across and connect up
with what are categorized as either the natural or the artificial. Overall, haptic
aesthetic has been an important concept, which I have explored andexperimented with in my research, and it underlies the production of
installation-based artworks which aim to evoke an audience’s tactile sensation.
It is also an idea which has informed my approach to making audio-visual
installations that work to integrate with the surrounding contexts, thereby
activating a ‘shared’ environment.
Body in “intensities”
I will begin this section with Claire Colebrook’s approach to the concept of“haptic aesthetic” in the context of “intensities”:

2

Ma is a Japanese spatio-temporal concept that will be discussed at length in the following
chapter.

3Felt Oscillation as Ma…An intensive economy is not the circulation of matter, measurable by asubject, but moves across thresholds of discernibility. … the subject does notexist as some distinct consumer, distributor or mastery of energy. Insteadcertain forces enter into a relation to create intensities: light meets the eyes,heat warms the skin, and vibrations can allow the ear to hear or (if sufficiently
intense) the body to shake. This is how we can start to think about a haptic
aesthetic… (Colebrook 2006 p.4)

Colebrook describes the human body immersed within an environment of“intensities”, meaning that it is “not just a self–organised and autopoeitic
machine” but is a body in which “some of its organs move in ways not yet
determined by a specific end” (Colebrook 2006 p.4). She articulates that sucha body is understood as processing “the points of thresholds in intensity”(Colebrook 2006 p.7).
This perspective of the body situated as the “points” in the “thresholds ofdiscernibility” resembles the Japanese concept of human-ness. The Japaneseword for human is ningen (人間); whereby 人 means people and 間 meansamong. Thus, the word ningen (human) depicts a people in the state of being‘among’, meaning the human as set in the midst of things or other people, andnot a separate or autonomous entity. In this regards, there is a connection
between the Japanese concept of human-ness and Colebrook’s idea of theimmersion of the human body within a sensorial environment. Both of theseideas have strongly informed my approach to my studio research in terms of
the ways I have gone about making work, and the effects that these works
produce for an audience.
In my studio practice, I recognize the encounter between “points” of different
materials, which are involved in the process of digital print transfer. In thisprocess, what is transferred is not limited to digitally printed images, but
includes the following ‘materials’: inks used with digital images, water used as4Felt Oscillation as Maa medium and a baren3 or a wooden spoon as a tool to rub the back side ofprinted paper. These ‘materials’ are transferred onto the paper and appear as
traces or marks of a process, involving rubbing the back of the paper. As aresult, they produce visible layers onto the surface of background materials
such as a paper or walls. For instance, for the work titled Oscillating landscape[Fig.1], the water’s fluidity was transformed into fixed marks which thenmerged with an image, resulting in a mist-like appearance on the paper.
Another example of the encounter between “points” of different ‘materials’,
explored through the use of photographic print media, can be found in Debra
Phillips’ works. Rachel Haley discusses Phillips’ series Centennial Avenue 1997
[Fig.2], in her article “substance over surface”. In the series, she witnesses“the residue of accumulated marks, stains, cracks and mould” (Haley 2006p.43). Haley notes that the experience of seeing her work is “optical andhaptic”. “…we see as though we were touching it” (Haley 2006 p.43). With
Phillips’ Untitled #6, as another example, Haley articulates that what thephotograph represents is the surface of the wall, which effects the materiality
and texture of the paper which is used to represent the surface of that samewall (Haley 2006 p.43). The many opaque and transparent layers appear to
expose a tension between images to be materialized and dematerialized. In
this sense, each texture and mark represent a moment of movement, which
exists amongst such a tension.
“figure: sensation”
In the book, Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, Gilles Deleuze discusses
Cézanne’s and Bacon’s paintings [Fig.3&4] by using the notion of the ‘figure:sensation’ (Deleuze 2002). This notion could be an alternative name to an
invisible force embedded in materiality. For instance, in Cézanne’s painting[Fig.3], this notion seems to be embodied in the presence of an apple, whichappears to be moving. What is moving is not the apple as an object, but the“figure of sensation”, which is the moment of the movement of sensation. The
3

The Japanese tool for printmaking, used by hand in the process of pressing the paper.

5Felt Oscillation as Ma

sensation is running through the material of the apple, the table and the air,and Cézanne’s body as another material. Cézanne himself also comments that“art is a personal apperception, which I embody in sensations”.
According to Deleuze, this notion of “figure: sensation” is “beyond figuration”,
different from “the illustrative or the figurative”, and “opposite of the‘sensational’”. Thus, it is about “being-in-the-world (Deleuze 2002 p.34)”. Hestates:…At one and the same time I ‘become’ in the sensation and something‘happens’ through the sensation, one through the other, one in the other… it is
the same body which, being both subject and object, gives and receives thesensation… (Deleuze 2002 p.35)

In the process of producing artworks, I recognize the experience of ‘becomingin the sensation’. It happens, for instance, when I initiate the process byphotographing a ‘felt atmosphere’, which a certain view or object connects toor activates. Even though the photographed image appears to present a
particular view or an object, my experience of a certain ‘felt atmosphere’ iscaptured,

re-articulated

thenembedded‘into’

theimage.

This

‘felt

atmosphere’ could be the “figure: sensation” discussed by Deleuze. Further,
the act of recording the process of seeing and feeling or intuiting this “figure:sensation” of objects reinforces the ‘felt atmosphere’ around them, by the actof taking photographs. In this way, the figure in my photograph becomes thesensation of both the view or object and my relationship to it. In this sense,
the photograph becomes a record of the process of immersion into the worldof sensation.
Tactile sensation
The idea of “haptic aesthetic” relates to the idea of tactility and sensation in
relationship to the connections that can be made between bodies andmaterials. I argue that tactile sensation can be felt or sensed through‘different’ bodies (or materials), such as bodies of an artist, of an artwork, of6

Felt Oscillation as Ma

architecture and of an audience, whereby ‘tactile sensation’ becomes the
conduit which connects those seemingly ‘different’ bodies into one.
The idea of tactile sensation, which has informed my understanding of theprocess of linking different senses and materials, is explored by the architect
Juhani Pallasmaa, when he states in his book The Eyes of the Skin:…All the senses, including vision, are extensions of the tactile sense; thesenses are specializations of skin tissue, and all sensory experiences aremodes of touching and thus related to tactility. Our contact with the world
takes place at the boundary line of the self through specialized parts of ourenveloping membrane… (Pallasmaa 2005 p.10)

This reciprocal perceptual relationship between humans and the world, inwhich they are immersed, has been similarly expressed by the dancer, Merce
Cunningham. Cunningham describes the observation of his own body making
contact with the world through the act of dancing, as follows:…it has such fluid like water which goes through your fingers, you know it’s
there, it has substance, but at the same time, it disappears, and it’s so full ofwhat to me are possibilities… {Caplan, 1991 #28}

The body is an empty site full potentialities for ‘fluid like water’ to come and go.
The idea of ‘fluid water’, which is what Cunningham feels when he dances, issimilar to the idea of tactile sensation which takes place at the ‘boundary’ ofthings, through a haptic aesthetic in art.
In my performance video work, Feet Through [Fig.5], I expressed my body’s
engagement with forms of tactility and sensation which is in a constantprocess of emergence and disappearance into various architectural surfaces.
The video was projected directly onto the gallery wall, showing the image offeet, which were also put up against the same wall. In the video images, it
looked as if the feet had actually been there, on those walls. As the feet moved,

7Felt Oscillation as Ma

they made contact with the wall surface, which in turn generated a sequenceof sounds [video 1]. The images and sounds embodied the direct contact
between feet and the surface of the wall, and activated a sense of tactile
sensation, which then permeated the whole space. The combination of
rubbing sounds with repetitive movement became the first thing for an
audience to encounter in the space, and the all-pervading presence of thisinterconnected sound and image provided an atmosphere for this audience tosense the tactile connection between feet and wall portrayed in the video. Thistactility is where I understand the notion of haptic aesthetic to be emerging in
my work.
Sonorous Rhythm
As the movement of feet rubbing against the wall and the sounds thatgenerated Feet Through worked to articulate the idea of haptic aesthetic, the“haptic aesthetic” is also understood to be an embodied movement: themovement of sensation. Deleuze described this movement as ‘rhythm’. In his
discussion of Cezanne and Bacon, he introduces the notion of ‘rhythm’ as thepainter’s task to “make visible a kind of original unity of the senses” (Deleuze2002 p.42). In the book Francis Bacon - The Logic of Sensation, Deleuze
writes:… this operation is possible only if the sensation of a particular domain (here,
the visual sensation) is in direct contact with a vital power that exceeds every
domain and traverses them all. This power is rhythm… (Deleuze 2002 p.42)

The traversing of rhythm in the domain of visual and aural sensation
articulated through audio-visual means, is apparent in my work titled
Oscillating Landscape [Fig.6 & track 1]. The work consists of four rice paper
screen ‘windows’ hung from a ceiling, accompanied by a sound-scape. The
images of trees on the screen appear to be moving from one side to another,
due to the fact that the images are composed by layering ten sequential
photographs of the same view. Also the frames hold the rhythm of a‘quivering’, which is derived from the movement of air activated by the8Felt Oscillation as Ma

passing of an audience. The sound-scape of birds singing, a passing car, anaeroplane overhead and a train passing were collected from an urban locationand layered. This layering generated a sequence of rumbling and vibrating
sounds across the space. Thus, this visual landscape combined with asound-scape, pictorially, aurally and materially appears to concentrate therhythm of ‘a vital sensation’ which expands beyond the surrounding urban
context in which the work is presented, and activates all domain of senses.
This idea of the rhythm, which permeates the expansive quality of ‘a vitalsensation’, is similarly discussed in the context of haptic aesthetic in music, in“The sonorous, the Haptic and the Intensity” when Colebrook writes:…The breath no longer passes fully into the distinct and extended system of
tonality. We discern those singular points that are neither the self-present
breath of the body, nor the fully detached and articulated sounds of arecognisable and repeatable motif. This haptic aesthetic allows both thematerial the body encounters to stand alone, and the body’s relations to thatmaterial to enter into new relations. The ear does not relate to sound as theexpression or articulation of some set of relations but ‘feels directly’ thetransition from sound to ‘sense’… (Colebrook 2006 p.5)

In this respect, considered through the concept of “haptic aesthetic”, I argue
that forms of art, which produce discernible ‘points’ or moments forengagement, convey the rhythm of a ‘vital’ sensation, which in turn resonateswith materials or bodies directly. The rhythm becomes something set up for abody to ‘sense’, and in the process this rhythm helps to produce an immersive
situation for a viewer to engage with or enter into. It is through this process of
immersion in a work that I believe that the ‘hapticity’ of aesthetics emerges,
in which a viewer is confronted with audio-visual installation environments inwhich they might sense or intuit forms of tactility.
Accumulation of image
I believe that making artwork and installations which have been informed9Felt Oscillation as Ma

through the concept of “haptic aesthetic”, also involves a process ofaccumulation in the production of images. By taking Cézanne and Bacon’s
work [Fig.7] as an example, Deleuze describes that ‘every sensation andevery figure, is already an “accumulated” or “coagulated” sensation (Deleuze2002 p.37). The accumulation is the term, which is also important in thediscussion of the concept of ma, since ma space is understood to emerge
when time is accumulated4. For instance, in Tohaku’s painting titled Pine Trees[Fig.8], around one tree, which is depicted in a clear outline, there are anothertwo or three vaguely painted trees. They could be seen as a group of trees
standing in different distances from each other, or appear to be traces of
movements of one tree in the wind. In either case, this image of a tree
multiplied is an accumulation: the accumulation of the moments of movement
at different times. The movement is the sensation, which is captured by thetree and the painter. It is a movement of a tree which is in the process of its
resonating with its surroundings, appearing as natural phenomena.
The phenomena, which is expressed in the image of accumulation, positions
the pine trees (the object) and the artist (the subject) as one that is in the
midst of the world. This position, which is felt through haptic perception andembodied through the haptic aesthetic, is what Colebrook describes as‘being-in-the world’. Here we find a similar perspective expressed by
Merleau-Ponty in his essay “Cézanne’s doubt”.

…We see things; we agree about them; we are anchored in them; and it is with‘nature’ as our base that we construct our sciences. ...Cézanne wanted to paintthis primordial world… Cézanne does not try to use colour to suggest the tactile
sensation, which would give shape and depth. These distinctions between
touch and sight are unknown in primordial perception… (Merleau-Ponty 1964
p.13)

4

As previously noticed, the Japanese spatio-temporal concept of ma will be discussed at thelength in the following chapter.

10Felt Oscillation as Ma

In Cézanne work, St Victoire Mount [Fig.9], what we see is the accumulationof two kinds of ‘nature’, which are not shown as distinctive parts but as
moments melting into one another on the surface of the canvas. One is hisview of the mountain, and another is his feeling which occurs as he views themountain. The subject of the painting is not the mountain as an autonomous
object but a vibrating form of ‘nature’ in which what is viewed and what is felt
are merging, mediated through the process of recording the accumulatingtactile sensation. Concerning this idea, Merleau-Ponty describes the way
Cézanne paints as follows:…he was pursuing reality without giving up the sensuous surface, with no otherguide than the immediate impression of nature, without following the contours,with no outline to enclose the colour, with no perspectival or pictorial
arrangement… (Merleau-Ponty 1964 p.12)

I understand that this “sensuous surface” serves the “reality” of nature, notbecause the painter paints it ‘realistically’ and pictorially, but because he feels
and mediate its vibration across the surface of the canvas in the process ofpainting. In this respect, the surface of the artwork, which is a ground ofaccumulated sensation, is where, I believe, “haptic aesthetic” takes place
converging the “reality” of both the artist (the subject) and artwork (theobject).
Artificial NatureWith my work, Oscillating Landscape [Fig.6 & Track 1], I employed the haptic
aesthetic to create an audio and visual installation in order to generate analternative nature in the gallery context. The sound and image components of
the work both captured such a sensation of absorption into natural
phenomena via everyday observations such as trees waving in the wind,reflecting sunlight, and the changing colours of clouds through a window.
These sources from ‘actual’ nature were then manipulated to present animage of ‘nature’ as ‘artificial’ nature within an urban architectural space.

11

Felt Oscillation as Ma

The method of referencing nature in everyday life can be found in Japanese
art in the context of the creation of ‘artificial nature’. The way nature isreferred is not only, for instance, to paint or sculpt natural objects as motifs
visually, but also to present artwork in a similar way to how nature exists. For
instance, Japanese Edo paintings [Fig.10] were often done on paper screen
doors or folding screens and then presented in the context of an architecturalinterior. Traditional Japanese architecture was also designed and constructedto achieve a unification with the surrounding natural environment, through its
structure and its materiality. Therefore, the artwork, which is presented within
the architectural interior, also connects to the exterior that is ‘real’ nature.
In Oscillating landscape [Fig.6] I similarly installed the work in a way which
the work connects the interior of the architectural environment and theexterior of the natural environment. First, the visual component was installed
in a way in which the audience was positioned between two sets of doubled‘image-panels’ hanging on opposite sides of a small gallery space. The‘window’ views of urban nature were presented on the actual rice paper screen‘window’, bringing the outside view into the inside. The panels were also hungfrom the ceiling with the space left between the frame and wall, suggesting an
outside space residing behind the window. A sound-scape of urban noises
filled the entire space and was accompanied with a light which mimicked anatural light source. Overall, the work embodied the interior and exterior of anurban architectural environment. The haptic aesthetic operated in this work
due to an oscillation of states, accumulated images and sounds, which worked
to immerse an audience into an artificial nature, presented as a constructedworld.

To conclude this chapter, I would like to summarize the characteristic of haptic
aesthetic. “Haptic aesthetic” is an aesthetic which can be expressed in bothmaterial and non-material form and it can be felt as intensities, rhythm,
sensuous surface or accumulated sensation in both visual and audio art. In

12Felt Oscillation as Ma

particular, its rhythm helps to create an immersive situation for an audience
to engage or enter into. In this process of immersion in a work, the ‘hapticity’of aesthetics emerges as forms of tactility, and, for an audience, what isviewed, heard and felt are merging. In the immersive situation, an audience’s
or an artist’s body becomes inseparable from the surrounding environment
and they establish inter-relationship with each other. This production of an
immersive situation is also found in the concept of “ma”, which I will discuss inthe next chapter.

Endnotes
Caplan, Elliot. Cage/Cunningpham. Kulter, New York, 19.
Colebrook, Claire. "The Sonorous, the Hapitc and the Intensive." Music. Ed.
Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. London, New York: Continuum, 2002.
Haley, Richelle. "Substance over Surface." Photofile 77.Autum 2006 (2006).
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. "Cezanne's Doubt."

Trans. Hubert L. Dreyfus & Patricia Allen Dreyfus.

Sense and Non-Sense. vols. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964.
Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. Chichester: John Willery& Sons, 2005.

13

Felt Oscillation as Ma

Chapter 2: “Ma” space and time“Ma” is a Japanese spatio-temporal concept that articulates the idea of timeand space in a way in which subject/object exists in space and time for it to be
at in-between states or things. It is referred to culturally in everyday life inJapan and functions to bridge traditional and contemporary art, religion andphilosophy. The concept of “ma” is embodied in many things including thatwith a clearly material form as well as what is regarded as formless, such as
language, religious, and art practices. I have applied the concept of ma to mypractice, in the context of visual and sound art, for which ma provides anexperiential space and time for a body, an artwork and surrounding
environments to exist in a continuity. I will begin this chapter by reviewing thetwo meanings of ma, and then investigate the concept of ma from thefollowing five perspectives including: ‘void, empty ground’, ‘atmosphere: signof presence’, ‘accumulation of stillness’, and ‘relation of emergence’. This will
be done through an engagement with Richard B. Pilgrim’s essay “Intervals(Ma) in Space and Time” in conjunction with the exhibition catalogue titled Ma
Espace-Temps du Japon. I have also engaged with western philosophicalquestions of experience, and have been guided in particular by Elizabeth
Grosz’s essay “Ontologies of Becoming” in the book Time Travels: Feminism
Nature, Power. The chapter will continue to reflect these investigations of
“ma”

in

conjunction

with

art

practices

rangingfromtraditional

tocontemporary examples, and will also include a discussion of my own works
produced during the Master’s Research. As I will also make a link between theconcept of ma and haptic aesthetic, I aim to articulate the relationshipbetween time, space and what exist in ‘a certain place’, in the context of an
installation art practice.
What is ma?
According to Richard B.Pilgrim, “Ma” has two meanings. One is as “an interval”
between two (or more) spatial or temporal things and events; such as a gap,
an opening, a space between, and a time between (B.Pilgrim 1986 p.255).
Pilgrim gives a room as an example, which is called ma in Japanese, as it

14Felt Oscillation as Ma

refers to the space between walls. He also employs the example to a “rest” inmusic, which is also “ma” because it is the pause between the sequence ofnotes or sounds. Another meaning of “ma", by extension, is to be “among”. It
is the concept of ‘a relational meaning– a dynamic sense of standing in, with,among, or between’ (B.Pilgrim 1986 p.255). Pilgrim uses ningen (humanbeing), as an example; ma (read gen here) implies that persons (nin, hito)
stand within, among, or in relationship to others. Pilgrim summarizes this idea
when he writes:…The word, therefore, carries both ‘descriptive objective’ and ‘experiential
subjective’ meaning; that is ma is not only ‘something’ within objective,
descriptive reality but also signifies particular modes of experience… (B.Pilgrim
1986 p.256)

I consider this ‘particular mode of experience’ which “ma” signifies as what isderived from our sensuous and conceptual engagement with the world. In thisrespect, “ma” exists not as what is objectively marked but what is subjectively
felt or imagined in the process of perceiving and interpreting what we
encounter.
I will now discuss that the ‘descriptive objective’ aspect of “ma” is to beobserved in ‘void’ or ‘empty ground’ and the ‘experiential subjective’ aspect of“ma” as ‘a situation’ to be filled by ‘atmosphere: signs of presence’. I will, then,discuss the relationship between space, time and body in the context of‘accumulation’ and ‘emergence’.
Void, Empty ground
The visual image of the Chinese character for ma 間 consists of two parts: theouter character 門 means gate or door, while the inner character 日 meaning
either sun or moon. If the gate represents the phenomena and events of theworld, the opening in the gate is the ma or interval between these things.
Upon this objective description, Pilgrim interprets the meaning of “ma” asaffirming “power, interest, depth or profundity” (B.Pilgrim 1986 p.261).

15

Felt Oscillation as Ma

In traditional art, such as theatre, painting, tea ceremony, gardens, andcalligraphy, “power”, “interest”, “depth” or “profundity” are suggested inpresenting negative time and space. For instance, in Noh theatre [Fig.11], thenegative space appears as the stillness and emptiness just before or after aunit of performance, and in turn the positive space is produced by stage props
and by performances. The spatial arrangement and temporal condition that is
specific to Noh theatre is described by the Noh performer Komparu in The Noh
Theatre: Principles and Perspectives when he writes:…intervals or gaps serve as an empty ‘ground’ or basis against or within
which the forms or ‘figures’ of the art function… (Komparu 1983 p.70)

This spatial and temporal “ground’’ is not simply a form of ‘nothing-ness’, but
is understood to be ma space and time, awaiting to be filled by ‘form’ or‘figure’.
In my wall installation piece, titled Returning Yesterday [Fig.12], I recognize a
gap that generates a ‘void’ or ‘empty ground’ or, according to this ideas above,a “ma” space. The gap was situated between two images, which wereseparated and presented on each side of two corner walls. The image
presented was originally ‘one’ abstracted image produced by a process of
merging two different images. Thus, when it was separated into two parts thatwere then presented at a distance from each other, the image as a wholecreated a view of the ungraspable. This view serves the ‘void’ inside,suggesting that it is in the process of filling the immeasurable ‘empty ground’.
Pilgrim claims that this ‘empty ground’ is “filled” not only by some material“thing” or event, but also by imagining “power”, “interest”, “depth” or“profundity” (B.Pilgrim 1986 p.261). Pilgrim articulates this idea further when
he writes:…Such intervals are thus referred to as creative/substantial negative spaces,16Felt Oscillation as Ma

imaginative spaces or emotional spaces that the positive spaces, narrative
sequences,

or

forms

of

an

art

help

create

but

into

which

they

dissolve…(B.Pilgrim 1986 p.261)

In the work titled Returning Yesterday [Fig.12], the two transferred digitalprints were what filled the ‘empty ground’. Further, the images appeared to be
the continuation of an ‘empty ground’. This is because both the ‘filled’ and the‘empty’ areas of the image revealed bodily marks, which were derived fromthe processes involved in the production of the work. For example, theprocess of priming the wall surface involved sanding and painting. This
process left the bodily marks of sanding and painting on the primed area.
Similarly, in the process of transferring digital prints, the backside of thepaper was pressed against the wall and rubbed repeatedly. This process also
left bodily marks involved in the rubbing on the transferred image. As a whole,
the primed area and the transferred area appeared to share a continuum ofbodily marks. This resulted in generating continuity between both areas, andthe transferred images appeared to be disappearing into the primed ‘empty
ground’.
In Shintoism, ma-like elements are exemplified in sacred spaces that arethought or designed to be opened, cleared out, and ‘pure’ in anticipation of thecoming and going of kami (god or soul). Japanese architect Isozaki Arata
articulates such sacred space as “void” in the book Ma Espace-Temps duJapon. Pilgrim quotes Isozaki’s discussion on space when he quotes:…Space was believed to be fundamentally void. Even solid objects were
thought to contain voids capable of receiving kami (soul) that descend at
certain moments to fill such spaces with the spiritual power (ki) of the soul(kami)…(B.Pilgrim 1986 p.262)

Such ma space expressed here in a religious context, appears to me to relate
to gallery spaces within an art context. Gallery spaces are fundamentallyblank, but function to receive both an artist’s and the visitor’s ki, which

17Felt Oscillation as Ma

alternatively, understood to be akin to a formless energy, which is thentransformed due to the mediation of an artwork.
Overall, what temporarily fills and exists in the ‘void’ or ‘empty space’ is not
only material form, which can be seen by the eyes, but it can be ‘something’,
which can be intuited or created in humans perception and imagination.
Atmosphere: signs of presence
The idea of “ma” relates to the Japanese concept of “kehai”, meaning an
atmosphere of temporary existence, or of formless energy experienced in asituation generated ‘between’ time and space. Pilgrim, in the essay “Intervals(MA) in Space and Time”, introduces the concept of “kehai” as “signs ofpresence” (B.Pilgrim 1986 p.268). This idea of “signs of presence” is what
would be 'sensed' by a person who is situated in “ma” space and time.
For instance, if you are in a room with someone else, and the person thenleaves the room, you sometimes 'intuit' or 'feel' as if the person's presence
remains in the room. In my understanding, the room exists as a space when
it is filled by the existence of two persons, and when one of them leaves thespace, the room becomes a situation in which the person who stays senses an'atmosphere: signs of presence' or residue of the other's presence. Thissituation activates ma, which Pilgrim

describes as the “experiential

subjective” (B.Pilgrim 1986 p.256).
In this way, “ma” is a situation which occurs in human perceptions of “signs ofpresence”, in the absence of the 'actual' existence of things. I believe that thisconcept of 'atmosphere: signs of presence' also relates to the ‘movement of1

sensation’, which was discussed in the previous chapter, haptic aesthetic, in
relation to the movement that is processed between the presence of theobject and the perception of a person.

1 That is, the aesthetic that expresses the movement of sensation.
18

Felt Oscillation as Ma

I understand that a situation of this kind, in which ‘atmosphere: signs ofpresence’ is felt or intuited, was activated in relationship to my four channel
video installation titled Feet Through [Fig.13 & Video 1], presented at Conical
Inc in March 2008. Four video projections, which showed feet moving, fadedout one by one every minute and a half. They all eventually disappeared forten seconds until the next loop began. This interval between the loops
generated a situation in which ‘atmosphere: signs of presence’ of feetemerged. This atmosphere of feet encouraged the viewers to feel directly thesensation of movement in the absence of the display of the image of the feeton the video.
‘Atmosphere: signs of presence’ sensed in a “ma” situation is what takes placein human’s imagination as it derives from intuitive experience. In the context
of “ma” as ‘experiential subjective’, Pilgrim introduces the discussion of “ma”
by the architect, Gunter Nitschke in the essay “Intervals (MA) Space andTime”, when he quotes:…‘ma’ is ultimately ‘place’ or ‘place making’, in that it includes not only form
and nonform but also form/nonform as imaginatively created or perceived in
immediate experience… the simultaneous awareness of the intellectual
concepts form + non-form, object + space coupled with subjective experience,… it is the thing that takes place in imagination of the human who experiences
these elements… (B.Pilgrim 1986 p.266)

In my work, Feet Through [Fig.13 & Video 1], I consider the idea of ma - which
has been informed by my reading of Nitschke’s idea - as a particular ‘place’
emerging in immediate experience. The intervals of blankness and projection
were, therefore, inserted in the work in order to emphasize the immediate
experience of both the actuality of the site and the ephemeral of work, whichtakes “place” as ma space and time. In one case, the intervals of the
projection might have been filled by the presence of feet, given as an ‘afterimage’ within the viewer’s perception, memory and “imagination”. In another,it might have been filled by the actuality of site and the material, or the19Felt Oscillation as Ma

physical property of the visual and sonic technology that are perceived byaudiences. The audience’s experience of both the work and the site have, then,taken “place” along the paced timing between the presence and absence of
the work.
Overall, this particular relationship to space, “ma” space and time is asituation or a place filled by ‘atmosphere: signs of presence’, which is derived
from human’s sensuous experience of what is invisible. This particular
relationship to space can be investigated in installation art that provides aparticular situation to activates an audience’s intuitive engagement with theirmemory or their sense of anticipation.
Accumulation of stillness
In this section, I will discuss “ma” time and space as what is embodied in an
accumulation of stillness, by referring to Heidegger’s idea of ‘a play of
stillness’. David Miller introduces this idea when he discusses Heidegger’s
investigation on ‘topos 5 of nothingness’ in Utopia, Trinity and Tropical
Topography. He explains:…The ‘topos’ of nothingness is experienced as a ‘rift’. Yet this nothingness is
scarcely known to us. It is an emptiness that is essential to our being. It isthat ‘region’ into which meaning (logos) is gathered (legein). So the rift,
however much it may seem like ‘a mere cleft ripped open’, is not only that atall. The emptiness is full. It is a ‘clearing’…which comes now to appearance
precisely in the ‘dark woods’ of the oblivion of Being… It is a dance of
meaning, a dance which, according to Heidegger’s description, is ‘time’s
removing’ and ‘space’s throwing open’ in a ‘play of stillness’… (Miller 1980)

The last part of my video work Sun Play [Fig.14 & Video 2] articulates a similar
relationship to stillness. This video contains a section which shows a person
playing with a basketball and ends with three seconds of freeze frame. This
5

Which articulates the meaning of ‘region’ or ‘space’ in Greek.

20Felt Oscillation as Ma

frame displays the person about to step into a beam of sunlight. Proceeding
this image, the video blacks out while the sound of a bouncing ball combinedwith bird song still remains to be heard. The image of stillness stands out incontrast with the proceeding active image. When the video image becomes
black, it is still not completely empty because a residue of the frozen image
remains. In addition, the rhythmical sounds from the ball and birds mark the
moment as they repeat the same notes. Parallel to this tempo, the still image
repeatedly flashes back into memory, filling the seeming nothingness withimagination of the movement.
Interestingly, Ur (ancient) Japanese music embodies a similar relationship oftime and space with the idea of ‘a play of stillness’. Ur music existed in spacewith no time in terms of a linear kind of temporality, but as an accumulation of‘sounds of stillness’. The music director and the critic, Kido Toshiro discusses
this idea in his essay Ma, Ur and Genesis in the exhibition catalogue titled Ma
Espace-Temps du Japon, as follows:…Before the Asuka Period (Before the 6th century), there is no clock in Japan.
Since the clock that is a sign of philosophical concept of time did not exist, itmeans that there was no such concept of time… The music, which is consideredas the art of time by the contemporary common sense, has to be considered as
an art of space… If there is no concept of time, the sound, which is once made,stays conceptually at the place, even though it disappears physically… (Toshiro
2000)

Similarly, the Ur Japanese music called mikagura, which was played incelebration for gods with voices and instruments also employs a strategy ofaccumulation. Kido further describes this music in his essay Ma, Ur andGenesis, when he writes:…Even the media diverts from voices to kinds of instruments, melody iscompletely the same. That is not because the melody is repeated but
accumulated. Such a situation resembles the process of colour prints. It is the21Felt Oscillation as Ma

completed density of a mikagura player to layer and accumulate all the sounds
conceptually. If it transformed in the recognition of time, all sounds have to beplayed at the same time. It is the Western Orchestral style… (Toshiro 2000)

In the work, titled Oscillating Landscape [Fig.15 & Track 1], I attempt tocreate a space by accumulating images6 and sounds, in order to enhance thedensity of time. The sounds within Oscillating Landscape were based on therecording of ‘familiar sounds’ from an urban environment, such as that of a
train, a car, an aero-plane, bird song and wind. These sounds are repeated ina similar pitch or tune, with a similar tone and texture. With each sound‘harmony’ was created by the process of layering. Then, the entire piece wascomposed by simply positioning every ‘harmony’ from each different sound inorder. The resultant piece worked to re-locate ‘atmosphere: signs of presence’of the source such as birds, aeroplane – from which each sound had been
‘played’ to be recorded. This was imported into the installation space one byone. What resulted was not the repetitive sounds on a ‘stream’ of time, but anaccumulation of sounds in the ‘mass’ of space, which was presented as the‘materiality’ of the work.
Relation of emergence
In this next section, I will investigate the relational aspect of “ma” space andtime, as the concept of “ma” embraces the relationship of things that exist inintervals or between different meanings.
In my studio-based experimentation, I produced a series of images whichinterwove natural objects and human bodies in order to present a close
relationship between these ‘different’ things. This was generated bysuperimposing photographic images of parts of the human body with a seriesof natural forms. The interwoven images that resulted presented a ‘new’ kindof body – one which interwove the natural and the human, thereby presenting
an image of the ‘nature-human’. This series, titled Returnings [Fig.16], draws
6

The accumulation of images has been discussed in the previous chapter “Haptic Aesthetic”.

22Felt Oscillation as Ma

from my understanding of Shintoism, which positions the human as comingfrom nature. In this context, these images articulated a longing for‘belongingness’ to ‘nature’.
In her book Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power, from the perspective ofwhat she calls “a fundamental ontology of difference”, Grosz discusses asimilar idea when she describes “a relation of emergence from one to theother”:…a relation in which one mind, subject, consciousness emerges from andestablished itself through a relation of differentiation from the body, objects,
and the world. This relation is a relation of belonging... (Grosz 2005 p.118)

In the series Fluid [Fig.17] by Liza Ryan, bodies and objects appear to form a‘new’ component, which emerges from the relationship between each other.
The work is comprised of photo-based images, showing anonymous
fragments of the body (both male and female) juxtaposed with natural forms
such as trees and plants. Andrew Schulz, in a catalogue essay for the Sydney
Biennale 2006, describes her work as “a mediation on the fusion of the humanand the natural in both thematic and formal terms” and articulates thejuxtapositionofimagesasadevice

from

which

“the

meanings

emerge”(Schulz 2006 p.234). In this respect, her work, which explores therelationship between different bodies and objects, appears to be the fusion ofthese components, suggesting the emergence of a ‘new’ meaning in which‘human and nature’ are considered as ‘intertwined’.
Using Grosz's discussion upon ‘a relation of emergence’ and then considering
Ryan’s work [Fig.17], as well as my studio experiments [Fig.16], I argue thatthe relational aspect of “ma” merges the ‘components’ present within asituation to generate a ‘new’ meaning, which in turn embraces what is
indiscernible and inter-relational. Thereby, the ‘new’ meaning appears to be
immersed into the world of ‘nature’, as opposed to the ‘artificial’ world which
differentiates the meaning of things one from the other.

23Felt Oscillation as Ma

To summarize, “ma” is positioned as a void; an empty space that embodies
gaps or intervals, which waits to be filled with formless energy. In the context
of art, ‘emptiness’ could be equated with “ma”, an emptiness which waits foran artwork, an artist, or an audience to fill in. By extension, “ma” is a situationor place that is open to receive atmosphere: for example ‘signs of presence’
which is based on a human’s sensuous experience of place. “Ma” is embodied
in accumulation, which appears in ‘mass’ or as ‘materiality’ in artwork as well
as a relation from which new meaning emerges. The concept of ma is
informative and applicable in the creation and exploration of installation
practice, producing a situation in which an audience’s imagination andmemories are activated and dissolved. Overall, the concept of “ma” embodies
inseparability

between bodyandsurrounding environment

and

their

inter-relational characteristics which relate to the characteristics of theconcept of “haptic aesthetic”.

Endnotes
B.Pilgrim, Richard. "Intervals (Ma) in Space and Time: Foundation for a Religio-Aesthetic
Paradigm in Japan." History of Religions 25.3 (1986): 255-77.
Grosz, Elizabethe. Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power. Durham & London: Duke University
Press, 2005.
Komparu, Kunio. The Noh Theater: Principles and Perspectives. New York: John Weatherhill,
1983.
Utopia, Trinity and Tropical Topography. 1980. University of human Sciences and Syracuse
Univerity.
Schulz, Andrew. "Liza Ryan."

Zone of Contact:

2006 Biennale of Sydney Ed. Biennale of

Sydney (15th: 2006). vols. Sydney: Woolloomooloo: Biennale of Sydney Ltd., 2006.
Toshiro, Kido. "Ma, Ur and Genesis."

Ma Espace-Temps Du Japon. vols. Tokyo: The Museum ofTokyo National Art and Music University, 2000.

24

Felt Oscillation as Ma

Chapter 3: Index of qualities - ‘immanent landscape’
In this chapter, I will discuss three qualities that I have identified as active
across my projects. These include concepts that relate to: ‘imperfect line’,‘empty luminosity’ and ‘body’s double reference’. Firstly, ‘imperfect line’ ispresent both in the photographic images produced, and in the formal
outcomes emerging from processes of analogue and digital manipulation.
Secondly, ‘luminosity’ is what is captured as the subject in the photography
and video works. Thirdly, ‘body’s double reference’ is embodied in the processof installation work within a gallery context and in the experience that an
audience has with this context. I consider these qualities as comprising aparticular field of visual and aural relations, which I collect together under theconcept of ‘immanent landscape’. Throughout this chapter, I will explore thisconcept in relation to the ideas that were discussed in previous chapters suchas: Haptic aesthetic and Ma space and time. The ‘immanent landscape’, anumbrella concept which relates to all of the audio-visual installations produced,
is a highly sensuous and visceral space, which aims to stimulate the sensationof longing and the embedded shared memory and anticipation of some kind of
haptic experience.
Imperfect Line
In my works, I notice the presence of both geometric and organic kinds oflines, which commonly exist in urban surroundings such as with electric lines,
lines of tree branches, lines of window frames, lines of blinds, or lines of apillar in a room. These lines have a persistent presence within my living
environment, and have become a predominant motif within my work.
An example of the presence of such lines is evident in the image of electriclines, which cross diagonally through the photographed images within thework titled Via tree. Additionally in the work titled Oscillating Landscape[Fig.18], the photographed window frame appears as a thick vertical line,
while electric lines are present in the periphery of this picture. Alternatively, inthe footage for my work titled Feet Through [Fig.19], the pillars of the25Felt Oscillation as Ma

architecture produce a strong vertical line. Aside from the strong presence ofline in the work, articulated visually, line is also present in audio form. For
example, the source of the recorded sounds included within installations havea linear quality, such as in the sounds of an aeroplane flying across the sky orin the sound of train running on the train track, both occurring in the work
Oscillating Landscape [track 1]. Similarly in the work titled Sun Play [Video 2],
the presence of bird song is rendered into one note which is then stretched
into one long pitch, which draws an ‘aural line’ in the air.
Initially, it was not my main interest to record these lines, however, as mywork progressed, I came to realize that lines were playing an important roleboth compositionally and conceptually in each of my works. Lines ‘work’ byadding rhythm within the picture plane or the audio-field. Aurally, ‘soundlines’ suggest how urban lives are spaced both geometrically and organically.
These lines appear to punctuate the flow of lives, thereby marking a rhythm ofurban-ness.
Having sourced these lines as both visual and aural material, I began
inscribing lines of my own rhythm through the use of abstract lines inphotographs, videos and within recorded sounds. In the work titled My View ofTree [Fig.20], using the method of dry point, I digitally overlayed thephotograph depicting the image of tree with a sequence of lines. As result, thelines appeared to be scratches on the surface of the photographic image.
These lines were generated in response to the rhythm of some kind of current.
This current can be described as the movement of ‘a vital force’ or sensation,
which I discussed in the haptic aesthetic chapter7. I understand the idea of‘vital movement’ to relate to Bergson’s idea of “cosmological duration or
movement”. Grosz summarises this idea in her book Time Travels: Feminism,
Nature, Power, when she writes:

7

P.6 Chapter 1:“Haptic Aesthetic”

26

Felt Oscillation as Ma…It is our participation in our own individual duration, in specific movements
as we live them in their unity and simplicity that necessarily places us withthe more cosmological universal duration. Each duration forms a continuity,
a single, indivisible movement; and yet, there are many simultaneous
durations, which implies that all durations participate in a generalized or
cosmological duration, which enables them to be described as simultaneousor successive... (Grosz 2005 p.120)

I sense the grounded rhythm of “generalized or cosmological duration” when
I look at Agnes Martin’s works in which lines are presented systematically andgeometrically, yet, with the strong sense of tactility. Ned Rifkin discusses theuse of line within Agnes Martin’s work, in his essay “Agnes Martin: The musicof the sphere”, when he writes:… the tracery of pencil lines drawn at consistent increments of spaces
reveals an irregular hand, one that stops and restarts to span the width ofthe canvas… This balanced approach to dividing the painted area of thecanvas discloses the artist’s propensity for geometric order. Yet it is theirregularities within this context of geometrical order and symmetry that
uncover the humanity of the artist ‘s touch… (Rifkin 2002a p.25)

The idea of uncovering the “humanity of the artist’s touch” explains the‘natural’ quality of the geometric lines hand-drawn. The idea also relates tothe way she titles her work. For example, the work Ocean Water [Fig.21] orLittle Children Playing With Love [Fig.22] implies that the artificial, the humanand the natural merge with one another through the imperfection of thegeometry, expressed in the wobbly lines. Martin discusses the notion of thisprocess of “merging”, in the preface of her book Agnes Martin: Nineties andBeyond, as follows:…My paintings have neither object nor space nor line nor anything – noforms. They are light, lightness, about merging, about formlessness,breaking down form…it is to accept the necessity of the simple, direct going27

Felt Oscillation as Ma

into a field of vision as you would cross an empty beach to look at theocean.’… (Rifkin 2002b p.15)

For Martin, a particular landscape, such as the beach and ocean, reminds herof the ‘necessity of the simple’ which is expressed in her sensitive,
hand-driven enjoyment with line. The successive lines expressed in aparticular rhythm, which are simultaneously steady and loose, appear to
imply the current of “generalized or cosmological duration”. Rifkin describes
the particular spaces and landscapes, evoked in Martin’s work through her useof lines, “as a metaphor for yearning” (Rifkin 2002b p.15). Rifkin reflects uponher own experience of places and landscapes on her journey back from
Martin’s studio in New Mexico, as follows:… I sensed a palpable vibration around it [a small church]. The small,enchanting interior space also was powerfully charged, redolent in many
ways of my experience of Martin’s studio…The sun was starting to descend
in the big desert sky…as the sky started to redden, I was gripped by thesensation of being underwater…with a primal knowledge that we emerged
as life forms from the sea…in the desert…drawn to an earthy prefiguration ofa world to come… (Rifkin 2002b p.14)

I imagine that Martin, who lives near such a landscape, might have beenabsorbed by the intense rhythm of the vibrating earth which Rifkin discussed.
Her works, which employ imperfect geometric line, tune into a palpable visual
field of some place which we long for. As we look at her piece, the sense of
longing is activated in our perception, generating a view of an immanentlandscape.
Empty Luminosity
Luminosity is another quality found in my photographic work. For instance, inthe work titled Sun Play [Fig.14 & Video 2], a moving video image depicts
strong morning light streaming through trees, creating a void-like space inwhich a person plays basketball alone. When the ball is shot into a hoop, it

28Felt Oscillation as Ma

disappears into the luminous void. This makes it impossible to define whether
the goal is shot or not. However, the person in the video engages in arepetitive action, continuously shooting the ball, and stepping around and into
the light. This person present in the video ‘dances’ with the ball in the field of
light, and the purpose or the result of the play no longer matters. This video
depicts a liberating state for the subject who never wins or loses.
Light has been a central concern in the work of photographer James Welling.
Sara J. Rogers articulates the significance of his use of light as a subject, when
she discusses the series titled Los Angeles Architecture, in her essay “James
Welling: Photographs 1974-1999”, as follows:… ‘LA-C 33’, 1977, is balletic in its interplay of light, shadow, and reflection.
Immediate attention is drawn to the glowing central window and then thesymmetrically spaced bars of the casement window…Welling documents
light as material fact, against the context of an architectural type… (Rogers
2000 p.71)

The glowing light, depicted in LA-C 33 [Fig.23], which is framed by a window,
appears as an empty void. This image is sited in the middle of a residential
area of L.A., providing an image of the light from someone’s window to expose
the empty ground of urban life. This empty luminosity in the photo is inviting.
The shadows of trees, which are cast by another light source, beyond thepicture plane, appear to be playing or dancing, responding to the empty
luminosity that is cast through the window.
Additionally, Welling’s work titled Meriden [Fig.24] from the series tiled Light
Sources, depicts sun burning through tree branches. Similar to the Chinesecharacter of ma, the light is depicted in the space of as between-ness. Rogers
articulates that an emptiness or a void is displayed in this photograph, whichis activated by a series of elements including empty luminosity displayed in
the image; “the parallel electric wires”, “the leafless branched entering fromthe right” and “the void of the sky” (Rogers 2000 p.72).

29

Felt Oscillation as Ma

Rogers discusses the effect of light in this work, by introducing Ulrich Loock’s
discussion on the Light Sources series, when she quotes:…Welling ‘makes photography the medium of non-portrayability, while all
the time photography is in essence a guarantor of faithful portrayal’...
(Rogers 2000 p.72)

I understand the idea of “non-portrayability” to be an effect of empty
luminosity in Welling’s photographs - indicating that there is an indefinable
existence in the world. In the interview published in the article “A Slice ofLight”, he states “I was looking for things I couldn’t quickly decipher” (Squires
1998 p.78). The light in his work functions to serve a sense of unknown andreveals an emptiness, suggesting the instability of meanings in the space ofartwork.
My images, taken both by still or video cameras, sometimes capture a qualityof empty luminosity that light embodies or activates. The resulting emptinessproduces a sense of liberation, in which a human may experience a state ofbeing at the ‘threshold of discernibility’. This empty luminosity, whichsaturates our surrounding context, invites us into its emptiness, and as aresult we become a part of it; as such, these surrounding become our‘immanent landscape’.
Double reference
I observe that my works often evoke ambivalent feelings or contradictory
thoughts among viewers. For example, I have often met with comments suchas: “Is not it...?”, “It isn’t…maybe…”, “ I felt that way but also this way.” In
this sense, the interpretation of the work or the impression of the work
appears to be doubled. Conceptually and emotionally, an audience’s sense of
their body as a subject is put into an oscillation through an encounter with theartwork.

30

Felt Oscillation as Ma

This idea can be further addressed by engaging with Elizabeth Grosz’s
interpretation of Bergson and Merleau-Ponty’s ideas relating to the body andthe subject. In her essay “The Question of Ontology”, Grosz articulates, “For
both, the body-subject is the site of an inherent doubling” when she writes:

For Bergson, the body is simultaneously the locus of a geometrical, spatial,
material calculation and the site of consciousness with its own complexity andcorporeal parameters that remain fundamentally qualitative. These are not
two bodies or two locations but one…depending on where it is focused andwhether it functions through intuition or perception…For Merleau-Ponty too,
the body is always doubled, reduplicated… ‘we say, because it is evident, thatit unites these two properties within itself and its double-belongingness to theorder of the ‘object’ and the order of the ‘subject’ reveals to us quite
unexpected relations between the two orders…the body has this double
reference.’… (Grosz 2005 p.120)

In my installation work, Oscillating Landscape [Fig.25], the two ‘window’frames, which were installed, face to face, positioned the audience to bephysically within a doubled situation. Due to the positioning of the frames,
they were required to turn their body from the back to the front, and thenfrom the front to the back, in order to see the images on both sides. What wasseen from the front ‘window’ in relationship to the memory of the image
depicted on the back ‘window’; differed in a small amount of time. The
audience’s body-subject might have interpreted their experience of the
doubled window views, by constantly referencing images in their memory andthrough their perception. Frances Johnson expresses her experience of thiswork, in the article “Diorama Disquiet” when she writes:…Shindo’s audio thunders down as epic memories of what we have leftoutside/behind. Or do these textures simply sound environmental dis(quiet)
within urban/domestic/gallery realms?... (Johnson 2008 p.19)

There is a difference between the two kinds of impressions of the work31Felt Oscillation as Ma

expressed here. One is “epic” while the other takes the form of “disquiet”, andeach are derived from two different modes of experience: one is at theperceptual level and another is at the intuitive level.
Bruce Nauman’s works also positions an audience between two meanings orreferences in order to produce a physical and conceptual tension. In the book
Installation Art, Clair Bishop characterises his works from the early 70s, as“…setting up a tension between the viewer’s anticipated and actual
experience” (Bishop 2005 p.71). For instance, Bishop describes his work from1970-71, Green Light Corridor [Fig.26], as follows:…The corridor is so narrow that it can only be entered sideways, while theoppressive green fluorescent light lingers on the retina and saturates one’s
after-vision with magenta upon leaving the space. Even with the fullknowledge of how these pieces work, they still prompt a certain level ofanxiety: anticipation is wrong-footed by actual experience, and we feel
perpetually at odds with the situation… (Bishop 2005 p.69)

The conflict between “anticipation” and “actual experience”, which might bederived from the body’s ‘double reference’, is explained here as what causes
anxiety amongst audiences. Nauman describes the work and his intention in
the interview with Michele de Angelus as follows:…They won’t quite fit. That’s what the piece is, that stuff that’s not coming
together… My intention would be to set up [the situation], so that it is hard
to resolve, so that you’re always on the edge of one kind of way of relating
to the space or another, and you’re never quite allowed to do either…
(Angelus 1988 p.128)

Bishop further discusses Nauman’s Corridor [Fig.23] pieces in comparison
with Merleau-Ponty’s idea of “failure of perception” drawn from his book The
Visible and Invisible. Upon this she writes:32Felt Oscillation as Ma…it is impossible to be both subject and object, as the point of coincidence“collapses at the moment of realisation” [Merleau-Ponty]… Nauman’s
installations likewise point to the impossibility of our own organs ofperception being immanent: I fail to coincide with myself. (Bishop 2005
p.71)

The perception of the body and the image of the body are explained here as“impossible” to synthesize. In relation to Bishop describing her experience asa failure of experience, I wonder if we can rethink the experience as the
emergence of a ‘new’ kind of meaning. If we position this situation as ‘ma-like’,
then the perceptual and intuitive experience of being in a “relation of
emergence” cannot be a form of failure. This is because I understand that“ma” embraces the experiences of what seem like opposites and opens a
space in which there opposing sides can be perceived and experienced
together, not as divided, but as entwined. From this relationship a new form ofinterconnectedness may emerge - as an example, a

new formof‘natural-human’ -. Furthermore, in a reflection upon the idea of haptic
aesthetic, I argue that the ‘immanent’ sense of the subject’s body isrecognizable at the realm of ‘object’. It is reasoned that the body’s “sensation”
moves beyond the limited notion of the subject’s corporeality, to resonate
with the rhythm of ‘the movement of sensation’ found in the materiality of an
object. For instance, we may find our own image of “figure: sensation” within
the landscape that we see. Similarly we may find the image of landscape in
our internal experience. In this respect, what an audience could experience
with Nauman’s Corridor [Fig.23] piece or my work Oscillating Landscape[Fig…] might not be the surrounding contexts in which we are located, but
within an immanent landscape as the image of our own existence.

To conclude this chapter, it is the qualities of ‘imperfect lines’, ‘empty
luminosity’ and ‘body’s double reference’ that play important roles within myresearch works. The presence of geometric and tactile lines, which imply the33Felt Oscillation as Ma

rhythms of the body and our surrounding contexts, is underlined by some sortof undercurrent. The luminosity of light exposes the emptiness that is
decipherable but potentially liberating. The body’s double reference explains
the nature of human experience, which always oscillates between perceptive
and intuitive. In this respect, I claim that these qualities express the idea thatthe ‘landscape’ of our surrounding context is, in fact, in the midst of our‘immanent’

being.

Human-ness,asanoscillation,

might

share

a

belongingness to an ‘immanent landscape’.

Endnotes
Angelus, Michele De. "Interview with Bruce Nauman."

Bruce Nauman. vols. London, 1988.

Bishop, Clair. Installation Art: A Critical History. London: Tate, 2005.
Grosz, Elizabethe. Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power. Durham & London: Duke University
Press, 2005.
Johnson, Frances. "Diorama Disquiet." Diorama. The Age the 6th of June 2008. 2008: 19.
Rifkin, Ned. "Agnes Martin: The Music of the Spheres."

Agnes Martin: The Ninties and Beyond.

Ed. Ned Rifkin. vols. Houston: The Menil Collection in association with Hatje Cantz,
2002a.
---. "Preface: Visiting Agnes."

Agnes Martin : The Ninties and Beyond Ed. Ned Rifkin. vols.

Houtston: The Menil Collction in association with Hatje Cantz, 2002b.
Rogers, Sarah J. "James Welling: Photographs 1974-1999."

James Welling: Photographs

1974-1999. Ed. Sara J. Rogers. vols. Columbus: Wexner Center For The Arts, The Ohio
State University, 2000.
Squires, Carol. "A Slice of Light." Artforum(1998).

34

Felt Oscillation as Ma

Conclusion
To conclude, investigations into the concepts of haptic aesthetic and ma havestrongly informed my approach towards generating audio-visual projects
within an installation practice. This is because these concepts articulate theaesthetic and spatial characters of my art practice, which aims to beexperiencedas

sensuousandvisceral,articulating

multi-sensory

environments for engagement and perception. The employment of theseideas enabled my art to be immersive and evocative in ways that audiences
may feel the sensation of oscillation. The work also expresses theconnectedness with shared environments, which I understand as activating
an ‘immanent landscape’.
“Haptic aesthetic” is an aesthetic that can be embodied in both material andnon-material form and recognized as ‘intensities’, ‘rhythm’ or ‘accumulation’of the movement of sensation in both visual and audio art. “Haptic aesthetic”
is particularly stimulating for an audience’s haptic perception that belongs to
the periphery of all senses. Thus the audience’s encounter with an artworkthat employs this aesthetic may become an engagement in which the sense ofconnection to the surrounding natural environment is enhanced. In theserespects, the concept of “haptic aesthetic” has been highly effective in
informing my research work in that it is the concept that describes
indiscernibile and inter-relational qualities. These qualities have become boththe ‘content’ of my audio-visual installations, as well as the spatial, temporaland atmospheric effects of it.
“Ma” is a spatio-temporal concept, which can be positioned as a void,
emptiness, a situation or an accumulation. “Ma” space and time can be filledwith imagination or an atmosphere of ‘temporary existence’. Thus, within an
installation art context, a work which is informed by “ma” is a significantly
experiential spatial and temporal situation which invites an audience toengage by ‘filling’ space by way of an imaginative and physical engagementwith the artwork. By extension, “ma” can be activated by an accumulation of35Felt Oscillation as Ma

stillness and of relationships, which then generates a new perspective ofthings that exist within “ma” space and time. Therefore, an artwork which
employs this concept manages to be indiscernible and inter-relational, in an
attempt to open up a space in which an audience can become immersed.
Such qualities as ‘imperfect lines’, ‘empty luminosity’ and ‘body’s double
reference’ activate haptic aesthetic and ma space and time in my artwork. It
is because these qualities succeed in implying the rhythm of sensations, voidor emptiness, and an oscillation embodied in the nature of human experiencethat are characteristic of the concepts of “haptic aesthetic” and “ma”. These
qualities express the idea of ‘immanent landscape’ well, which may exist in
the minds of an audience’s sensation and surrounding context within which an
artwork is installed and experienced.
Overall, the investigation and discussion of the concepts of haptic aesthetic,
ma, and ‘immanent landscape’, have played an important role for myresearch. These ideas make it possible to articulate my understanding of theexperience of being in the world, and for my audio-visual installations togenerate situations in which an audience may directly experience thesensation of an ‘oscillation’ – involving a movement between memory,
anticipation, body, material, image, sound and space.

36

Felt Oscillation as Ma

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Felt Oscillation as Ma

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42

Felt Oscillation as Ma

Appendix
List of exhibitions (as part of my MFA research project)
1.

Close and Far, (photographic wall installation), as part of exhibition Open Air, February
2007, Victoria Park Gallery, Melbourne

2.

Untitled, (digital print, sculpture, sound, drawing), as part of exhibition Disoriented
Communication, April 2007, VCA Student Gallery, Melbourne

3.

Returning Yesterday, (digital print transfer onto the gallery walls), as part of exhibition
Polar, August 2007, VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne

4.

Via Tree (digital print transfer onto banana paper, sound), as part of exhibition Draw
Order, October 2007, Trocadero Artspace, Melbourne

5.

Sun Play (video, TV monitor), as part of exhibition Playing Games, November 2007, Kings
ARI, Melbourne

6.

Returnings (digital print transfer on chipboards, sound), as part of exhibition

MFA

Student Show, February 2008, VCA Student Gallery, Melbourne
7.

My View of Tree (dry point, digital print, paper), as part of exhibition plus 1, March, 2008,
Library Art Space, Melbourne

8.

Feet Through (four video projections, sound), April, 2008, Conical Inc., Melbourne

9.

Oscillating Landscape (digital print transfer on rice paper framed with clear pine, sound,light), as part of Next Wave Festival 2008, May 2008, WestSpace, Melbourne

10.

Oscillating Landscape (digital print transfer on rice paper framed with clear pine), and July
2008, Queensland Centre for Photography, Brisbane

Paper presentation (as part of my MFA research project)“Feet Through”, at the workshop Globalized Bodies: Embodied Globalisation in the Asia-PacificRegion, convener: Pro. Vera Mackie, August 2008, The University of Melbourne

43Special Thanks to
Bianca Hester&
All the people who gave me a great encouragement and support