Nada.

“Nothing.” It is an interactive work that invites the viewer to participate and create their own works. Its random operation makes each work created by the viewer unique.

Operation:

• Right mouse button: circles.
• Left mouse button: triangles.
• Keyboard (any key): nothing.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

Tired of always seeing the same thing I decided not to see anything… Or rather, tired of always seeing the same thing in a work, I decided to see something different every time I look at it. Inspired by the works of A. Michael Noll (American engineer and professor, pioneer in the use of digital language in the visual arts) I created this work. I found his use of chance and simple shapes to form three-dimensional compositions on a plane incredible. I decided to do something similar, but in my own way. When I see my work, the first thing I think is “there is nothing there.” But I couldn’t be more wrong, because there is a lot in that empty space. It sounds contradictory, I know, but what this work has least about is “nothing.” Depending almost completely on the viewer “Nothing.” It is an open work, which is enriched by the interactions that take place in it. Because with the absence of spectators the work becomes a pretext without something to tell, in that case and only in that case, it would be nothingness itself. This work does not have a specific style or the artist’s seal anywhere, which is why this text, which functions as an instruction manual, is necessary for it to be understood. It must be presented by its concept, because the work is the concept itself rather than what may appear on the screen. As Heinich’s text, “The Work Beyond the Object,” develops, we can say that “Nothing” has the characteristics of a happening, since what is seen on the screen will never be repeated. The mediated chance of the code is controlled and measured so that it works as planned, no detail is left at the mercy of blind spontaneity. Avant-garde theory accepts this mediated production of chance. In the text “The Avant-garde Work of Art” by Bürger it is explained that unmediated chance turns out to be an ideology that leads directly to arbitrariness rather than freedom. This controlled chance ensures that each spectator becomes part of the event and has their own experience, a unique experience. Once a key is pressed, what the person did will remain only in their memory or in a photo/video that becomes a document. The experiences stored in the documentation of the work are key for “Nothing” to transcend into something more than an ephemeral moment in the viewers’ memories. Temporally speaking, the work is unique, but it is also allograph, since it can be reproduced wherever and whenever you have the code, it will never be exactly the same. But it would still be the original code and not an imitation.

Literature

• Heinich, Nathalie. ([2014], 2017). “La obra más allá del objeto” en El paradigma del arte contemporáneo: estructuras de una revolución artística. Madrid: Casimiro, pp. 95-119.
• Bürger, Peter. ([1974], 2010). “III. La obra de arte vanguardista”, en Teoría de la vanguardia. Buenos Aires: Las Cuarenta, pp. 79-117.
• Página web de A. Michael Noll - http://noll.uscannenberg.org