Chris A. Wright

 The Hle

Dr. Chris A. Wright

Abstract

This paper takes an artist perspective to investigate the nature of the hole through practice-led research, artistic reference and philosophical enquiry.

A general view of a hole is that of emptiness, lack and void. This perception is challenged by physically being in a hole, through sound and experimental art practice interwoven with ideas of the void from Aristotle, the concept of making from Heidegger and references to contemporary artists. The structure and materiality of the hole as well as its relationship to its surroundings are investigated. It raises questions such as if a hole is part water and part air, is the part that is water still a hole? Or could it now be called a vessel? This is explored through Heidegger’s description of the shaping of the jug which ‘giving shape to emptiness’. This creates a sense of the poetic that is also employed by artists such as Anish Kapoor. My perception, which relates to my artistic practice, is that holes are about narratives, the unknown, absence, presence, materials, physics and art.

The paper first looks at philosophical foundations before giving an account of my practice-led research focusing on the sense of the hole. Visual references are the work of Kapoor, interrogated by Homi K. Bhabha, and The Void by Yves Klein. Drawing together research and practice, my proposal is that a hole is more than its physicality with a presence in place of absence that allows space for the imaginative, a place of potential.

 Acknowledgements: Marijn Nieuwenhuis, Durham University, UK;  Aya Nassar, University of Warwick, UK; Linda Duvall, Saskatoon, Canada.

 
The Hle

Introduction

The Hle takes an artist perspective to explore the nature of the hole through interdisciplinary, practice-led research which has taken place in the United Kingdom and Canada. As an artist and primarily sound artist, I first explored the physicality of holes using clay and blowing soap bubbles before interrogating the concept of the hole in relation to sound. Using sound as a way of articulating space through its resonances and reverberations, I use humming to look at the shape and sculptural nature of sound at the intersection of space, sound and body. I have recorded in underground caverns and undertaken a residency, In The Hole, in Saskatoon, Canada. The premise of this residency was described as ‘new knowledge coming from the concentrated interaction of people with varying knowledge bases and perspectives. The positioning of the hole in the prairies means the experience will be intense with few outside distractions’ (Duvall 2017). The hole was dug by Canadian artist, Linda Duvall[1] in Saskatoon and its creation exposed the structure of the hole including roots, birds’ nests and plants with their resident insect life. Over the period of a month, Duvall spent two days of six hours each in the hole with a different artist, myself included. These exchanges were recorded and were subsequently played at Paved Arts[2], Saskatoon. During the residency, questions such as what is a hole, its relationship to its support and the substance removed became particularly important and generated further queries. These related to the physical making of a hole, whether it be the digging of earth or nibbling away as of moth larva in a jumper and to substances that may fill a hole such as water, or, as in Saskatoon with snow for part of the year. These queries are explored through my own artwork, through philosophical enquiry and visual research.

The Hle, spelt with a missing ‘o’, emphasises absence and presence and refers to my interdisciplinary artistic practice that utilises the visual but also the sonic. Hle. therefore, is meant to be spoken seeking to become its own artwork and the speaker the artist this contributing to the formation of holes.

Philosophical Foundations

A general view is that a hole is an emptiness, a lack and a void whose dictionary definition is ‘containing nothing, empty, deserted, a lack’ (Chambers 1990:1653). Aristotle’s view of the void was as a continuous body where the air around it was full and, as such, the void could only be discussed with reference to place which exists because of the ‘phenomenon’ of replacement (1996:93). He writes:

           ‘There is water here now, then after it has left (poured from a vessel, perhaps) there is air here instead, and at another time some other body may occupy the same place. This makes it look as though place is different from all the things that, by replacement, come to be in it, because the place in which there is air at the moment previously contained water, and so it is obvious that the place or space which they alternately leave and enter is different from both the air and the water.’ (1996:78).

This indicates a container, a boundary, of which Dean and Millar write ‘to be a boundary ….. is to be exterior to something or, more exactly, to be around it, acting as its surrounds. As such, a boundary belongs to the container rather than the contained’ (2005:63). A hole is a bounded space whatever its dimensions, its contents held by those boundaries.

Aristotle’s description of replacement through the pouring of water from a vessel links with Heidegger and his account of the shaping of the jug (1975:165). Heidegger writes: ‘Sides and bottom, of which the jug consists and by which it stands, are not really what does the holding. But if the holding is done by the jug's void, then the potter who forms sides and bottom on his wheel does not, strictly speaking, make the jug. He only shapes the clay. No - he shapes the void’ (1975:165). The notion of the emptiness, the hole, doing the holding produces a sense of the poetic that is employed by artists such as Anish Kapoor with his 2007 work Untitled[3] discussed later. These works employ a conceptual approach that invites the viewer to speculate. Aristotle’s understanding, as well as my wider reading, helped formulate my view of what a hole is.

This is that a hole can be both its absence and its presence. The removal of a substance has its own importance while its ‘empty’ interior becomes a space of possibilities, where things may happen. Its physical formation is then one of duration. It is about narratives, the change from known to unknown and back again, from one thing to another whatever the medium, physical or mental, visual or aural, for example. Scientifically, it is now believed that a void is an impossibility. Particle physicists such as Jeff Forshaw[4] of Manchester University and Cern (2011) say that the void is unachievable because particles are everywhere and anywhere and occupy multiple places at the same time. Thus achieving ‘empty’ space is impossible. Karen Barad (2007:354) writes: ‘As for the famous void, well, it isn't all that is was supposed to be (or not be), either. According to quantum field theory, the vacuum is far from empty; indeed, it's teeming with the full set of possibilities of what may come to be. Matter is regularly created and destroyed.’ Casati and Varzi (1994:32) when asking what holes are made of, answer: ‘Consider the following hypothesis: Holes are made of space. They are not identical with some region of space, but they are constituted by space. Space is, in a sense, the matter of holes - or, if you prefer, space is to holes what matter is to material objects’. A hole could be thus described as space, consisting of matter, filling the void that is held by its support that is a hole. Gathering together these ideas and exploring them through making, a hole becomes physical rather than abstract.

Artwork

Making holes

My hands shaped and moulded clay to form pots[5] taking note of the various transformations from its initial lump of clay which, as Heidegger indicates, holds the hole in place (1975:165).

Figs. 1,2 Summer Lodge Residency, Nottingham Trent University, 2014

The first image (Fig. 1) shows a clay interior which is uneven, the hole imprecise due to the act of formation by my unskilled hands whereas a skilled potter would produce perfectly formed, smooth spaces within the clay. The second image (Fig. 2) illustrates the holes made in the clay, both open and partially closed. These clay vessels[6]have one opening so that they are open to the environment. It could be said that the pot’s presence interrupts in the flow of air. The ‘emptiness’ of the interior is thus merely part of the environment.

Fig. 3. Treak Cliff Cavern, Derbyshire. Image with kind permission of management.

Inside Holes

My interest in holes began when trying to record silence which I thought was more possible underground. The recordings took place in a cave, Treak Cliff Cavern, in Castleton, Derbyshire. I was given access before, during and after its public opening hours This meant I had to operate the lights whose switch was within the cave rather than at the entrance. This produced moments of pure darkness and a silence except for a dripping of water and my presence. These times, holes in visual and aural perception, began the formation of my ideas about underground spaces, the sound and shape of darkness, and holes. I realised that underground cavities were places of very slow change. This cavern was formed through the action of water on limestone where drops of mineral-laden water make their way through rock to dissolve it thus creating holes. These drops cause the creation of stalagmites and stalactites which results in the interior shape of the cavern changing constantly. In addition, my presence created a change to the dimensions of the hole. I became no longer an observer but also a participant. This important switch from observer meant an implication in the process of creation of the hole. Not only did my physical presence change the space’s internal dimensions but an alteration was caused by my chemical presence changing the mineral content within the hole.

Relating this to the formation of the pot, the hole continually changes due to its creation. The differences are the duration of the change. A cave could be said to be in a continual process of creation throughout thousands of years whilst an unfired pot also alters its dimensions due to drying out in a much shorter period. However, in both cases, the dimensions of the holes are ambiguous throughout their lives bringing me to the understanding that a hole, its formation and dimensions, however changeable, is the by-product of some sort of action whether a natural phenomena or through the action of human. As previously discussed, Heidegger (1975:165) writes that the void is held by the support, the interior of the pot and the cave being held by its material formation. These ideas brought to the fore the question as to whether a hole is the bit that is or the bit that isn’t which were teased out during the residencyIn the Hole[7].

Fig. 4 The hole made by Linda Duvall for In The Hole residency 2017

My time in the hole was mapped by physical presence, sound and by blowing bubbles. My expectation was that the bubbles would just fly out immediately and in one direction. It was not anticipated that the hole would have micro currents which meant that the bubbles sometimes hung almost motionless, sometimes scattered in all different directions and at other times they went straight up and out. These currents were not noticed when within the hole. 

Fig. 5 Linda Duvall blowing bubbles and testing the micro-climate of the hole

The clear atmosphere and bright sun meant that the outlines of the bubbles could be clearly seen and this showed how the shape of the bubbles changed due to pressure from the atmosphere. The only obvious differences between the formations within caves and the bubbles was of materials and duration. Stalagmites and stalactites evolve continuously so the internal dimensions of the cave alters causing ever-changing tensions between structure and hole. Bubbles, whose shape is held by surface tension, continually change both internally and externally. Blowing bubbles in the hole created holes in the hole.

The hole was also mapped by sound. As part of my practice I use the act of humming to articulate spaces through listening to the hum’s resonances and reverberations. The methodology I use is first to situate oneself within the space, take a deep breath and hum in response to that moment within that space. By moving around the space, the sound reverberated differently with every step thus responding to its shape. At the end of each hum, a silent pause is taken to enable the hearing of the resonances of the sound and to hear one’s own body. If this is a communal action, as in the hole, the next stage is to allow the hum to begin to respond to the sound of the other. Gradually the hum becomes almost homogenous so that it is impossible to tell who is making which sound. The hum appears as a separate entity becoming almost sculptural creating, what I call, the shaping of sound. It is as if the hum forms a filling akin to water in the jug.

It seems through these investigations, that a hole is the space made when a substance has been removed by whatever means, physically through human activity or through natural changes in the environment or moulded by a material that acts as the support. Thus answering my question as to whether a hole is the bit that is or the bit that isn’t. However, the support material that holds the hole is ever-changing. Within the hole in Saskatoon, the bubbles continually changed shape due to pressure and moved due to micro currents formed by the shape of the hole. In the cavern[8], the shape of the hole was changed dimensionally through continual water seepage, the pot of clay was changed due to drying. This indicates an instability of the support that would have impact on the potential filling of the hole. In the residency, were we filling the hole, or part of the hole, with our bodies, with words, with art? Its continual change leads to notions that the hole is tempered through duration, at least, in these cases. However,

what of the pile of earth taken from the hole in Saskatoon?

Fig. 6 Earth taken from the hole in Saskatoon 2017

This invited me to think this was the hole whilst the hole itself was just the vessel for that earth. However, a hole did not exist in that space before the earth was removed. Looking at artists who use holes and emptiness such as Kapoor and Yves Klein’s empty exhibition, The Void, may clarify the situation for me. These artists were chosen because of the particular way they look at absence and presence and thus have a relevance to the hole.

The Hole in Art

Kapoor’s work Untitled[9] was shown at the Hayward Gallery, London in 1998. It shows a shape penetrating a wall. Its darkness from a distance belies its interior. It is ‘empty’. Viewers see it as they walk past, unable to comprehend whilst others peer in. It is an indentation whose end cannot be seen[10]. The hollowing out of any indentation, which includes the Saskatoon hole, is durational, both in its creation and its viewing. The work graphically describes a hole but questions whether it is an illusion or merely just a change in material?

This work was part of a long series of works including Untitled 2007[11] which used stainless steel to make an indentation that reflects the far reaches of the space as well as the self and Yellow 1999[12], a hollow where the colour of the work forms shadows around its indentation. Homi K. Bhabha’s article Making Emptiness discusses Kapoor’s works. He writes’ It may be the most valuable insight into Kapoor's work to suggest that the presence of an object can render a space more empty than mere vacancy could ever envisage. This quality of an excessive, engendering emptiness is everywhere visible in his work’ (Art in Asia 2012). Bhabha interpreted the artist’s intention as spaces formed within spaces. He further writes,

‘But the expansion of available space – the making of emptiness – never fails to register a lateral movement, a transitional tremor, that disorders the boundedness of the void. The void slips sideways from the grasp of frame and figure; its visual apprehension as contained absence, made whole and present in the eye of the viewer, is attenuated. The enigma of the void is now discernible in the intimation of a movement that obliterates perceptual space and supplements it with a disruptive, disjunctive time through which the spectator must pass – 'reverse, affirm, negate'. It is this transitional temporality, effected by the expansion of emptiness, that Kapoor seeks to inscribe into the very passage of time and movement that makes the exhibition the phenomenological experience that it is’ (Art in Asia 2012).

Moreover, the void can be seen to have presence, an in-between space that is endlessly commutable. To contain a void, though, implies boundaries that, however loose, must exist and thus must also be a threshold, a place of interaction, and ambiguous. This can be seen in Yves Klein’s ‘empty’ exhibition in 1958. Described here by Anna Dezeuze:

‘Yves Klein's 'The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State Into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility - better known as 'The Void'- at the Galerie Iris Clert in Paris in 1958, certainly had all the trappings of an elaborate PR stunt. Not only did Klein empty the exhibition space and paint the remaining walls and cases white, he also posted two Republican Guards in full uniform at the entrance of the gallery, served blue cocktails especially ordered from the famous brasserie La Coupole and had even planned to light up the obelisk on the Place de la Concorde with his brand of International Klein Blue. While the last event was cancelled at the last minute, an estimated 3,000 visitors did show up on the night of the opening, filling the streets around the gallery as they waited to enter the exhibition space through blue curtains, one small group at a time. The crowd was finally dispersed by the police called in by disgruntled visitors who had felt swindled after paying their entrance fee to be shown an empty gallery’ (Tate Etc. Spring 2011:70).

Dezeuze’s account not only describes the space but also viewer expectation. This expectation, important for art viewing, is part of not just what is seen but what is anticipated. A hole, whose emptiness is always fictitious, generates expectations, longings even for what might be.

Conclusion

The performative action of creating that hole in the clay has been majorly influential in my practice and way of thinking about holes. Rather than the abstract notion that a hole just happened, the act of creation whether with clay as in making pots or blowing bubbles, produced a physical sensation, a sense of the hole. For example, a hole could be held as a pot was cupped in the hand. This influenced my way of making whereby performance and performative actions have become a greater part of my practice due to the increased sense of that intersection of body and spatial practice that articulates the creation of artwork.

Drawing the strands together with academic enquiry, these ideas have led me to the conclusion that a hole is a space that is supported by its surroundings. In other words, it is contained or bounded by its support such as the clay of the pot, the earth in Saskatoon, the metal or resin in Kapoor’s work and expectation in Klein’s The Void, the substances that hold the void. These edges must then be seen as threshold spaces where interactions and encounters between, for example, similar or different material states of whatever kind, that signify the hole as a place of potential. My early perception was that a hole was just a rupture in the status quo, an interruption in the general flow of things and that the substance removed during the making, artificially or otherwise, remained, essentially, the hole. However, it only holds true as far as such a removal is made. The earth in Saskatoon represents the materiality of the hole, the substance of the hole. This, I believe, is also true of any material that fills a hole, the snow, the water or air in the vessel as understood by Aristotle. As Casati and Varzi remark: ‘the identity of the hole does not depend on the identity of the stuff inside it’ (1994:2).

Using sound and, particularly, humming within and through a hole was illuminating as it altered my perspective as to how the flow of sound can direct a listener to the space where sound is expected to be, in anticipation of future notes, whilst simultaneously carrying the resonance from past notes. As the actions of humming are preceded and followed by momentary pauses, that can be seen as holes, these are as important as the sound itself and that can map space as the sound does.

The Hle draws together research and practice to propose that a hole is more than its physicality that extends to a sense of existence and presence in place of absence that allows space for the imagination. It is a place of potential and possibility through its capacity to hold and a space of encounter indicated by its surroundings as threshold spaces.

References

ADAMSON, P., Filling the Gaps - a Brief History of Nothing Oct 25th, 2011

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgYqy8EpF7k   Accessed Nov 2018

         ARISTOTLE, 1993. Physics: Books III and IV; translated with introduction and notes by Edward Hussey. Rev edn. Oxford University Press.

         ARISTOTLE, 1996. Physics; translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford University Press.  BARAD, K. 2007 Meeting the Universe Halfway Duke University Press

         BHABHA, H.K., 2012. Anish Kapoor: Making Emptiness. Art in Asia, (September/October). Available from: http://anishkapoor.com/185/Making-Emptiness-by-Homi-K.-Bhabha.html [Accessed 2012].

         Chambers English Dictionary 1990 Edinburgh W &R Chambers Ltd

DEAN, T., and MILLAR, J., 2005. Place. London: Thames & Hudson.

DEZEUZE, A., 2011. Nothing Works. Tate Etc., Spring (21)

DUVALL, L. 2017 https://lindaduvall.com (Accessed 2017)

FORSHAW, G., 2011 Our natural world – or why physics is so interesting (Discussion) Bollington SciBar, UK, September 2011

HEIDEGGER, M., 1975. Poetry, Language, Thought translations and introduction. New York: Harper & Row.

[1] http://www.lindaduvall.com

[2] Documentation of this event, In the Hole, can be seen at pavedarts.ca in its archive

[3] Untitled, 2007, resin, 450 x 450 x 475.2 cm. Commissioned 2006 with funds from the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation in recognition of the contribution to the Gallery by Dong Gall AM, Collection of Queensland Art Gallery. Discussion Homi K. Bhabha, 2012. Anish Kapoor: Making Emptiness. Art in Asia, (September/October).Available from: http://anishkapoor.com/185/Making-Emptiness-by-Homi-K.-Bhabha.html [Accessed 2012].

[4] Lecture on particle physics by Jeff Forshaw, Bollington SciBar, October 2011

[5] These pots were made in the manner of archaeological finds rather than creating perfect artifacts.

[6] I am using the word, vessel, here as it indicates that the pot can hold something, accepting that air is something. For a through hole such as a tunnel, the word vessel would not be used as there would be continual movement. 

[7] This residency was supported by Saskatewan Arts and Paved Arts, Canada.

[8] In 2018, I returned to the cavern and conducted humming experiments. The results, however, were not as expected. The reverberations were ‘swallowed’ by the cavity, a different way of articulating space. 

[9] “Anish Kapoor, Hayward Gallery London 1998. 

[10] This work was selected for this discussion for the effect it had on me and for my observations of the viewing of the work. Whilst other pieces were seen later, this first viewing was particularly important and influential.

[11] Untitled 2007 Resin and paint 500×500×555 cm http://anishkapoor.com

[12] Untitled resin, 450 x 450 x 475.2 cm. Commissioned 2006 with funds from the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation in recognition of the contribution to the Gallery by Dong Gall AM, Collection of Queensland Art Gallery. Photo Ray Fultion, Courtesy Queensland Art Gallery

Anish Kapoor  and Yellow, 1999, fiberglass and pigment, 600 x 600 x 300 cm, installed at Kunsthalle Helsinki, 2001. Photo Jussi Tianinen, Courtesy Lisson Gallery. http://anishkapoor.com