What is a bubble? When we look at a bubble, are we perceiving the space inside it, or (I think more probably) are we perceiving the container of that space?
At first blush a bubble seems to be, by definition, not space but container: anti-space enclosing space neatly and efficiently. But actually, that’s not really right. Another use we have for “bubble” is what we could also call a “pocket”: an area of negative inside a positive. Holes in swiss cheese are bubbles, you know—at least before the cheese is sliced.
I mention this because we often actually do conflate space with its container. A bubble is an easy example, but what about the “P Spot” Rohini talked about earlier? Most anyone would say that the P Spot is a space; that when those poor locker-room men and women are looking at the P Spot, they’re looking at negative space.
But I’d say that when you are looking at the P Spot, in fact you are probably more aware of its container—naked people!—than of anything else. The P Spot is both the space and its container, inseparable.
In American football, quarterbacks are not trained to throw the ball at their teammates (receivers), but actually to throw the ball at spaces between the opposing team’s players. The fact that they have to be trained into this shows our innate tendency to recognize mass rather than its lack, but the fact that they’re highly successful at it shows that on an instinctive level, space and anti-space are on a more equal footing than we realize.
This understanding allows us to perceive mass better, because normally observing an object—an individual mass—leads us to ignore its container, the space around it. Thus we miss information and perception until we realize that the two are one.
Seem a bit abstract? Then consider the hurricane. Understanding its rotation requires recognition of the space around it. Hurricanes happen to rotate counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere because the heavier airs surrounding them rotate clockwise—not because they turn that way on their own. You don’t usually see these surrounding airs because you’re focused on the storm. But the the only way to understand hurricanes, if not all weather, is to look at everything, positive and negative, massy and light, empty and full: all side-by-side, associated, and intertwined.
3 comments:
Thank you, Guy. As I am about to transform a wineglass into a glass of wine, my only thought is that I have never seen a glass of wine through this lens before: It is both full and empty.
A couple of years ago, I made a card for Thanksgiving that may be a perfect repartee for your post.
I will post it.
Rohini
Guy, your notion that most people tend to recognize mass (something) rather than its lack (nothing) is a great observation, and another richly complex example of your deconstruction of space – physically and metaphorically. Wonderful stuff. After reading your entry, I just so happened to hear this old Dylan song (don’t know the name) on the radio with lyrics that connected and reinforced (for me) your observation/point-of-view above. In that nasally, raspy voice he sings something like, “I’m loving you… not for what you are… but what you’re not.” More wonderful stuff.
Thanks, Adam! Maybe Dylan’s voice itself is so interesting because of the spaces within it. That didn’t occur to me until I read your comment.
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