From the series Data Manipulation, Nothingness Study, Ether, installation view, artist's studio, Miami, Florida, 0:02:25 min video projection, October 6th, 2022. Photo © Alian Rives' StudioHeidegger, the German philosopher described nothingness as the fundamental question of metaphysics. For him, there is something because there is no such thing as nothing (at all), and there possibly never was. Spinoza and many other thinkers subscribed to this view that it is impossible for there to be nothing. Nothing is only ever the absence of something, but it is never truly anything since the very label ‘nothing’ implies something.“What we think of as empty space in our universe is nothing; it contains energy, radiation, and particles that flit in and out of existence. It has properties: it can expand and contract, warp, and bend. Even attempting to picture nothingness is impossible for the human mind. A Buddhist monk might claim to be able to clear his mind off thought during meditation, but even a blank slate is still something. Even a void still has some parameters around it to contain the ‘nothing’ within it.” [1] The animation created using point cloud data utilizes the sky waveform datasets gathered throughout the day. It demonstrates the independent and imperceptible information processes governed by natural phenomena. These processes operate outside human-made restrictions and regulations but are still affected by them.[1] Rose Dale, Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? On Philosophy Now: Magazine of Ideas
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