Theory of Absence : Art Thinking in the Age of AI
Introduction: Information Saturation and the Restoration of "Ma"
AI calculates "probabilistic correctness" from vast amounts of global data to generate images. In these images, there are no voids; everything is densely packed with information. In contrast, art is the act of "subtracting" from the world to create emptiness—an "Absence."
In the age of AI, true value lies not in images finalized by "Total Description," but in expressions that leave room for imagination. This concept aligns with the Japanese aesthetic of "Ma" (negative space). It is not merely empty space, but an "active void" that is only completed when the viewer's consciousness enters and interacts with the work.
Chapter 1: The Creation of Absence via Cutting and Sealing
To express is to reject 99% of infinite possibilities and select only the remaining 1%. This act is synonymous with inflicting an "irreversible cut (a small death)" upon the continuous flow of time.
If photography is the act of sharply "cutting" time with a mechanical eye, painting is the act of "sedimenting" the artist's physical time (duration) onto a canvas and "sealing" that time by laying down the brush. Both are equal in that they forcibly stop living, fluid time to erect a tombstone known as the "Artwork"—a proof of absence.
The accumulation of the unchosen countess possibilities—the discarded past—narrates the existential weight behind the work.
Chapter 2: Return to Corporality and Materiality
2-1. The Constraint of "Being There"
True art cannot exist without the artist physically engaging with the location. It can only manifest in this world through the constraints of the unfree body.
2-2. Creation as Translation into Matter
Human expression always involves translation into matter. For example, the thickness of pigment on canvas, the fibers of Washi paper, or the texture of magnetic tape. The "unfree process" of pulling concepts generated in non-material realms (digital or cerebral) back into the physical dimension gives the work its existential weight.
2-3. The Right to Decay
Immutable digital data is a "Record," but matter that ages with us is a "Companion." A work fixed in physical media shares the same time as the viewer, destined to slowly decay. This "synchronization with death" is the final warmth that material expression possesses.
Chapter 3: Redefining Fields of Expression via Absence Theory
Absence Theory re-examines what is not depicted (what is missing) across all forms of art.
• Painting:
By layering paint on canvas, the artist physically fixes their spent "time" and "bodily movements." The finished surface is a trace of accumulated past acts, a material substance proving the "Absence" of the artist who is no longer there.
• Sculpture:
By carving away "volume," the artist reveals the "form of absence" hidden within stone or clay. Or, by occupying space, it displaces the air that should have been there.
• Architecture:
By erecting walls to block the outside world, it cuts out a "Void" for humans to inhabit.
• Abstraction:
Liberated from the "gravity of meaning" found in representational art, it depicts pure "spiritual absence" through color and form alone.
• Installation:
Through physical arrangement, it fills the surroundings of the viewer's body with the "presence of absence."
• Media Art:
By fixing non-material data onto material interfaces, it exposes the "absence of substance" behind the data.
Chapter 4: Four Time Axes and "Gen" (Deep Black)
In expression, four independent time axes exist:
1. Memory of the Subject: Time flowing into the "past" from the moment of expression.
2. Memory of the Artist: The unchanging "gaze" that remains in the work even after the body perishes.
3. Memory of the Viewer: Individual experiences evoked by recollection in the future.
4. Record of the Machine (The 4th Axis): The cumulative time of digital devices and AI, which knows no forgetting. An inhuman axis that continues to stack individual records.
In the modern era, vast "Records" flow into this "Fourth Axis," emitting a blinding white light as the extreme of RGB (Additive Mixing), obliterating meaning.
However, only when materialized as artworks do they follow the laws of CMY (Subtractive Mixing) to become saturated and form a deep black—"Gen."
Photography reaches this "Gen"—the abyss containing all information—by "reversing" the mechanical record, while painting reaches it by "rejecting" the mechanical record and returning to physicality.
Chapter 5: Intersecting Ripples and the Essence of Emotion
5-1. Yobimizu (Priming Water) and the "Physical Vessel of Memory"
Artists must not present a comforting mirror, but a physical vessel of memory that scoops up and retains this "Saturated Gen." It is the act of scooping up "memories" that are about to be swallowed by the Fourth Axis (the torrent of information), not as single points, but together with their surrounding atmosphere, and presenting them again as a single physical "Artwork."
5-2. Tactile Perception of Absence
When the viewer faces this "Gen," it appears as a "living silence" accompanied by physical texture, not just visual darkness. When one perceives the untouchable "Absence" within the touchable matter, the viewer's memory links with the work, and the ripple turns into conviction.
Conclusion
"Ma" (Space) born from subtraction, and "Gen" (Deep Black) born at the end of addition.
My "Absence Theory" is an attempt to paradoxically prove the "human existence" that was once there, solely by depicting "Absence."
The memories of the subject, the artist, and the viewer, who lived in different times. And the inescapable mechanical record covering the modern age. The "Ripple of Absence" born from the overlapping of these four crosses time and space through the nodal point of physical "Things" and resonates.
That moment is the proof of hope: that within the cold saturation of the digital, a truth unique to humanity can still emerge.