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Abstract
This research investigates how science, literature and art depict phenomena/matter; how ‘matter’ emerges and interacts with other ‘matter’ and how ‘matter’ can have presence yet be simultaneously empty.
Although some artists, writers, historians, philosophers, scientists and others can appear to work in isolation, they are in fact consistently engaging with the world, effecting and being affected by it and this interaction generates a ‘matrix’ of information. Within this shifting information exchange matrix everything exists by virtue of their relationships with other matter/phenomena. Some relationships are obvious, others are discrete, and countless others are hidden.
A brief background of the history of quantum mechanics and a summary of the salient scientific points relevant to this thesis are discussed, in particular the ideas that affect our visual subjectivity. Scientists are not alone as Buddhists have been teaching similar concepts regarding the duality of the truth and the nature of emptiness for centuries and many writers, historian, philosophers, artists and others have also been in pursuit of the meaning of matter.
I look at camouflage and subterfuge, in a visual and literary context and how such possibly non-deliberate or deliberate concealments affect our relationships with other phenomena/matter by influencing our perception, perspectives and preferences and it is on this basis of interconnectivity that matter emerges. The idea that information/meaning/matter can be deliberately, or not, buried beneath subterfuge or embedded in ciphers lead me to focus the relationship of my work to codes; the Braille alphabet for example. I also look at a number of contemporary artists, who I believe, have adopted some principles of physics, emptiness and interconnectivity in their work, knowingly or not.
Everything (matter) and everyone (matter) are in constant exchange with everything and everyone. Therefore, we are unable to predict further events with any certainty, due to the immeasurable interconnectivity of all matter. Concluding that matter/meaning is ultimately subjective and that matter has a presence yet is simultaneously empty.