What does nothing look like? See for yourself

What does nothing look like? An artist has tried to create a visual representation of the concept, and in a quite unique way: by hooking himself up to a robot carving machine.

 

By using the machine that interpreted his brainwaves, Gustav Metzger produced a sculpture of his empty thoughts —and appropriately dubbed it "Null Object."  

^{Gustav Metzger's "Null Object"}  

"The project is being exhibited at London’s Work Gallery, and an accompanying book features further explorations of emptiness, including novelist Hari Kunzru on nothingness as a productive category, and Bronac Ferran on ‘the radical consequences of emptiness,’" DesignWeek reported.

 

Metzger worked with art and technology group London Fieldworks to create 3D-shape information based on EEG readings of his brainwaves while he thought of "nothing."

 

The readings were translated into signals to a manufacturing robot that carved a piece of Portland Stone into the sculpture.

 

What resulted was a "brain-like object, dotted with crystalline, ovoid shapes. Metzger’s empty brain," DesignWeek said.

 

A separate article on Popular Science said the sculpture suggests that empty thoughts "look like (a) weird blobby object."

 

"In other words, this is Gustav Metzger’s Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, empirical proof that even when we try our hardest to think of nothing, there’s always something going on up there," it said. — TJD, GMA News