A shadow is an absence of light, a hole an absence of matter, a vacuum an empty space, but what kind of thing is an emptiness or absence? When we count the things in the world, should we count the holes and shadows? We perceive them, depict them and often care about them, but are they real? And what if each thing was taken away one at a time, creating more and more absences: what would the last subtraction leave us with? Something or nothing?
Join philosopher Tom Stoneham and art historian Michael White of the University of York as they introduce you to the strange world or nothingness. Tom’s research includes investigations of the possibility that there is nothing rather than something and the tangibility of shadows. Michael’s research focuses on abstract art and avant-garde practice in which voids, emptiness and absence feature strongly.