Unveiling the Void: Erasure, Latency, Potentiality
Proceedings of 7th Postgraduate International Conference
open access
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edited by
- Asia Benedetti - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia - email
- Marta Del Mutolo - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia - email
- Ester Giachetti - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia; École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France - email
- Ilaria Grippa - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia - email
Abstract
This volume presents the proceedings of the 7th Postgraduate International Conference organised by the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (8-10 October 2025). The event gathered early-career researchers to explore the notion of the relative void in the visual arts, spanning performative gestures, portable altars, drawing practices, architectural spaces, exhibitions, and feminist reconfigurations of artistic agency. Traditionally conceived as ‘empty space’, the void has evolved from its Aristotelian definition as absence of matter, through empirical physics, to profound artistic and philosophical interpretations. Its meaning oscillates between Western dualisms of fullness and emptiness and the Eastern conception (e.g. Jullien) of the void as integral to existence. Within contemporary practices, particularly feminist theory (Irigaray, Butler), this oscillation becomes a political tool: reconsidering absence can dismantle hierarchies of form and subjectivity, creating alternative spaces for visibility and care. Moving beyond the idea of an absolute void, the conference addressed the relative void as a shifting, relational condition where meaning arises through communication, absence, and transformation. If the void remains a “scientific reserve not yet exploited” (Burini), it represents “not a lack but an opportunity” (DeLillo): a field capable of questioning the very conditions of artistic production and perception.
The contributions assembled here demonstrate that analysing the void, rather than fullness, shifts the gaze towards the margins of artworks: the aftermath of gestures, sustaining intervals, and the disappearance of substantial bodies. This approach proposes an aesthetic and methodological turn attentive to traces, thresholds, and silences that shape perception. Crucially, it also addresses erasures in histories marked by trauma and genocide – absences that artistic gestures, curatorial, and architectural practices can interrogate and make visible. The papers are organised around three axes: Erasure, Latency, and Potentiality.
Keywords Material-discursive practice • Vincenzo Agnetti • Decorating methods • Istria • Deserts • Elio Petri • Oswald Mathias Ungers • Ecology • Language • National Socialism • Absence and Void • Metonymy • Horror vacui • Buddhism • Berlin • Entropy • John Hejduk • Early modern • Collective memory • Human-nature relationship • Voidness • Cast • Nil Yalter • L’assassino (1961) • Feminist epistemology • Erasure • Museum of Roman Ships • Void • Situated knowledges • Relative void • Climate change • Aesthetics • Body • Art • Absence • (Post-)conceptual art and institutional critique • Clothes Art • Intra-action • Performance • Absence and void • Daoism • Surface covering • Imperceptibility • Ethics • Formless • (Post) Conceptual Art and Institutional Critique • Axioms • Mnemotope • Feminist art • Memory • Restitution • National socialism • Propaganda visual culture • Berlin as a Green Archipelago • ‘Aryanizations’ • Still life • Void and memory • Ceramics • Incised slipware • Relational aesthetics • Video art • Venice • Overall approach • Semiotics of the body
e-ISBN 979-12-5742-001-7 | Published Dec. 15, 2025 | Language en
Copyright © 2025 Asia Benedetti, Marta Del Mutolo, Ester Giachetti, Ilaria Grippa. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.