Modeling Nothingness

<p>For the second session of <em>Taming the Horror Vacui</em>, Haseeb Ahmed and Rib invited Rotterdam-based artist Michiel Huijben to give a workshop and Ahmed produced a collaborative artwork with him. Normally the one-to-one sessions between Ahmed and guests take place at Rib. Their output is a series of collaborative tabletops. The Coronavirus epidemic imposed the closure of public places and enforced domestic confinement, hence the meeting between Ahmed and Huijben had to happen online. The tabletop became a digital canvas.</p> <p>Huijben’s practice is deeply influenced by architecture. His lecture performances and installations present references and stories from the discipline. The idea of horror vacui shaped into a discussion about architectural ornaments and patterns used to fill the empty space on building surfaces.</p> <p>Here we have included an extract from their conversation during the fabrication of this digital artwork, in which the artists discuss geometrical ornaments as a models of themselves, insofar as a pattern contains its own replica for unrealized and infinite implementation.</p>