On Representational Emptiness Akiyoshi Taniguchi

This collection is the work of Akiyoshi Taniguchi, a Buddhist monk who meditates on the concept of "Kuu" (Sunyata/Emptiness)—a fundamental tenet of Mahayana Buddhism—and a photographer.

For many years, Taniguchi has contemplated the relationship between a world without substance and the act of "seeing." His long-standing inquiry into representation reached a turning point with the onset of his own presbyopia (age-related farsightedness). Realizing that removing his glasses caused images to lose focus and fail to take shape, he had an awakening: "Substance is impermanent, and a photograph is an impermanent image."

Driven by this thought, the artist stood in a pine forest without his glasses. Unable to read the dials on his camera or confirm the focus, he engaged in the act of photography as a means to grasp Sunyata. After filming the forest on smooth, familiar film as if in a trance, he noticed the bark of the pines began to look like natural "pixels." This led him to then surrender his process to the autofocus of a digital camera—a medium he had previously regarded with skepticism for "lying and creating arbitrary representations."

Through this process, Taniguchi finally reached the conviction that photography itself is Sunyata, eventually leading him to burn the physical photographs as a memorial service (kuyo). Reflecting that the many calligraphies and paintings by Zen Master Hakuin might also have been acts towards Sunyata, this book poses profound questions about the ego, expression, and representation. It reveals the nature of photography as a "Kuu-zou" (Empty-image)—an entity that exists in an intersection with reality.