American Minimalism is about geometry and the object’s relationship to the viewer’s body. It is mathematical. Japanese "Ma" is about the interval . It is the silence between two claps. The empty space inside a bamboo joint. Minimalism says: Look at this thing. Ma says: Look at what is not there. In my 2021 piece, Wind Score , I hung 1,000 sheets of rice paper from the ceiling. No glue. No weights. The artwork was not the paper. The artwork was the moment the door opened, the air shifted, and the papers breathed. That breath—that interval—is Ma.
She refers to her microphone as an “exorcism tool,” often asking sound engineers to turn off the monitor so she cannot see her own waveform. “If I see the sound visually, I get self-conscious. I need to be blind.” rie tachikawa interview full