Wayne Adams

Cloud of Unknowing

The main focus of my work is large-scale, site-specific installations of aluminum foil. Most recently, I have been considering these artworks in relation to the medieval text, The Cloud of Unknowing, with specific application to thinking about contemporary technology and artificial intelligence. I would very much like to join the learning community around apophatic studies and the ‘algorithmic flattening’ of artificial intelligence, both to deepen my own research and understanding of the topic and to participate in a community interested in its connection with contemporary art.

My interest in linking apophatic theology with such a corporeal, analog artmaking practice comes out of a long history of working in the intersection of religion and contemporary art, with a particular focus on Christian theology. I have found conversations around theology and art to be particularly rich and meaningful, and in finding community with likeminded individuals, have developed some of my deepest friendships.

I found my way to the topic of apophatic theology via the contemporary philosopher, Slavoj Žižek's elaboration of Lacan's notion of das Ding — the Thing. I’ve attached an image of my painting, The Void of The Thing (2012), for reference. In my foil installations, the dynamic aluminum structure does not represent the unrepresentable—I think it performs, so to speak, the structural position of the Thing. I see it as a sort-of reverse or anti-artificial intelligence. The work embodies a non-computational intelligence rooted in phenomenological experience.