III. The Circulation of Incompleteness and Power
As I began to extend my drawings beyond the “frame” and leave spaces of emptiness within the exhibition, I gradually realized that space is not a passive container for the work, but a mechanism that organizes viewing. The ways in which viewers move, pause, and gaze within the space are never entirely free; they are subtly guided and disciplined. As Foucault suggests, space itself is a structure of power, shaping experience and behavior through distribution, arrangement, and strategies of visibility. Under this understanding, “looking” is no longer a purely perceptual act, but a socially constructed and orchestrated practice.
For me, this “guided viewing” relates not only to power, but also to how memory is organized and represented. When memory is spatialized, it is subject to a “viewing order”—we are directed to revisit certain fragments while others are concealed or forgotten. Within memory itself, there exists a hierarchy of visibility: some elements are illuminated and replayed, while others remain suppressed in darkness, revealed only from specific angles or moments. Thus, in constructing space, I am simultaneously reconstructing the order of memory—both my own and that of the viewer.
In What If It Was, this “incomplete space” became central to the work. The drawing no longer remains confined within the canvas but, through layering and displacement, extends into the viewer’s bodily perception. Viewers cannot “read” the image all at once; they must continually adjust their posture and perspective to catch elements that are hidden or tucked into corners. This act of looking is itself a designed experience: viewers are made aware of their bodies as positioned within a guided framework, and the meaning of the work is generated precisely through this unstable process of viewing.
During most of the summer show exhibition, I stayed on site to observe viewers’ reactions. I noticed that many visitors questioned my work and its title, asking things like, “What is the work expressing?” or “Why are there empty frames?” When I answered, “It could be anything—perhaps a psychological space storing your memories,” they often became excited, sharing and gesturing their own imaginings. In that moment, the power relation shifted: the work was no longer a statement of my personal experience but became a shared field of perception. Viewers always unconsciously project themselves onto a text and are subject to the author’s control; here, I was “de-authorized”—the work no longer belonged solely to me, but was recalled and reconstructed within the viewers’ bodies. Interestingly, many visitors only dared to ask questions after noticing the somewhat incomplete title, What If It Was. This hesitation reveals their reliance on authoritative meaning—they seek a “correct” interpretation. For me, the title functions as a form of resistance, a refusal to define the work as “something it must be.” It suspends the work in uncertainty, allowing the freedom and circulation of power between artist and audience.
However, toward the end of the exhibition, I gradually realized that I had not truly escaped the “frame” or “completeness,” but had entered a more complex structure—a system of viewing, spatial, and memory-power circulation. In constructing the space, I was also replaying the hierarchies and losses of memory; viewers, while being watched, were simultaneously producing their own recollections. The space became a site of negotiation, and my drawing gained new life within this dynamic confrontation. Yet all of this was still orchestrated by me. While I had critiqued overly complete works and sought to create viewing routes that transcended boundaries, I was simultaneously redistributing the right to see. When I decided which images were revealed and which were hidden, I became, again, the producer of “visibility.” What I initially thought of as “incompleteness” as resistance might in fact be just another form of power transfer—from the observed to the controller of viewing.
In deconstructing the frame, I was also constructing a new one: viewers’ paths, their lines of sight, and even the “empty” spaces they were forced to confront were all predetermined. As Steyerl critiques, contemporary image production has commodified “participation”; what is called “viewer agency” may be an illusion absorbed by the system. Similarly, Wolfgang Iser (1978) notes in The Act of Reading that reading is interactive, with readers unconsciously filling in the “gaps” intentionally left by the author. In this process, readers are both active participants and guided by the author’s structure and cues.
I feel conflicted and perplexed. Could the “incompleteness” I pursue become another form of control? Even when I design an open viewing path, am I still manipulating how viewers experience the work? This “deconstruction of control” may itself reproduce new forms of power. This awareness has left me ambivalent—I want to break the visual order, yet I cannot entirely relinquish authorial control. Thus, “dissipation” is no longer only a formal strategy of blurring and leaving space; it becomes an ethical consideration: when I let images blur, am I truly releasing their freedom? In this sense, I find myself returning to the stage of layering elements repeatedly—still controlling the work, even in its apparent openness.
IV. The Repositioning of Practice
References：
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books.
Iser, W. (1978) The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Steyerl, H. (2012) The Wretched of the Screen. Berlin: Sternberg Press.