Michael Marder

“Dust shows that space, traversed by barely noticeable vibrations and morsels of things, is not empty and warns us against equating it to a vacuum. It substantiates the philosophical position of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who ridiculed the thesis that a void existed in nature and who held that even microscopic units of water and air contained intricate worlds lodged within worlds within worlds. But, instead of focusing our gazes on itself, on the uncanny microcosms it houses, dust foregrounds the space it occupies. In the state of maximum exposure, it retreats from our grasp. In spite of being noticed and seen, it functions as a sign that points toward a reality outside it.”
― Michael Marder, Dust