Ma is a Japanese word which can be roughly translated as "gap", "space", "pause" or "the space between two structural parts." The spatial concept is experienced progressively through intervals of spatial designation. In Japanese, ma, the word for space, suggests interval. It is best described as a consciousness of place, not in the sense of an enclosed three-dimensional entity, but rather the simultaneous awareness of form and non-form deriving from an intensification of vision.

Ma is not something that is created by compositional elements; it is the thing that takes place in the imagination of the human who experiences these elements. Therefore ma can be defined as experiential place understood with emphasis on interval.

Usage in the West

In his 2001 book The Art of Looking Sideways, Alan Fletcher

Alan Fletcher (graphic designer)

Alan Gerard Fletcher was a British graphic designer. In his obituary, he was described by The Daily Telegraph as "the most highly regarded graphic designer of his generation, and probably one of the most prolific"....

 discusses the importance of exemplifying "space

Negative space

Negative space, in art, is the space around and between the subject of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, and not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space is occasionally used to artistic effect as the "real"...

" as a substance:
Thomas Pynchon

Thomas Pynchon

Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...

's book The Crying of Lot 49

The Crying of Lot 49

The Crying of Lot 49 is a novel by Thomas Pynchon, first published in 1966. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, it is about a woman, Oedipa Maas, possibly unearthing the centuries-old conflict between two mail distribution companies, Thurn und Taxis and the Trystero...

stresses the concept of waste in language, in terms of negative space determining outcomes of actual events.

The Honda VFR1200F

Honda VFR1200F

The VFR1200F is a sport touring motorcycle from Honda, which has a V4 engine. It has the first dual clutch transmission offered on a motorcycle.-History:Honda announced the VFR1200F in 2009 and unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show...

 motorcycle specifically references the concepts of Ma relative to the design of the space between the side fascia.

Usage in Eastern Philosophy

The Taoist

Taoism

Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...

 philosopher

Chinese philosophy

Chinese philosophy is philosophy written in the Chinese tradition of thought. The majority of traditional Chinese philosophy originates in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States era, during a period known as the "Hundred Schools of Thought", which was characterized by significant intellectual and...

 Lao Tse wrote extensively on the concept of Ma including his poem The Uses of Not :

Thirty spokes meet in the hub,

but the empty space between them

is the essence of the wheel.

Pots are formed from clay,

but the empty space between it

is the essence of the pot.

Walls with windows and doors form the house,

but the empty space within it

is the essence of the house.

See also

• Maai
  Maai
  , translating simply to "interval", is a Japanese martial arts term referring to the space between two opponents in combat; formally, the "engagement distance". It is a complex concept, incorporating not just the distance between opponents, but also the time it will take to cross the distance,...
  
  
• Mu (negative)
  Mu (negative)
  or Wu , is a word which has been translated variously as "not", "nothing", "without", "nothingness", "non existent", "non being", or evocatively simply as "no thing"...
  
  
• Wu wei
  Wu wei
  Wu wei is an important concept of Taoism , that involves knowing when to act and when not to act. Another perspective to this is that "Wu Wei" means...
  
  , a term in Chinese philosophy
• Negative space
  Negative space
  Negative space, in art, is the space around and between the subject of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, and not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space is occasionally used to artistic effect as the "real"...
  
  
• Liminality
  Liminality
  Liminality is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes, as defined in neurological psychology and in the anthropological theories of ritual by such writers as Arnold van...