Blackness matters

At first glance, and for the briefest of seconds, the title of this essay seems a category error. The piece ¹ was published in the monthly online art publication e-flux, yet strangely appears to be headed by a mathematical equation. Its stark ciphers for relations and calculations are shorn of the more humane conjunctions and padding of the verbal statement and seem strikingly incongruous with the expected tone of the forum. When those seconds pass, however, we’ve picked up smartly on three substantive verbal terms, which also populate that title, respectively ‘life’, ‘blackness’ and ‘matter’ and a social narrative is conjured up before us. Before moving on with our reading of the main body of the text, we return to the maths with additional linguistic resources. What does it mean? We translate – or rather, transliterate: Life (as ‘one’) divided by blackness (as ‘zero’) equals infinity divided by infinity, or infinity minus infinity. We can understand why the one, the wholeness, might represent life; we can also understand why, given present human conditions and the political constitution of the world (and see Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics here), someone should aver for their calculations that blackness is as nothing, or rather, zero. But what is the significance in the fact that the resolution of this division is given on the right-hand side of the equation as infinity minus infinity or infinity divided by infinity. A basic mathematical logic seems to tell us that infinity minus infinity and infinity divided by infinity cannot be the same thing. Surely the first comes to zero and the second to one. But then again, that would only be true, if infinity were in fact a number which it is not, that is, it does not have a definitive value, so as it is, in fact, a concept of endlessness then these mathematical operations involving it, the minus and the division can only signify processes … endless ones at that? Hence blackness will never be summed to life … is this the conclusion we should reach? That the process of trying to understand how and what way, and by what quantity blackness will be approximated to life will never end? The mathematical mix of numbers with concepts (‘blackness’) – or is it with matter? (and does it matter?) – doesn’t operate by the ‘normal’ rules here. We’re startled out of our complacency. Out of our complicity. The eruption of a strange order, a heresy of the illegitimate introduction of mere matter into the ideal realm of number is compounded immediately after that 32title with a series of dictionary definitions by way of epigraph. It is only on consultation of the reference notes that it is made clear that this is a dictionary entry of the meaning of ‘matter’. But again, the same question arises as with the title and epigraph – namely, is the reference a part of the text, is it inside or out? At any rate we’re given a jolt once more by the unexpected and incongruous format. We’re then further put out of joint by the sudden leap and transformation in the series of numbered definitions 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 … 22a … b … c … Once into the body of the text we will understand why that leap from everyday definitions to specialist philosophical meaning is made, but for now it’s unsettling – and why are 17 definitions overlooked? Do they not matter? What does it mean when something doesn’t matter?