NON Video: Laruelle - On the Black Universe in the human foundations of Color

In the beginning there is Black – man and Universe, rather than philosopher and World

-François Laruelle

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Full Text ​by François Laruelle's ON THE BLACK UNIVERSE: 'In the Human Foundations of Color'

I.
​
In the foundations of color, vision sees the 
Universe; in the foundations of the Universe, it 
sees man; in the foundations of man, it sees 
vision.

The Earth, the World, the Universe have to do 
with man: the Earth a little, the World a lot, the 
Universe passionately. The Universe is the inner 
passion for the Remote.

​Man works the Earth, lives in the World, thinks 
according to the Universe.

The Earth is man’s ground, the World his 
neighbor, the Universe his secret.

The Earth is the strait through which passes the 
light of the World; it is the tongue made of sand 
and water upon which, standing, man strides 
against the World.

The World is everything too vast and too narrow 
for the Earth, and again too narrow 
for the Universe. 

Man gropes around the World and the World 
floats in the Universe unable to touch its borders.

Into the World of narrow-minded thoughts, man 
​brings the emotion of the Universe.

The Universe, an object greater than the World, 
is not the object of thought, but rather its how or 
its according to. 

The Universe is an opaque and solitary thought, 
which has already leapt through man's shut eyes 
​as the space of a dream without dreaming.

The Universe is not reflected in another universe, 
and yet the Remote is accessible to us at each of 
​its points. 

The World is the endless confusion of man and 
Universe, the Universe treated as man's object. 

The forgetting of the essence of the Universe is 
less noticeable than the forgetting of the World. 

The forgetting of man as One(-of-)the-Universe 
and the Universe as One-through-man is less 
noticeable than the forgetting of being-in-the-
​World. 

II. 
In the beginning there is Black--man and 
Universe, rather than philosopher and World. 

Surrounding the philosopher everything becomes 
World and light. Surrounding man everything 
becomes Universe and opacity. 

Man, who carries away the Universe with him, 
is condemned, without knowing why, to the World 
and to the Earth, and neither the World nor the 
Earth can tell him why. He is answered only by 
​the Universe, being black and mute. 

Black is not in the object or the World, it is what
man sees in man, and the way in which man sees 
​man. 

Black is not merely what man sees in man, it is 
the only “color” inseparable from the hyper-
​intelligible expanse of the Universe.

Solitude of the man-without-horizon who sees 
​Black in Black. 

The Universe is deaf and blind, we can only love 
it and assist it. Man is the being who assists the 
​Universe. 

Only with eyes closed can we unfold the future, 
​and with eyes opened can we conceive to enter it. 
Light strikes the Earth with repeated blows, 
divides the World infinitely, solicits in vain the 
​invisible Universe. 
The Universe was “in” the World and the World 
​did not see it. 

Black prior to light is the substance of the 
Universe, what escaped from the World before 
​the World was born into the World. 

Black is the without-Ground which fixes light in 
the remote where man observes it. Here lies the 
​crazy and catatonic light of the World. 
Man approaches the World only by way of 
transcendental darkness, into which he never 
​entered and from which he will never leave. 

A phenomenal blackness entirely fills the essence 
of man. Because of it, the most ancient stars of 
the paleo-cosmos together with the most 
venerable stones of the archeo-earth, appear to 
man as being outside the World, and the World 
​itself appears as outside-World. 

The black universe is the opacity of the real or the 
​“color” that renders it invisible. 

​No light has ever seen the black universe. 
Black is anterior to the absence of light, whether 
this absence be the shadows that extinguish it, 
whether it be it nothingness or its positive 
opposite. The black universe is not a negative 
​light. 

Black is the Radical of color, what never was a 
color nor the attribute of a color, the emotion 
​seizing man when affected by a color. 

As opposed to the black objectified in the 
spectrum, Black is already manifested, before any 
​process of manifestation. This is vision-in-Black. 
Black is entirely interior to itself and to man. 
Black is without opposite: even light, which tries 
to turn it into its opposite, fails in the 
face of the rigor of its secret. Only the secret sees into 
​the secret, like Black in Black. 

The essence of color is not colored: it’s the black 
​universe.

Metaphysical white is a simple discoloration, the 
prismatic or indifferent unity of colors. 
Phenomenal blackness is indifferent to color 
because it represents their ultimate degree of 
reality, that which prevents their final dissolution 
​into the mixtures of light. 

Philosophy and sometimes painting treat black 
and white as contraries, colors as opposites; they 
mix them, under the authority of light as the 
​supreme mix.

The human science of color is founded on the 
blackness known as the “universe.” They 
cognitively unify man, the Universe, and color 
theory--and their potencies in Black, which is 
their common reality, but in the last instance 
​only. 

A human science of color makes the black 
universe the requisite that is real or immanent to 
their physics. Black is the posture itself of science 
​and of its “relation” to color. 

IV.
Science is a way of thinking in black and white
which studies the light of the Cosmos and
the color of the World: black, by way of its posture
or its inherence to the real; white, by way of its
representation of the real. A way of thinking
where white is no longer the opposite of black,
but rather its positively discolored reflection.

Science is the mode of thought in which black
determines in the last instance white.

The black universe transforms colors without
mixing them. It simplifies color in order to bring
out the whiteness of understanding in its essence
of non-pictorial reflection. 

Our uchromia: to learn to think from the point 
of view of Black as what determines color in the
​ last instance rather than what limits it. 
Philosophical technology has been withdrawn 
mimetically from the World, in order to reflect 
and reproduce it. Such technology is inadequate 
for thinking the Universe. 
We are still postulating that reality is given to us 
through the paradigm of the World. We 
perpetuate the inhuman amphibology that 
confuses the World and the Universe. We believe
that reality is horizon and light, aperture and 
flash, whereas it resembles more the posture of
an opaque non-relation (to) light. When 
exploring the uni-versal dimension of the 
cosmic, we remain prisoners of cosmo-logical 
difference. Our philosophers are children who 
​are afraid of the Dark. 

Philosophy is thinking by way of a generalized 
“black box”; it is the effort to fit black into light 
and to push it back to the rear of the caverns. 
Yet, the cosmo-logical generalization of black 
does not save it from its status as attribute, quite 
the contrary. Black alone is subject and may 
render manifest the philosophical interlocking of 
​concepts. 

Do not think technology first: rocket and the lift 
off of the rocket. Look instead, like in the depths 
of a closed eye, into the opacity of knowledge 
where, forming one with it, the rocket passes 
through infinite distances. Think according to 
the knowledge that steers the rocket as if in a 
dream, heavier and more transparent than the 
boundless night it penetrates with a silent 
​thunderclap. Think science first. 

Stop sending your ships through the narrow 
cosmo-logical corridor. Stop making them climb 
the extreme walls of the world. Let them jump 
over the cosmic barrier and enter into the 
hyperspace of the Universe. Cease having them 
compete with light, for your rockets too can 
realize the more-than-psychic, postural mutation, 
and shift from light to black universe which is no 
longer a color; from cosmic color to postural and 
subjective black. Let your rockets become subject 
of the Universe and be present at every point of 
​the Remote. 

​Simplify color! See black, think white! 
See black rather than believe “unconscious.” And
​think white rather than believe “conscious.”

See black! Not that all your suns have fallen-- 
they have since reappeared, only slightly 
dimmer--but Black is the “color” that falls 
​eternally from the Universe onto your Earth.

Video: Aaron Metté 
Text: François Laruelle
Special thanks to Craig Bloom, Nicola Masciandaro, Daniel Barber, Recess Activity and TPSNY

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