Dark Matter

Dark Matter by Granville Carroll is an artist’s book about darkness and light, the infinity of the cosmos and the divine, big bangs and subtle language. Themes relating to cosmic origins and thoughts on existence, life and death, are embedded in the writings and images. Comprised of heavy black paper with only silver and black printing, the reader of Dark Matter must adjust to an aesthetic where light reaches into an already compelling and infinite-seeming blackness. Dark Matter expands on Carroll’s themes of Afrofuturism, years of beautiful experiments with analog and digital photographic montage techniques, and poetry. This project extends from his greater work that “explores and expands ideas around racial blackness to encompass spatial blackness, temporal blackness, and spiritual blackness. Carroll highlights the imaginative qualities of the human mind through world building and storytelling to discover new futures and states of being.”

2022, VSW Press, 148 pages, 6 x 9 inches, coil bound with screen printed soft matte covers, digital offset, edition of 150

Currently sold out.

Dark Matter, Experimental Video, 2022, explores the origins of the universe, metaphors of darkness and blackness, and cycles of life and death. Adapted from my artist book Dark Matter, originally published by Visual Studies Workshop Press, the video uses experimental techniques to animate the images, giving them new life and movement. The voice overlay speaks the poetry and text from the book into existence. The video forms a loose narrative describing darkness as the origins of existence and the multidimensionality and expansion of it throughout time and space. Spaces of blackness and silence create a meditative space for the viewer to contemplate their selfhood and interactions with darkness.