Our understanding of darkness is saturated with circumstantial and symbolic meaning. Most violent crimes occur in the dark and many people tell their teenagers that “nothing good happens after 10 pm.” It makes sense that if you are doing something wrong you would want to obscure your activity as much as possible. Interestingly, as we have witnessed recently, doing something wrong unapologetically, in plain sight, is so counter-intuitive it can also provide effective camouflage. Regardless, the association between darkness and wrong or evil behavior is a powerful metaphor in our society. This metaphor has been reinforced and amplified by ancient phrases like “the way of the wicked is like total darkness.” Paradoxically, we can never truly understand the nature of light without experiencing various degrees of darkness.
This recent pizza box manipulation explores the nature of darkness. I used a special light absorbing paint that purports to soak up more than 98% of the light that hits it. From a distance the surface of the box appears as a flat silhouette with no visible articulation. As you get closer the folds and manipulations, although obscured, become more evident because no paint can absorb 100% of the light that hits its surface. Regardless, darkness is not really a thing, but rather it is the absence of a thing — it is the absence of light. Therefore, darkness is not the prevailing factor, it is the light that controls how dark something can become. We all live amidst and contribute to the various degrees of darkness. Our bad behavior is inherently destructive and diminishes what could be. However, neither darkness nor bad behavior can build new worlds. They can only cling to the scaffolding fashioned by positive, constructive forces.