Paul Laffoley
(b. 1940, Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Black White Hole
1976
Oil, Acrylic and Lettering on Canvas
73 1⁄2 x 73 1⁄2 in.

Subject: Cosmology and a New World View

Symbol Evocation: The Mystery of Natural Singularities in Nature

Comments: The construction of a world-view or a meta-history (which exists at the fifth realm of manifestation from pure revelation) is dependent on the previous more encompassing context- the fourth- which is the realm of cosmology. I have selected, therefore, as the basis of my new world-view, the entity from contemporary cosmology, which has taken on the proportions of a true symbol- myth—the black hole. As an occasion of methodological unknowingness of the gothic vision of death, it partially satisfies the definition of a symbol as the portal to the full impact of a true mystery. Added to this is the theory that at some time in the process of its existence a black hole becomes its inverse-- the white hole. The universe, therefore, is seen as a kind of vacillation of entropy and syntropy (like breathing out and breathing in) a cycle in which the goal of history is seen as the actualization of all possibilities forwards and backwards in time constantly revealing new visions of nature. In the process of the universe, the black- white hole implies a three part cycle of meta- history:

1) A simple sacred tribalism- motivated by mysticism (the black hole of the breathing in);
followed by
2) A period of high civilization (first utopian in character and then bureaucratic in nature),
(the holding of the breath at the naked singularity of the black hole); followed by
3) A period of rapid degeneration (a complex of secular nomadism and barbarism) motivated by a
life flow in the physical senses (the release of the white hole as the breathing out).

The cycle repeats as a form, which organizes the constantly changing particulars of that which has only history.

Manley, Roger The End is Near!: Visions of Apocalypse, Millennium and Utopia Dilettante Press, Los Angeles. 1998 pp 74-9.
Richmond, Lisa The End is Near! World Art: The Magazine of Contemporary Visual Arts issue 18, 1998