Abstract This essay focuses on the vernacular of black artmaking as it emerged during the 2023 liquid blackness symposium “Music Video as Black Art: Claiming the B-Side,” and particularly on creatives’ search for what they call the “God particle.” Following this (in)formal conceit, the essay explores points of friction between different modes of knowing, one coming from, and committed to, the field, and the other committed to the particle. The essay concludes that the God particle might be a way in which creatives describe their knowledge of being part of a field of practice, a critical mass of black aesthetics that does not have to justify itself.
Alessandra Raengo (Wed,) studied this question.