5 ms·

The Reinvention of Black (2015)

54 points by dnetesn 8y ago

gaius 8y ago
Good article but you can’t really discuss the cultural impact of black without mentioning the goths.
teh_klev 8y ago
I can't find the previous HN discussion, but there was a bit of a rivalry between Stuart Semple and Anish Kapoor over who could create the blackest black paint: https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/ezw8wp/mattest-flattest-black-acrylic-paint-anish-kapoor https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/ezw8wp/mattest-flatt...
amelius 8y ago
Reminded me of this recent news article: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/21/holed-up-man-falls-into-art-installation-of-8ft-hole-painted-black https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/21/holed-u...
jontayesp 8y ago
Is Nautilus doing ok, since the problem a few months ago about paying writers? I've noticed lately that a lot of front-page articles are pulled from older issues, and they publish fewer articles every week. Also, I still haven't received any print issues in the mail this year. Maybe they are transitioning to a digital-only publication?
- woqe 8y ago
  You haven't received a print issue this year? That makes me think my story may not be unique. I ordered a subscription to the physical magazine on May 1st of this year. Liz (managing editor) responded to my two inquiries about shipping. Each time she stated shipping was 2-3 weeks away. Both of those time frames were missed. Liz stated there were issues with the production of one issue (specifically #24). Nearly four months after ordering, I am still product-less. I asked for a refund earlier this week, and I haven't gotten a response--I have escalated the issue to PayPal at this point. The order is marked as refunded on naultil.us's store page, but I haven't seem any action on the PayPal end.
jihadjihad 8y ago
Interesting they did not mention Vantablack even once. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack
andrewla 8y ago
Saying black is the "absence of color" only makes sense when we talk about additive color. For subtractive color, black is a color like any other, just like white is. The entire area of dyes and pigments is intensely fascinating. I went down this rabbit hole while trying to get a set of paints for a toddler that mimicked process color primaries rather than the traditional but inaccurate red/yellow/blue primaries. Additive color is in a sense a solved problem -- we can create monochromatic light (or at least very narrowly band-limited light) in all possible wavelengths, and all human perception of color is based on a fixed set of wavelengths. It is possible to produce lights that will mimic any color that humans can perceive. Subtractive colors, on the other hand, are dependent on finding physical substances with emission spectra that roughly map to the gamut of human perception. There are no magic substances that produce a monochromatic reflective baseline, instead, we are dependent on finding substances that have emission spectra that are simply close enough to the complements of the human visual primaries. That's a hard enough problem, much less dealing with the fact that actually applying dye or pigment to another physical substance involves chemical reactions that may affect the color of the pigment, as may exposure to ultraviolet or visible light, or changes in temperature. At one point I had a Canon inkjet printer and I switched to using off-brand ink, because it was so much cheaper, and looking at the photos now (~5 years later) the difference is stark -- the cyans of the knockoff ink have almost completely vanished, even from photos that were not exposed to sunlight or significant direct light, while the original Canon ink is still true to the original photos.
- close04 8y ago
  Color are colors only because visible light reaches your sensor (eye, camera) and it's interpreted as one color or another. And this should already hint at where I'm going. So whether you have a laser emitting a specific visible wavelength, or a sheet of paper absorbing some, in the end visible light will reach you and you can say "hey look, it's red". Different visible wavelength reaches your retina, different color. Now imagine you had true black light source (paradoxically) "emitting" no visible wavelength. Or you had a sheet of paper covered with true black ink, absorbing all visible wavelengths. What kind of visible photons would you register? What wavelength of visible light would reach you? Since no photons get to your sensor how exactly do you define that color other than "absence of color"? Or are you you talking about a convention that "the absence of color" would in itself be called a color, in this case black?
joe_the_user 8y ago
It's fascinating how technology, moods, fashion and status have sort-of followed each other. I know Beau Brummell introduced the austere, well-coiffed style that sort of evolved to the modern suit[1] (likely helped by the dyes mentioned in the article). The Modern suit was also helped along by being a product of mass productions, as John Berger outlines[2]. The standard color of the suit had shifted from black to dark blue by the 1970s when I was growing up, John T. Malloy described the dark blue suit as a non-negotiable element of proper business attire. And the rise of effective dyes in the 1960s meant that happy, colorful looks were universal as the casual look. I think all this went into the late 70s/early-80s tendency of punks to wear black, which would now imply rebellion though that didn't prevent fusion of high fashion and rebellion later. And that's a small fragment of all the ways these things have gone. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Brummell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Brummell [2] https://kwilliamscontemporarythemes.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/the-suit-and-the-photograph-john-berger/ https://kwilliamscontemporarythemes.wordpress.com/2013/11/16... [3] https://www.nbizmag.com/magarticles/dressforsuccess2015.pdf https://www.nbizmag.com/magarticles/dressforsuccess2015.pdf
mchahn 8y ago
I have found it interesting that I cannot mix paints (subtractive color) to get black. It always seems to be brown. Is it possible to find a combination of paints that blocks all light? BTW, this is not considering the possible "combination" of just one color black.

54 points by dnetesn 8y ago

Good article but you can’t really discuss the cultural impact of black without mentioning the goths.

I can't find the previous HN discussion, but there was a bit of a rivalry between Stuart Semple and Anish Kapoor over who could create the blackest black paint: https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/ezw8wp/mattest-flattest-black-acrylic-paint-anish-kapoor https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/ezw8wp/mattest-flatt...

amelius 8y ago

Reminded me of this recent news article: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/21/holed-up-man-falls-into-art-installation-of-8ft-hole-painted-black https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/21/holed-u...

jontayesp 8y ago

Is Nautilus doing ok, since the problem a few months ago about paying writers? I've noticed lately that a lot of front-page articles are pulled from older issues, and they publish fewer articles every week. Also, I still haven't received any print issues in the mail this year. Maybe they are transitioning to a digital-only publication?

woqe 8y ago
You haven't received a print issue this year? That makes me think my story may not be unique. I ordered a subscription to the physical magazine on May 1st of this year. Liz (managing editor) responded to my two inquiries about shipping. Each time she stated shipping was 2-3 weeks away. Both of those time frames were missed. Liz stated there were issues with the production of one issue (specifically #24). Nearly four months after ordering, I am still product-less. I asked for a refund earlier this week, and I haven't gotten a response--I have escalated the issue to PayPal at this point. The order is marked as refunded on naultil.us's store page, but I haven't seem any action on the PayPal end.

jihadjihad 8y ago

Interesting they did not mention Vantablack even once. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack

andrewla 8y ago

Saying black is the "absence of color" only makes sense when we talk about additive color. For subtractive color, black is a color like any other, just like white is. The entire area of dyes and pigments is intensely fascinating. I went down this rabbit hole while trying to get a set of paints for a toddler that mimicked process color primaries rather than the traditional but inaccurate red/yellow/blue primaries. Additive color is in a sense a solved problem -- we can create monochromatic light (or at least very narrowly band-limited light) in all possible wavelengths, and all human perception of color is based on a fixed set of wavelengths. It is possible to produce lights that will mimic any color that humans can perceive. Subtractive colors, on the other hand, are dependent on finding physical substances with emission spectra that roughly map to the gamut of human perception. There are no magic substances that produce a monochromatic reflective baseline, instead, we are dependent on finding substances that have emission spectra that are simply close enough to the complements of the human visual primaries. That's a hard enough problem, much less dealing with the fact that actually applying dye or pigment to another physical substance involves chemical reactions that may affect the color of the pigment, as may exposure to ultraviolet or visible light, or changes in temperature. At one point I had a Canon inkjet printer and I switched to using off-brand ink, because it was so much cheaper, and looking at the photos now (~5 years later) the difference is stark -- the cyans of the knockoff ink have almost completely vanished, even from photos that were not exposed to sunlight or significant direct light, while the original Canon ink is still true to the original photos.

close04 8y ago
Color are colors only because visible light reaches your sensor (eye, camera) and it's interpreted as one color or another. And this should already hint at where I'm going. So whether you have a laser emitting a specific visible wavelength, or a sheet of paper absorbing some, in the end visible light will reach you and you can say "hey look, it's red". Different visible wavelength reaches your retina, different color. Now imagine you had true black light source (paradoxically) "emitting" no visible wavelength. Or you had a sheet of paper covered with true black ink, absorbing all visible wavelengths. What kind of visible photons would you register? What wavelength of visible light would reach you? Since no photons get to your sensor how exactly do you define that color other than "absence of color"? Or are you you talking about a convention that "the absence of color" would in itself be called a color, in this case black?

joe_the_user 8y ago

It's fascinating how technology, moods, fashion and status have sort-of followed each other. I know Beau Brummell introduced the austere, well-coiffed style that sort of evolved to the modern suit[1] (likely helped by the dyes mentioned in the article). The Modern suit was also helped along by being a product of mass productions, as John Berger outlines[2]. The standard color of the suit had shifted from black to dark blue by the 1970s when I was growing up, John T. Malloy described the dark blue suit as a non-negotiable element of proper business attire. And the rise of effective dyes in the 1960s meant that happy, colorful looks were universal as the casual look. I think all this went into the late 70s/early-80s tendency of punks to wear black, which would now imply rebellion though that didn't prevent fusion of high fashion and rebellion later. And that's a small fragment of all the ways these things have gone. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Brummell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Brummell [2] https://kwilliamscontemporarythemes.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/the-suit-and-the-photograph-john-berger/ https://kwilliamscontemporarythemes.wordpress.com/2013/11/16... [3] https://www.nbizmag.com/magarticles/dressforsuccess2015.pdf https://www.nbizmag.com/magarticles/dressforsuccess2015.pdf

mchahn 8y ago

I have found it interesting that I cannot mix paints (subtractive color) to get black. It always seems to be brown. Is it possible to find a combination of paints that blocks all light? BTW, this is not considering the possible "combination" of just one color black.