Oh hi! Next week we’re doing a Q+A video! Respond to this comment (or the various other posts across the socials media - links in the doobly-do) with questions you want answered about the show or other Idea Channel Like Topics you’ve been mulling over. Thumbs up the questions you like the most! (Doesn’t guarantee an answer it, but it doesn’t hurt.) You have until 8am ET July 5 to leave a question!
ME TOO! With VidCon and other travel we ended up not having time to shoot something before this got uploaded but I'm gonna try to. Also - the advertising is right - it does smell nice.
Having red/green colorblindness, I always find these debates interesting. I think we should all share colors because some of us only have access to so many.
4lkareth I don't want to misrepresent it. Mine is not particularly intense. I think the lighter tone of my comment didn't come through though. I didn't mean it as like my stark opinion, just a light hearted additional perspective. :)
That said, colorblindness can present significant, real-world problems. I can never get a pilot's license, or become an electrician. A lot of things that rely on color coding are not accessible to colorblind people.
AdventureLog the way I see it is that the company should have access to the product but not the color. If any other company can produce a similar product in a different manor but end in the same location, they should have equal right to the results they produced
In this case, it's considered a pigment and that's what the guy has a license to use. As a concept/adjective, anyone's free to use it. Just good luck figuring out how to make it
I have no problem with anyone copyrighting the material that makes a colour, but I would never recognise or honour a copyrighted colour. This is like those companies who wanted to copyright human dna. They didn't create the dna, they merely quantified it. Should I be able to copyright your house simply because I look for it and find it? The whole concept of copyrighting colours is a ridiculous sign of the cancer of modern control freakish capitalism.
Mat Broomfield There's an important distinction between copyright and trademark, though: trademarks are meant to prevent misleading marketing, and therefore limited to their context. Take the UPS brown, for example: if another transport company were to start using that colour in their graphic profile, UPS could probably challenge them in court. But they could not challenge a company in a completely different business - say, web design or healthcare. Coca-Cola couldn't drop their red and start using Pepsi blue instead, but TH-cam probably could.
Thanks for the distinction but they still amount to the same thing in thins case: a restriction on who can use certain colours in arts. As Mike said, this artist is trademarking use of the colour PRE-EMPTIVELY. There is NO existing association, so why should he get to do this?
I really think the debate with Vantablack just ends with the fact that vantablack is a material, wich has unique propieties. If I discovered or somehow produces a paint that is as dark as Vantablack noone would stop me form selling it to anyone. Surrey Nanosystems acts here as a paint manofacturer, and they just signed a contract with an artist saying that only he can use their paint in art pieces or whatever restriction they want, wich is totally legal al fine.
As an art student, and one who studies printmaking which is a never ending experience of using black, it really feels as though part of my education has been robbed from me, but also my future as an artist as well. In printmaking with each print created there is a test period where one tests many different black inks from one print to ensure that their work is best represented. "the Vine Black is too cool toned," or "The Intense Black isn't opaque enough," and it really does feel like by taking an opportunity away from an artist to create the best possibly version of their work is a little unfair and kinda ridiculous. (in my opinion)
I have mild* synaesthesia whereby hearing words I perceive syllables as feelings of colours (and since I read via an internal monologue, this occurs when reading too). Since words can have multiple syllables and spelling - it's inconsistent what takes precedent - then I can observe internally colours which exude the characteristics of more than one colour. These colours cannot exist, I cannot see them, but I can make them internally real. What I'm saying is, you can trademark any colour you want but they all pale in comparisons to the ones only in my head: Anish Kapoor, sculpt your heart out! *I say mild because I hear others perceive their synaesthesia very vividly and overwhelmingly - mine is sort of like background noise.
I agree with the first counter argument, a colormark is a protection that stops other companies from exploiting the basic and irrational association of that specific color to that specific brand. If there is no established association then there is no possible exploit and therefore is simply unfair advantage.
There is one aspect that wasn't really mentioned: since Vantablack is probably very expensive to product (cf 6:57) we can safely assume that if its use in art wasn't copyrighted, it would only be used by artists with the means to afford it, i.e rich and/or famous artists (even though Sir Anish Kapoor is both of those things). Which, in my opinion, raises some interesting questions about art and capitalism. Btw your brief history of IKB was great and if some people are interested by it, I'd highly recommend Kyle Kallgreen's video titled "Blue - Brows Held High" ( /FoImLuNoqYQ ) which talks at length about the colour, and its use in one specific (and fascinating) film by Derek Jarman.
Oh sweet! My tweet is Idea Channel approved! Glad y'all liked it :P (and sorry to hear you're wrapping things up you've been great I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next etc etc)
This video is one that brings me back to the early Idea Channel days. I love it when you talk about art. Can any one suggest a channel that analyzes art in a similar fashion? Beyond that, it shouldn't be a color that is trademarked. Patenting the process for making a particular product is more logical.
Ok, but he doesn't have the rights to a shade, he has the right to a specific material made by a company that chose to grant him that right. If you can go make your own "version" of this color on your own, you can use it, as long as you aren't infringing on their copyright, which I assume includes their process of making it. It's not a color, it's an invention. Everyone is welcome to the color itself. Not the copyright.
No. The chemically engineered material absorbs light to create the absence of color, or perceived absence. Another chemical could be engineered, eg. Vantablack 3.0 or a competitor to produce a similar effect. Working with carbon nanotubes is not exclusive in the chemical world; you just have to be very qualified to know how to work with them.
Well that's just an unfortunate circumstance. It's still a delicate difficult process and they can't just dole that out to everyone. I'm with Haylie here. The issue is not the color.
So, since we're talking about legal protections here, I'd want to look at this from the standpoint of the purpose behind the different types of intellectual property. Also, since this episode is asking about the ownership of a color, rather than the carbon nano-tube material or its manufacturing process, I'm going to focus on the color itself. So, there are four types of intellectual property, broadly speaking. 1) Copyright protects creative works and exists to reward and encourage creativity. 2) Patent protects new inventions and exists to encourage innovation. 3) Trade secret protects secrets and exists to both encourage innovation and make sure that companies don't benefit from engaging in industrial espionage. And 4) trademarks protect marks, slogans, and characters used to identify a company and exist to prevent consumer confusion and avoid fraud. Copyright would not apply to Vantablack in general because you can only get copyright in specific, fixed works. One could get copyright in a specific vantablack sculpture (say a black bust of a person), but that only prevents the copying of that specific sculpture, not the use of the color generally. So it's not useful for "owning" a color. Patent or trade secret likely apply to the method of creating Vantablack and possibly to the material itself. The parts of it that are disclosed publicly and filed with a relevant government get a patent, and anything that the company is keeping secret would be a trade secret. Since it's good to encourage companies to engineer new materials (to make better telescopes and so forth), it's probably fair that the company gets to own the material for at least some years so they can make a profit on their work. That does give them the right to license who uses the material. However, that doesn't apply to the color generally. If somebody came up with a different material that was the exact same color, the patent or trade secret wouldn't apply to it and everyone would be free to use that new color. So this still doesn't get you to color ownership. Trademarks could apply to a color. Mike gave a couple examples of this, like the Turquoise Tiffany box. Here's the thing about trademark though: it's designed to avoid consumer confusion, not to give a creator total control over how their work is used like copyright or patents. Trademarks can be used without permission in a lot of contexts. For example, non-commercial use is generally allowed by anyone under trademark law. So even if one got a trademark on that color, amateur projects not made for sale might be allowed to use it. At the very least, members of the public would be able to show it when talking about it (in much the same way you're not violating Coke's trademarks when you show people a Coke can). On top of that, as Mike noted, there's nothing to be confused about yet. Vantablack is new and there isn't some special association with any particular artist the way that Tiffany has been selling things in Turquoise boxes for decades. Trademarks aren't supposed to be granted for something that a person or business isn't already using to uniquely identify themselves. So, one could own the color with a trademark, but it seems quite premature to grant that right. I'll conclude with this. I think that the innovation in creating the carbon nanotube material means that some license for distribution of limited Vantablack stuff might be perfectly fine and make sense as a way for the creators to get paid back for their research. But I'd be highly, highly skeptical that artists using the exact same shade of black created or obtained through other means would actually be violating any law at all.
I understand the desire to have the connection between this fascinating new shade and oneself. And due to its scarcity it seems reasonable, at least in principle, to allow it. It seems more like a business partnership in that way, than a trademark. The worry that I have is the one mentioned briefly in the video, that not just Kapoor will not become associated with just vanta black but with every piece of art that utilizes some 'deep black'. In that sense I think that the reasoning is mainly under the aesthetic function argument, in that dark dark black is something that many artists would find useful, and possibly necessary. And thus restricting their access to it is, if not anything else, a restriction on the growth of art.
Personally what galled me about vanta black is that despite what people may think, art is not made by lone geniuses. Every artist is part of a community, learning from other artists and building on their discoveries and techniques. Think about watercolor for example. Who was the first person to sprinkle salt on a still-wet watercolor wash? Do you think if watercolor had been invented by a company and licensed to one artist alone, that that artist would have thought to use salt? Would they have thought of every possible way to employ the medium that enriched the world? Would they even be able to think of their own brilliant ideas that they would have had in the world where they were part of a community and had other's ideas to build on, remix and respond to? If only one artist has access to the material, we lose the chance to make cool art but so does that one person who has access to it. It's like watching a let's play where only that one person was given the game so every time you are frustrated that you could have solved the puzzle they walked past, you literally can't do anything about it and have to just accept that that puzzle and the whole route they missed isn't ever going to be explored. They don't get to see it either! You are both denied something. And yeah it's probably unreasonable to demand access considering how it's made, but still, we're still stuck being frustrated because he's not using vantablack like we would, and since we don't have access, we don't know if it's because of the nature of the material or just because it hadn't occurred to him to try the idea we may have had. And neither of us will ever know about the ideas we may have had if it were a conversation among many. Black 2.0 and "share the black" is trying to forcibly bring the community to vanta black and force a conversation on how hyper-absorbent black could be applied artistically. Black 2.0 is fanfiction. Fanfiction hate-written by people who think the author of the original is a meanie head but still.
Theres a whole analysis of this topic that could be done from the perspective of protecting the commons. This is also clearly another example of private enclosure of public experience.
What I find interesting is how much my opinion of the situation changed dramatically when I learned, in this video, that he designed Cloud Gate. Before I knew that I had negative opinions of him and this situation, but I love that sculpture so much that learning it was his creation has vastly changed my position on the situation. I am much less angry at him and more interested in what he does with this color now.
This being one of my favorite videos makes me even more sad about the end of IC. thank you for making me see ordinary in a different light and I hope you continue to do so in the future
The entire Vantablack Saga is like my favorite thing to come out of the art world in the last few years, but as someone who went to art school and also is a fan of high-tech science - I can objectively understand why the creators of Vantablack would only license it's usage to one famous artist! Financially it might be in their favor to open it up to more, but it may not be physically possible... yet. What we don't know about this situation is did Kapoor REQUEST exclusivity, or was it the company that said "only one" and Kapoor was just the highest bidder? What makes me think he's a jerkoff that deserves the bad press is his REACTION to the art world in light of this unprecedented move. Artists are angry. In particular, the guy who made the pinkest pink and black 2.0 didn't come across so much as angry as... amused. Maybe it's just marketing and how he presents himself, but the light-hearted protest against Kapoor by inventing new art supplies and preventing Kapoor from purchasing them because 1) he's the apparent underdog, 2) He did it all with at the very least a facade of playfulness, and 3) he's freakin brilliant and the supplies are affordable and widely accessible, and 4) he is opening up the art world to non-artsy people because the entire exchange is entertaining. Kapoor's reaction though? Pretty shameful. He does not appear to care about the art world's concern about the exclusive access to Vantablack. He does not want to collaborate (he basically completely isolated himself) or share. And when a funny kid with a pigment business poked fun at the absurdity of hoarding a breakthrough pigment by banning him from owning it, he literally gave that guy the finger. He reflected the anger pointed AT HIM right back at the one guy who was not coming at him with personal ill will - only a playful determination to protest the ACTION and not necessarily the PERSON. If I recall, Kapoor's ONLY reactions to this young artist have been, quite literally "Fuck you", while the entire art world is giving KAPOOR a metaphorical fuck you. It's the worst form of hypocrisy, entitled privilege (i'm allowed to have exclusive things because i'm a rich successful artist and look i got your pinkest pink anyway haha), and just plain bad sportsmanship that I've ever seen. And we haven't even SEEN ANY ART using vantablack come out of Kapoor at all! That, and we instantly think of the guy who doesn't want to share as the villain, we've been trained to since we were kids. Swiper no swiping, and Sharing is Caring and all that. Kapoor should not be surprised or offended that we all think badly of him - he should have just ignored it all and MADE ART. Instead he turned himself into a sore winner by picking on someone a lot smaller than him for pointing out in a playful and hilarious way the inherent unfairness of only the most elite and successful artists having access to the most technologically advanced art supplies on the planet, and being able to create an association with that color/supply that could theoretically be legally protected before any other artists even get the chance to play in the sandbox!
It's basically like saying that I could only use a object, it'd be horrible. People wouldn't know how to react besides anger, sadness, jealousy. Jealousy is the thing that will cause people to steal trademarked colors and slightly change them and keep them as their own.
Amazing video! Wish you'd had a go with the Black 2.0. A thought... there's only one substance / material / process (depending on how you look at it) that only 'artists' are excluded from using due to an exclusivity deal, and that substance is vantablack. For example - the creators of vantablack will happily coat objects for space, fashion, luxury watches, deodorant brands - obviously if you pay them. But refuse to coat objects for artists. In every other art fabrication environment (even really dangerous and expensive ones, think about bronze casting) those companies will work with a variety of artists - everyone's work is different! The deal is in place specifically to stop 'Artists' from using it. Why does kapoor need exclusivity? surely he can collaborate with them without demanding that, and surely the creators can freely turn down projects they arn't interested in or have time for anyway?
There's a lot of good thoughts in other comments on whether the color/material/whatever Vantablack is can be trademarked, but there's another aspect I want to explore, and that is the semiotics of color. All of the exampled mentioned - Tiffany blue, Louboutin red, IKB - were given trademarks because there was a clear association between the color and the other aspects of the brand using the color such that the color itself was associated with and only with that brand. When we see that distinct Tiffany blue, we think to the elegant luxury of Tiffany & Co., robin egg blue curtains framing its storefront as Audrey Hepburn slinks about munching on a pastry. And when Yves Klein first "trademarked" IKB, he had the same idea of capturing using the color as the idea itself. And we as a society have come to live in a world that accepts the commoditization of ideas. Kapoor trying to capture an idea with Vantablack is just a particularly brazen attempt at it, and the modern art critics who disagree are hypocritical in accusing him of monopolizing an idea when much of modern art itself is built on capturing ideas. Not all colors possess the "institutional reflex" that de Wilde claims. Some specific colors encapsulate an idea, serving as a signifier of a whole host of ideas that also associate with a specific brand. The same can be said of fonts, and there is less vitriol at the idea of trademarking fonts. That being said, trying to use color as a semiotic poses its own pitfalls, especially in an artistic setting, because much art is also subversive. Trademarks can lose their monopolistic power when it become "generic" - that is, used so much in common parlance that enforcing a monopoly on its use is impossible. An example is the trademark "Xerox" to mean "to copy". These trademarks pick up so much semiotic baggage that to claim an exclusive association between the trademark and the brand falls apart. Colors are particularly susceptible to this sort of baggage because of how easily they can fit in diverse conceptual roles, as the color and the object being colored can easily be conflated, especially if a particular pair is produced over and over again. While I think Kapoor is in his right to attempt to control the use of Vantablack and associate it with his ideas, it's a fools errand - Vantablack or another similarly very dark black will be used by other artists to signify things not associated with Kapoor and rapidly cause the trademark to become generic. And being so brazen in this trademark grab will only motivate other artists to broaden the semiotic associations of Vantablack and foil Kapoor. Other artists have tried this, and many have failed.
to me, this issue reads something like this: anish gets exclusive rights to using this new shade of black, only when it's produced in one particular way. Someone else gets really mad, tries to develop another production process for this shade of black, therefore "unlocking" the color for the general public. the process of this happening raises some really interesting questions about copyright, along with sparking an art feud which is probably going to be a major point in art history classes in a few years.
Question: If you made a video about "relations of things and perception of that relations are not coherent" would you use relations that you made in your idea channell videos? I'm asking this because I think you relate things so out of focus and unintuitive, it makes me feel "that's a one hell of a trying hard" yeah i can see relations between mtg cards and jazz, but in that way i can see relations between abstract fields in nature which no one can explain because of language barrier between the nature and perception. So do you think your unintuitive relations can be used in this way? Similar question: Making relations in mathematics are static, solid and objective. If we can manipulate this robust math structure, would we use manipulators like in our language? sorry for my extremely poor english skills.
The video mentioned that the history of "protecting colors" started about 60 years ago, but I'd argue it goes back further; not for "art" in the traditional painting and sculpture sense, but in fashion. When Rome first became an empire, there were strict rules about the color purple: it was used for ceremonies honoring the gods and it was written otherwise exclusively by the emperor (associating the Emperor with the Roman gods via the power of color). No Roman was allowed to wear the 'trabea,' a toga entirely colored in purple, except the emperor. This didn't matter to many, as purple dye was incredibly expensive, but it was a kind of protection that is closer to 2040 years ago rather than 60. Trademark may be a more extensive, modern, and broad protection, but the power of color in art, culture, and society and what it represents can be argued to go back MUCH further.
Thank God a video addressing this issue! Donald Judd is right in his note. It doesn't matter if Vantablack is a color or a material. Both of them are what constitutes a work of art, not the work of art itself. They shouldn't be copyrighted by an artist, never!.. You can own a wooden sculpture you make, but you cannot own a wood type. Even though he says that he is working with the manufacturers, which should give him exclusive rights to manufacture it and to sell it, he should not own exclusive usage rights. That's what's making people mad about it.. He wants to own the color? Go ahead. But sell it like a manufacturer does. Otherwise its a goddamn crime. #sharetheblack
your wood analogy is flawed, the wood wasn't created by humans, vanta black was, the material is copywritten and the owner get decide how it gets used. edit: spelling
The manufacturer has the rights to do what he wants, no doubt about it. The problem is the ownership of such material/color by an artist... In color branding, the color must not be functional in any way (just like the John Deere lawn mowers) And in art, color and material are more than just function... they constitute an aesthetic feeling. The problem is how far will super black pigments evoke the name Anish Kapoor. When he starts using Vantablack in the art market, he will start to stick his brand name with the feeling of the color, giving him an unfair advantage in relation to all the other artists around that want to use all other non reflective black pigments. The problem is not the ownership on the production of Vantablack itself. The main problem is the adherence that will occur between the feeling of the material and the name of the artist.
All things fade with time, and so too will any possibilities of materials having a strong tie to an artist, with such ties allegedly hampering humanity's artistic progress, an assertion with no strong precedent that I can think of. I highly doubt such ties will come to exist, in the extreme manner they're talked about that is.
Yeah, I agree with you in the long run. But what troubles me is the impossibility of using a super black pigment right now and not be associated with him and all this polemic concerning what he did...
It's fine. It's not about the colour in this case but the physical substance that makes it. Surrey Systems picked Kapoor after they decided they wanted to limit the use of Vantablack while it's still being developed. Kapoor didn't come along and make them only give it to him.
In regards to the question of whether the product is an object or an experience I have the following thoughts, specifically regarding musical (largely tonal) systems as an analogous structure that possesses, across cultures, disparities in the eventual experiences they are evocative of. The traditional octave of the Western system is composed of 12 notes (whose positions and relations themselves have shifted over the years). In contrast, the traditional tonal systems of Hindustan, the Middle East, Bali, and so forth possess both intervals (distances between notes) and notes themselves (the precise frequencies) that do not occur in Western music. Thus, even on the basic axis of consonance v dissonance, the ear of someone accustomed to X or Y tonal system is going to be wildly different (and the other emotional/evoked connotations of these elements can also vary). The conflation of sound and color may seem a stretch, but stick with me. It occurs to me that the associations I have with, say, the color red (not just the qualia of my image of it) are rooted in a variety of influences external both to myself and the art I am taking in. This, I think, tears enough influence from the artist to yank the answer from experience. That is not to say for a moment that an artist’s intentions don’t find themselves expressed in someone’s reaction to a work, in my experience they definitely do. That being said, the nature of the beast that is putting such a work out there has enough footing in the dialogue between work, viewer, and other influences to center the debate in the grey middleground. The short of it is this. I’m not sure I buy the idea that any artist can create a definite, predictable experience. Human creation can’t (or hasn’t in any widespread/largely studied way I’m aware of) be performed in a vacuum, and thus there may be too many things at play to lay claim to the experience produced by what you’ve created. In certain terms, the artist provides the subject of the varied experiences of its audience, the dialogue between the two is somewhere in the heart of art, I think.
The fact that Vantablack is patented suggests that we shouldn't worry too much. It should eventually be made more accessible to more artists over time provided they learn to safely apply and handle it.
Everyone's discussing the artist's desire to own a category of art that he's never actually made. If that was the only thing at play then I'd be 100% #sharetheblack. And insofar as that's all the trademark is protecting, it seems unfortunate. But like you said, it's also in the interest of the people making Vantablack to ensure that the material gets its start in the art world at the hands of someone whose work they like. That's completely valid, and it's the other thing the trademark is designed to protect. There's nothing wrong with them selling Vantablack to only one artist in the beginning.
Numberphile has a great video on banned or illegal numbers, and since you can convert numbers to colors (via hexadecimal) they also touch on the idea of banned numbers.10/10 would recommend.
I find the idea of granting exclusive rights to an artist implies that it is the shade that is being granted, not the material. For example, if you were to grant exclusive rights for space agencies to NASA, that would be providing a material to a company with a specific practical use framework. Granting it to a single artist means that you are granting an aesthetic capacity to a single person. That grants that person the capacity to produce seemingly novel pieces that are only novel because of the exclusivity. One that stands out is the Vantablack unicorn. I can imagine that a matte black unicorn is something that has been done before. And that is essentially what Vantablack is. It is the most matte black. The most featureless black. Thereby it's originality lies only in the exclusivity of the colour Now I can think of myriad was that Vantablack could be used artistically, both in sculpture and painting, and I am by no means an experienced artist. But this does two things. It limits the scope of it's use to the style of one artist with a very specific bent, that I don't personally believe is the most effective use of something as perception warping as this colour. And two it places the responsibility to use this colour to it's fullest capacity in the hands of one person. They may believe that they are the one best suited for that task, but that is hubris, not skill. Finally, the artist had no hand in the making of the colour. The colour is a technology built with a specific goal in mind, reduce reflectivity to it's absolute minimum. The case study of the IKB shows an artist intentionally creating a colour for the purpose of art, but even he didn't have exclusive rights, it was simply that he made it, he knew it intimately, and he used it with abandon, there by making it quintessentially associated with him. Vantablack, even without the exclusivity clause, would be insanely exclusive. The cost of a small amount would be astronomical, and then there would be the cost of facility time and space, and the cost of the trained technician to apply it. This is not something that I could just order and use in the comfort of my own home. It requires specific temperature, pressure, cleanliness, and process requirements. It would be like buying a 1000 unit limited run Ferrari. It was not made for art. That it can be used in art is a happy accident, and should be shared with whoever has the capacity to afford it's use. Tl;Dr Artist didn't make it, artist doesn't own it. Giving a "paint" to an artist is giving a shade to an artist, not a material.
Honestly, this is actually something I've been thinking about lately. I'm an engineer, so I like everything to be standardized to a certain extent, and with the rise of computers, that now extends to colors. In my mind, that's great-it brings precision color to everyone, which can be incredibly useful, so what does this mean for that? If you trademark a color, is a software developer not allowed to give access to that color? Can the screen be allowed to display it? What about a color that a computer, for technological reasons, could not be displayed? It's fascinating
Personally I believe the ownership he has on the colour is so galling because it is an example of superiority via wealth. I believe a core element of art work is the ability to create with anything and everything. It does not matter the wealth you have available to you, you can express your creativity how ever you can. Now, because of the ownership applied to this black, it doesn't matter if you have the means this one material is off limits to the rest of the art world. If an artist aspires to create a work with this black they can never do it in there life time. It is an unreachable work. What ever imagery or experience they wish to create with this material is unattainable and that knowledge may crush those aspirations of ever creating. However the existence of Black 2.0 helps to assuage this. There is an alternative, and alternative that almost anyone can attain... accept of course those at present monetarily unable and of course Sir Anish Kapoor. This takes back some small part of what may artists feel they have lost. It in my mind is a way to make Mr Kapoor experience the sensation of lost potential. I understand that he has been able to acquire the pink pigment, and while this dampens my point I feel the essence is still there in the reason for denying him them at all. It is a way for artist to vicariously vent there vindictive feelings and in my case, get over them. I still believe that the exclusivity hurts the artist community as a whole, but the pain from this though is lessened.
If the problem is the short supply and danger of use them just up the price and require training to use it, don't actively prevent people from using it. You cannot kinda release a product, you release it or not.
This story itself could be spun into a sort of performance art. A multimedia event, performed in part by the audience, which evokes a strong sense of emotion. What makes it doubly interesting is that if that was the case, it would then become a work by Anish that Incorporates Vantablack.
I think the main difference is that Vantablack is a metamaterial, not a pigment or dye. The "color" is the optical property of this material, it cannot exist in any other medium. Its common for companies who develop these materials to copyright them.
AT&T also owns the Cingular Orange, which I think they call AT&T Orange. l remember that it was listed in Pantone swatches as Cingular Orange, where all the other colors just had numbers.
VantaBlack is definitely the material and method of application. We can all paint black. This isn't a new shade, it's just a novel approach to what everyone means when they say "black."
When I first heard that Kapoor had sole access to Vantablack, I automatically thought about how Monsanto copyrighted seed types so that they'd have a monopoly on crops. And I know those are two very different debates - but, for me, it comes down to an entity trying to own something so they don't have competition. You always win if no one else can compete.
I think the thing that alarms me most is the possibility of confusing patents, trademarks, and copyrights and the very different kinds of IP those things were meant to protect.
This is a interesting idea. I think if we treat colors as a subjective experience than there seems to be a legitimate claim that certain colors can be owned by artists. On the other hand, if colors are mind independent and are universal than no one can lay claim to a color that everyone see's as being blue, red, yellow etc...
Yes I would say that vanta black, as both a material and a colour, should be able to be trademarked as long as the person trademarking it is properly associated with it and the purpose you are trademarking it for is specific - like the examples after 6:00. However I would say that the vanta black trademark for 'its use in art' is wrong on three levels, the person not being associated with it, the usage not being specific enough and also not being an example of 'commercial usage'. Though the later probably isn't a distinction in IP law itself, I would say that colourmarks should only be used for commercial brands like Pepsi or Cadbury, not art/media like Game of Thrones or the work of Kapoor. I can't put my finger on exactly why at the moment but colours seem to me to be too creatively stifling for this law to apply in the same way that it would for say the Game of Thrones theme song. A similar example would be fonts, should Game of Thrones or Pokemon be allowed to trademark the fonts used in their respective titles? Again I have a gut feeling of no they shouldn't however I can't give a clear answer as to why. Thanks for giving me brain food for the past 5 years Idea channel, I'll be sad to see you go.
That was not so much "only nobility owned the color purple," but "only nobility owned (or could afford) purple clothes". And yeah, some nobles outlawed other people _wearing_ purple, but it's not like governments don't have similar laws today. You can own flashing blue-and-red lights, but putting them on your car is illegal.
it also crossed my mind for a second, but i have to disagree. colors like purple and red were hard to produce and therefore expensive. it's less like only a few selected were allowed to wear clothes dyed in those colores, more like they could afford it. it was a status symbol like a yacht or a sports car today. i guess what you are referring to with purple is covered by the sumptuary laws and i would say that it seems similar but isn't quite the same. first off, we are talking about a very specific color here which is trademarked but the main reason, why i think it is a different case, is the reason why those laws got enacted: to differenciate people by class on first glance. impersonating a member of the royal family was the actual crime, which would be done by wearing purple (if you could afford it). if you break it down, it's more a dress code than a limitation of usage of a specific color. If you see someone in your teams colors you immediately recognize him as a friend, or at least someone you can safely talk to. going to a wedding and seeing someone dressed in white, you know it is the bride because noone else is wearing white on that specific time and place. someone wearing yellow trousers and jacket and a red helmet, driving in a red truck is a fireman... you get my point.
lyadmilo exactly; I commented on that too. While the use of red in Japan was a bit different I believe, in Rome it was actually banned for use on anyone's clothes but the emperor because of its association with the gods.
Timothy McLean in medieval times yes, but the Roman Empire actually banned the use of purple for togas for anyone except the emperor because of its association with godliness. I think in that case your second example could be expanded to a police uniform: the color was associated with the emperor, and you were not allowed to impersonate the emperor (just as today you can get in trouble for impersonating any officer). The color itself had power.
Just wanted to say that this reminded me of the book "Bluets" by Maggie Nelson, which is a beautifully written investigation into color: its definition, its history, our personal associations--such as why and how we choose favorite colors, and how our associations and perceptions of color inform things like sexuality, interpersonal relationships, and the overall human experience.
Just got to say that IKB is my favorite color. I decided this awhile ago but I love weird-ing people out by having the exact hex value, #002fa7 memorized for Photoshop use.
This reminds of the time Michelangelo threw shade at Botticelli when he said "real painters" don't need to paint with gold they should be skilled enough to be able to depict gold. In my opinion, I think art is more than a color. How an artist uses a color is important. How other artists respond to that use and use it in their own way is also important.
To me, one thing you mentioned stuck with me it is dangerous. I got to remembering white lead paint and arsenic green dye. Should this Uberblack be used in cookware? Or garments? I think it is at least smart to limit it to art. As for other more safer colors, companies built their names with the color they use. A person can be mistaken for an employee if they wear a shirt similar to a store's uniform.
If this was solely about the material being potentially unsafe to use, exclusivity wouldn't be necessary, or even desirable given that more people having access would allow more experimentation. They could easily leave the licensing open to any artist who promised to use the stuff safely, possibly with a mandatory safety training course.
From what I'm reading, the _color_ for IKB is merely ultramarine pigment. Supposedly what was special about the paint is the binder; a formulation of polyvinyl acetate, which most are familiar with in the form of white school-glue. The Blue Man Group color was born when the creators commissioned a new shade of greasepaint from Mehron, a stage-makeup manufacturer. It could very well be that the pigment used is likewise ultramarine; but I cannot find any confirmation of this. While the creators of BMG admit that Yves Klein was a major influence on the creation of the act, according to the artistic director of BMG, "while it’s very close to IKB it sometimes tends a bit more towards cobalt blue." Curiously, Mehron sells a "Blue Man" makeup kit to the public, but, for contractual reasons, the greasepaint in the kit does not exactly match the BMG shade; it comes off as more muted, and less glossy. After Blue Man shows, the performers "sign" playbills by dabbing some greasepaint from their face and using it to make a thumbprint. Being a stage makeup geek, I made certain to get that makeup sample :)
*color* =/= *material* (be the material paint;. And I'm sure many paints are proprietary and it's up to their owners who they sell it to. It's not a color. It's paint/coating/material (or technically, recipe to make it).)
this is a tough one. I remember reading that vanta black is technically a duel substance so it has all those scientific properties mentioned in the video but it also has possible military applications due to its light absorbing properties in both the visible and non-visible spectrums. further more they, in my opinion, are not saying they own the color but the own the substance and proceces used to make the color. I think they can restrict it's use if not only for the fact that it has military applications.
loads of companies own different shades and hues of colors I think this either falls into the "can you own and idea or concept" or the "can you create vanta-beis and is it classified as a weapon of mass destruction"
I think what you touched on towards the end gets to what I think is the heart of the issue: owning the colour vs owning the substance that makes the colour. I don't feel like I can say which one is actually having its rights held in this instance, but I see no problem with "only this man can use the thing we made to make this colour", but to own a colour is like owning sunlight; it may not exist beyond our subjective experience and be no more than an illusion created by sensory input (what isn't though?) but it is still [more or less] a naturally occurring phenomena. That's why it seems so wrong to own it.
at a guess I would say that sir k has been given exclusive access to the nano-tubes substance vantablack, and if in the meanwhile someone else makes another, even a similar, substance or otherwise reproduces the startling void shade which happens to be the same shade as vantablack-the-substance, that isn't an infringement because it's no the same thing. I make this guess based on, as you stated, sir k's credentials: he can be trusted to make good/effective/efficient use of the substance, which is important because of its scarcity. It wont be exclusive forever, especially not once atomic/molecular level 3-d-printing becomes prolific.
I worked in a government trademark office for 3 years. When I took a taxi to the office, the driver would say: “oh you are going to the patent office?” No, sir, patent is a different office. People are so confused when it comes to protecting IPR. That’s why we have sharetheblack demand. With this energy, why not asking pharmaceutical companies to share cancer medicine?
I'm actually reminded of the "illegal prime" fun from several years back, where a guy named Phil Carmody took a piece of software that could be used to decrypt DVDs, embedded it into a very large prime number, and had the very large prime number verified as being a prime number. After which, legally speaking, it was a number, and not a DMCA-violating piece of machine code, and was thus maybe, possibly, legal to post on a certain website that lists the largest prime numbers people have ever found. Now, the trick is, you can do this with _all_ computer programs, because in the end every computer program is stored on the hardware level as a whole lot of binary. So does this mean that computer programs can't be copyrighted? Because they're numbers?
If it was just a deal between vantablack and Anish where he was the only one getting supplied with it, there wouldn't be an issue. Like you said, it's expensive and scarce. The only issue I take with it is the legal idea of owning that shade. If the color itself can be replicated with other materials, anyone should be able to use it.
Vantablack isn't a shade so much as a technology, he's licensed to use that particular product. It seems fairly reasonable that a difficult to produce etc material be able to be controlled by its owner.
The artist isn't the one holding the trademark, it's the nanotech company. The artist is the only one licensed to use it for artistic endeavors that's not really the same thing
Artist here! While specific shades are trademarked, those trademarks are extremely limited. There is nothing stopping me from mixing up some Tiffany Blue and using it to paint some water or something, and honestly, there would be no reason for them to come after me unless I advertized the fact. Even then, the transformative nature of painting, and the natural use of art as commentary would probably be more than suficient protection. On the other hand, there has been a long history of proprietary pigment formulae, and the limited marketing thereof. While it does grate that Vantablack is only selling to one artist, and I think they are being selfish in so doing, it's their patent, they aren't obligated to sell to anyone if they don't want to.
It is also kind of fun to contemplate the irony here. Black is an absense of color in light. The company making Vantablack is obviously using light (spectroscopy) to measure their product's color. To put it in an Idea Channel style question: Is the absense of something still that thing? In this case the question is: Is the absense of color still a color? In mathematics, the answer to "Is the absence of a value still a value?" is "yes". Because the absense of a value is zero. But how far does that question extend? Is the absense of a building still a building? Fun side topic.
It seems to me that it would be perfectly fine for Kapor to have the only access to vantablack (the material), but not the color itself. Right now, such a difference doesn't matter, as the material is the only thing that color. However, should another company or artist develop another material that has the same shade, there's no reason to prevent them from using it.
Seems like a perceptual color and a particular chemical process used to create a pigment are two distinct things? Vantablack isn't a new color, it's just a blackness that's perceptually unusual, or that's blacker in more lighting circumstances, right? So trademarking vantablack the physical substance seems like a qualitatively different thing than trademarking a pantone color-- not a physical substance but an idea. BUT I'm really into how this conversation re-orients our thinking re: color towards an older and more physically-embodied understanding of it: colors as not merely theoretical and abstract, but as tied inextricably to their sources in the physical world.
The major complication is that the color, in this tangible form, was invented. While the shade itself should not be exclusive on the basis that it occurs naturally within the visible light spectrum (otherwise we couldn't see it), a trademark on the actual, reproducible paint strikes me as reasonable. The major concern is with national and international ownership laws which often prevent this stuff from falling into the public domain. Paint exclusivity for five or 10 years? Probably not a huge issue. But for 60, 70, 80+ years? Suddenly it becomes non-competitive and excessively exclusionary, especially if the legal applications were overly broad.
Not long ago part of being a painter was know how to make paint, and I'm certain not telling other painters how you got that particular flesh tone was part of the landscape. I'm not certain how the arrangement described is any different from the company deciding not to sell Vantablack to any other artist.
Oh hi! Next week we’re doing a Q+A video! Respond to this comment (or the various other posts across the socials media - links in the doobly-do) with questions you want answered about the show or other Idea Channel Like Topics you’ve been mulling over.
Thumbs up the questions you like the most! (Doesn’t guarantee an answer it, but it doesn’t hurt.) You have until 8am ET July 5 to leave a question!
Why do you continue to exclusively distribute via a proprietary platform which does not respect our software freedoms?
What did you think of the end of homestuck?
What kinds of videos interest you more: those that focus more on culture or those that focus on science/economics?
How do you feel about the notion that "poetry is (the new) punk"?
What comments or video research has changed your mind on something you felt you were fairly strict on?
I was disappointed when Mike didn't do anything with the Black 2.0 paint..
lorenzosown The cops might shoot whatever he makes, because it's too black.
ME TOO! With VidCon and other travel we ended up not having time to shoot something before this got uploaded but I'm gonna try to. Also - the advertising is right - it does smell nice.
PBS Idea Channel :( I was waiting for it
Is there time before the comment response video to do something?
You've got the pink as well... a goth flamingo?
Having red/green colorblindness, I always find these debates interesting. I think we should all share colors because some of us only have access to so many.
Do you really feel it like a handicap?
4lkareth I don't want to misrepresent it. Mine is not particularly intense. I think the lighter tone of my comment didn't come through though. I didn't mean it as like my stark opinion, just a light hearted additional perspective. :)
That said, colorblindness can present significant, real-world problems. I can never get a pilot's license, or become an electrician. A lot of things that rely on color coding are not accessible to colorblind people.
On the bright side, you know how non-primate mammals see the world.
at&t deathstar... it all makes sense now.
Spooky Charms +
Isn't Vantablack not so much a color as it is a product? It is a dangerous series of tubes, that happens to be very very dark.
AdventureLog the way I see it is that the company should have access to the product but not the color. If any other company can produce a similar product in a different manor but end in the same location, they should have equal right to the results they produced
In this case, it's considered a pigment and that's what the guy has a license to use. As a concept/adjective, anyone's free to use it. Just good luck figuring out how to make it
I have no problem with anyone copyrighting the material that makes a colour, but I would never recognise or honour a copyrighted colour. This is like those companies who wanted to copyright human dna. They didn't create the dna, they merely quantified it. Should I be able to copyright your house simply because I look for it and find it? The whole concept of copyrighting colours is a ridiculous sign of the cancer of modern control freakish capitalism.
Good thing they aren't copyrighting the color.
Mat Broomfield There's an important distinction between copyright and trademark, though: trademarks are meant to prevent misleading marketing, and therefore limited to their context. Take the UPS brown, for example: if another transport company were to start using that colour in their graphic profile, UPS could probably challenge them in court. But they could not challenge a company in a completely different business - say, web design or healthcare. Coca-Cola couldn't drop their red and start using Pepsi blue instead, but TH-cam probably could.
Mat Broomfield I'll copyright the universie itself
Thanks for the distinction but they still amount to the same thing in thins case: a restriction on who can use certain colours in arts. As Mike said, this artist is trademarking use of the colour PRE-EMPTIVELY. There is NO existing association, so why should he get to do this?
Owning stars for the win!
I really think the debate with Vantablack just ends with the fact that vantablack is a material, wich has unique propieties. If I discovered or somehow produces a paint that is as dark as Vantablack noone would stop me form selling it to anyone. Surrey Nanosystems acts here as a paint manofacturer, and they just signed a contract with an artist saying that only he can use their paint in art pieces or whatever restriction they want, wich is totally legal al fine.
I read the headline at 1:26 as "The dankest material on Earth has become even danker."
I do that all the time too.
There are signs at my school that read "Improving World Research" but I keep seeing "Improving Weapons Research". ;P
As an art student, and one who studies printmaking which is a never ending experience of using black, it really feels as though part of my education has been robbed from me, but also my future as an artist as well. In printmaking with each print created there is a test period where one tests many different black inks from one print to ensure that their work is best represented. "the Vine Black is too cool toned," or "The Intense Black isn't opaque enough," and it really does feel like by taking an opportunity away from an artist to create the best possibly version of their work is a little unfair and kinda ridiculous. (in my opinion)
I have mild* synaesthesia whereby hearing words I perceive syllables as feelings of colours (and since I read via an internal monologue, this occurs when reading too). Since words can have multiple syllables and spelling - it's inconsistent what takes precedent - then I can observe internally colours which exude the characteristics of more than one colour. These colours cannot exist, I cannot see them, but I can make them internally real. What I'm saying is, you can trademark any colour you want but they all pale in comparisons to the ones only in my head: Anish Kapoor, sculpt your heart out!
*I say mild because I hear others perceive their synaesthesia very vividly and overwhelmingly - mine is sort of like background noise.
I agree with the first counter argument, a colormark is a protection that stops other companies from exploiting the basic and irrational association of that specific color to that specific brand. If there is no established association then there is no possible exploit and therefore is simply unfair advantage.
There is one aspect that wasn't really mentioned: since Vantablack is probably very expensive to product (cf 6:57) we can safely assume that if its use in art wasn't copyrighted, it would only be used by artists with the means to afford it, i.e rich and/or famous artists (even though Sir Anish Kapoor is both of those things).
Which, in my opinion, raises some interesting questions about art and capitalism.
Btw your brief history of IKB was great and if some people are interested by it, I'd highly recommend Kyle Kallgreen's video titled "Blue - Brows Held High" ( /FoImLuNoqYQ ) which talks at length about the colour, and its use in one specific (and fascinating) film by Derek Jarman.
Oh sweet! My tweet is Idea Channel approved! Glad y'all liked it :P (and sorry to hear you're wrapping things up you've been great I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next etc etc)
1:48
Me: the cloud... what?
*looks at the video*
Me: ohhhhhhh THE BEAN!
Your use of shooting stars was wonderful lol. BTW great video as usual.
This video is one that brings me back to the early Idea Channel days. I love it when you talk about art. Can any one suggest a channel that analyzes art in a similar fashion?
Beyond that, it shouldn't be a color that is trademarked. Patenting the process for making a particular product is more logical.
Ok, but he doesn't have the rights to a shade, he has the right to a specific material made by a company that chose to grant him that right. If you can go make your own "version" of this color on your own, you can use it, as long as you aren't infringing on their copyright, which I assume includes their process of making it. It's not a color, it's an invention. Everyone is welcome to the color itself. Not the copyright.
Haylie Casey Problem here is that the colour can only really be created by that exclusive method. the invention basically IS the colour
No. The chemically engineered material absorbs light to create the absence of color, or perceived absence. Another chemical could be engineered, eg. Vantablack 3.0 or a competitor to produce a similar effect. Working with carbon nanotubes is not exclusive in the chemical world; you just have to be very qualified to know how to work with them.
Well that's just an unfortunate circumstance. It's still a delicate difficult process and they can't just dole that out to everyone. I'm with Haylie here. The issue is not the color.
Ben Boyle easier said than done.
Will Mael But doable and perfectly legal it is. It being difficult is not the issue.
This was a better insight over patents than any lecture I've already attended
What is the song at 0:42?
Vantablack 2.0 is 50 shades darker than Vantablack 1.0.
[insert lenny face here]
"The AT&T Death Star"
YES. This is exactly the way it should be described
So, since we're talking about legal protections here, I'd want to look at this from the standpoint of the purpose behind the different types of intellectual property. Also, since this episode is asking about the ownership of a color, rather than the carbon nano-tube material or its manufacturing process, I'm going to focus on the color itself.
So, there are four types of intellectual property, broadly speaking. 1) Copyright protects creative works and exists to reward and encourage creativity. 2) Patent protects new inventions and exists to encourage innovation. 3) Trade secret protects secrets and exists to both encourage innovation and make sure that companies don't benefit from engaging in industrial espionage. And 4) trademarks protect marks, slogans, and characters used to identify a company and exist to prevent consumer confusion and avoid fraud.
Copyright would not apply to Vantablack in general because you can only get copyright in specific, fixed works. One could get copyright in a specific vantablack sculpture (say a black bust of a person), but that only prevents the copying of that specific sculpture, not the use of the color generally. So it's not useful for "owning" a color.
Patent or trade secret likely apply to the method of creating Vantablack and possibly to the material itself. The parts of it that are disclosed publicly and filed with a relevant government get a patent, and anything that the company is keeping secret would be a trade secret. Since it's good to encourage companies to engineer new materials (to make better telescopes and so forth), it's probably fair that the company gets to own the material for at least some years so they can make a profit on their work. That does give them the right to license who uses the material. However, that doesn't apply to the color generally. If somebody came up with a different material that was the exact same color, the patent or trade secret wouldn't apply to it and everyone would be free to use that new color. So this still doesn't get you to color ownership.
Trademarks could apply to a color. Mike gave a couple examples of this, like the Turquoise Tiffany box. Here's the thing about trademark though: it's designed to avoid consumer confusion, not to give a creator total control over how their work is used like copyright or patents. Trademarks can be used without permission in a lot of contexts. For example, non-commercial use is generally allowed by anyone under trademark law. So even if one got a trademark on that color, amateur projects not made for sale might be allowed to use it. At the very least, members of the public would be able to show it when talking about it (in much the same way you're not violating Coke's trademarks when you show people a Coke can). On top of that, as Mike noted, there's nothing to be confused about yet. Vantablack is new and there isn't some special association with any particular artist the way that Tiffany has been selling things in Turquoise boxes for decades. Trademarks aren't supposed to be granted for something that a person or business isn't already using to uniquely identify themselves. So, one could own the color with a trademark, but it seems quite premature to grant that right.
I'll conclude with this. I think that the innovation in creating the carbon nanotube material means that some license for distribution of limited Vantablack stuff might be perfectly fine and make sense as a way for the creators to get paid back for their research. But I'd be highly, highly skeptical that artists using the exact same shade of black created or obtained through other means would actually be violating any law at all.
That techno moment when we zoom into the space of your silhouette should be the intro to whatever show you do after this
I understand the desire to have the connection between this fascinating new shade and oneself. And due to its scarcity it seems reasonable, at least in principle, to allow it. It seems more like a business partnership in that way, than a trademark. The worry that I have is the one mentioned briefly in the video, that not just Kapoor will not become associated with just vanta black but with every piece of art that utilizes some 'deep black'. In that sense I think that the reasoning is mainly under the aesthetic function argument, in that dark dark black is something that many artists would find useful, and possibly necessary. And thus restricting their access to it is, if not anything else, a restriction on the growth of art.
Personally what galled me about vanta black is that despite what people may think, art is not made by lone geniuses. Every artist is part of a community, learning from other artists and building on their discoveries and techniques. Think about watercolor for example. Who was the first person to sprinkle salt on a still-wet watercolor wash? Do you think if watercolor had been invented by a company and licensed to one artist alone, that that artist would have thought to use salt? Would they have thought of every possible way to employ the medium that enriched the world? Would they even be able to think of their own brilliant ideas that they would have had in the world where they were part of a community and had other's ideas to build on, remix and respond to?
If only one artist has access to the material, we lose the chance to make cool art but so does that one person who has access to it. It's like watching a let's play where only that one person was given the game so every time you are frustrated that you could have solved the puzzle they walked past, you literally can't do anything about it and have to just accept that that puzzle and the whole route they missed isn't ever going to be explored. They don't get to see it either! You are both denied something.
And yeah it's probably unreasonable to demand access considering how it's made, but still, we're still stuck being frustrated because he's not using vantablack like we would, and since we don't have access, we don't know if it's because of the nature of the material or just because it hadn't occurred to him to try the idea we may have had. And neither of us will ever know about the ideas we may have had if it were a conversation among many.
Black 2.0 and "share the black" is trying to forcibly bring the community to vanta black and force a conversation on how hyper-absorbent black could be applied artistically.
Black 2.0 is fanfiction. Fanfiction hate-written by people who think the author of the original is a meanie head but still.
What's the meme at 0:40 ?
One of my favorite stories from the art world 😂😂😂
PS: Please don't end. I love this channel
Theres a whole analysis of this topic that could be done from the perspective of protecting the commons. This is also clearly another example of private enclosure of public experience.
What I find interesting is how much my opinion of the situation changed dramatically when I learned, in this video, that he designed Cloud Gate. Before I knew that I had negative opinions of him and this situation, but I love that sculpture so much that learning it was his creation has vastly changed my position on the situation. I am much less angry at him and more interested in what he does with this color now.
This being one of my favorite videos makes me even more sad about the end of IC. thank you for making me see ordinary in a different light and I hope you continue to do so in the future
The entire Vantablack Saga is like my favorite thing to come out of the art world in the last few years, but as someone who went to art school and also is a fan of high-tech science - I can objectively understand why the creators of Vantablack would only license it's usage to one famous artist! Financially it might be in their favor to open it up to more, but it may not be physically possible... yet.
What we don't know about this situation is did Kapoor REQUEST exclusivity, or was it the company that said "only one" and Kapoor was just the highest bidder? What makes me think he's a jerkoff that deserves the bad press is his REACTION to the art world in light of this unprecedented move. Artists are angry. In particular, the guy who made the pinkest pink and black 2.0 didn't come across so much as angry as... amused. Maybe it's just marketing and how he presents himself, but the light-hearted protest against Kapoor by inventing new art supplies and preventing Kapoor from purchasing them because 1) he's the apparent underdog, 2) He did it all with at the very least a facade of playfulness, and 3) he's freakin brilliant and the supplies are affordable and widely accessible, and 4) he is opening up the art world to non-artsy people because the entire exchange is entertaining.
Kapoor's reaction though? Pretty shameful. He does not appear to care about the art world's concern about the exclusive access to Vantablack. He does not want to collaborate (he basically completely isolated himself) or share. And when a funny kid with a pigment business poked fun at the absurdity of hoarding a breakthrough pigment by banning him from owning it, he literally gave that guy the finger. He reflected the anger pointed AT HIM right back at the one guy who was not coming at him with personal ill will - only a playful determination to protest the ACTION and not necessarily the PERSON.
If I recall, Kapoor's ONLY reactions to this young artist have been, quite literally "Fuck you", while the entire art world is giving KAPOOR a metaphorical fuck you. It's the worst form of hypocrisy, entitled privilege (i'm allowed to have exclusive things because i'm a rich successful artist and look i got your pinkest pink anyway haha), and just plain bad sportsmanship that I've ever seen. And we haven't even SEEN ANY ART using vantablack come out of Kapoor at all!
That, and we instantly think of the guy who doesn't want to share as the villain, we've been trained to since we were kids. Swiper no swiping, and Sharing is Caring and all that. Kapoor should not be surprised or offended that we all think badly of him - he should have just ignored it all and MADE ART. Instead he turned himself into a sore winner by picking on someone a lot smaller than him for pointing out in a playful and hilarious way the inherent unfairness of only the most elite and successful artists having access to the most technologically advanced art supplies on the planet, and being able to create an association with that color/supply that could theoretically be legally protected before any other artists even get the chance to play in the sandbox!
It's basically like saying that I could only use a object, it'd be horrible. People wouldn't know how to react besides anger, sadness, jealousy. Jealousy is the thing that will cause people to steal trademarked colors and slightly change them and keep them as their own.
Speaking of art and color. Where can I get that Idea Channel mug on that speaker in the background?
this is the best channel on the whole of TH-cam
Amazing video! Wish you'd had a go with the Black 2.0. A thought... there's only one substance / material / process (depending on how you look at it) that only 'artists' are excluded from using due to an exclusivity deal, and that substance is vantablack. For example - the creators of vantablack will happily coat objects for space, fashion, luxury watches, deodorant brands - obviously if you pay them. But refuse to coat objects for artists. In every other art fabrication environment (even really dangerous and expensive ones, think about bronze casting) those companies will work with a variety of artists - everyone's work is different! The deal is in place specifically to stop 'Artists' from using it. Why does kapoor need exclusivity? surely he can collaborate with them without demanding that, and surely the creators can freely turn down projects they arn't interested in or have time for anyway?
Is there any sort of leeway here? Could someone take a protected colour and ever so slightly tweak the values, or is there some arbitrary "buffer"?
I love Sunn. Where can I get that t-shirt?
There's a lot of good thoughts in other comments on whether the color/material/whatever Vantablack is can be trademarked, but there's another aspect I want to explore, and that is the semiotics of color. All of the exampled mentioned - Tiffany blue, Louboutin red, IKB - were given trademarks because there was a clear association between the color and the other aspects of the brand using the color such that the color itself was associated with and only with that brand. When we see that distinct Tiffany blue, we think to the elegant luxury of Tiffany & Co., robin egg blue curtains framing its storefront as Audrey Hepburn slinks about munching on a pastry. And when Yves Klein first "trademarked" IKB, he had the same idea of capturing using the color as the idea itself. And we as a society have come to live in a world that accepts the commoditization of ideas. Kapoor trying to capture an idea with Vantablack is just a particularly brazen attempt at it, and the modern art critics who disagree are hypocritical in accusing him of monopolizing an idea when much of modern art itself is built on capturing ideas. Not all colors possess the "institutional reflex" that de Wilde claims. Some specific colors encapsulate an idea, serving as a signifier of a whole host of ideas that also associate with a specific brand. The same can be said of fonts, and there is less vitriol at the idea of trademarking fonts.
That being said, trying to use color as a semiotic poses its own pitfalls, especially in an artistic setting, because much art is also subversive. Trademarks can lose their monopolistic power when it become "generic" - that is, used so much in common parlance that enforcing a monopoly on its use is impossible. An example is the trademark "Xerox" to mean "to copy". These trademarks pick up so much semiotic baggage that to claim an exclusive association between the trademark and the brand falls apart. Colors are particularly susceptible to this sort of baggage because of how easily they can fit in diverse conceptual roles, as the color and the object being colored can easily be conflated, especially if a particular pair is produced over and over again. While I think Kapoor is in his right to attempt to control the use of Vantablack and associate it with his ideas, it's a fools errand - Vantablack or another similarly very dark black will be used by other artists to signify things not associated with Kapoor and rapidly cause the trademark to become generic. And being so brazen in this trademark grab will only motivate other artists to broaden the semiotic associations of Vantablack and foil Kapoor. Other artists have tried this, and many have failed.
to me, this issue reads something like this: anish gets exclusive rights to using this new shade of black, only when it's produced in one particular way. Someone else gets really mad, tries to develop another production process for this shade of black, therefore "unlocking" the color for the general public. the process of this happening raises some really interesting questions about copyright, along with sparking an art feud which is probably going to be a major point in art history classes in a few years.
Question: If you made a video about "relations of things and perception of that relations are not coherent" would you use relations that you made in your idea channell videos? I'm asking this because I think you relate things so out of focus and unintuitive, it makes me feel "that's a one hell of a trying hard"
yeah i can see relations between mtg cards and jazz, but in that way i can see relations between abstract fields in nature which no one can explain because of language barrier between the nature and perception. So do you think your unintuitive relations can be used in this way? Similar question: Making relations in mathematics are static, solid and objective. If we can manipulate this robust math structure, would we use manipulators like in our language?
sorry for my extremely poor english skills.
The video mentioned that the history of "protecting colors" started about 60 years ago, but I'd argue it goes back further; not for "art" in the traditional painting and sculpture sense, but in fashion. When Rome first became an empire, there were strict rules about the color purple: it was used for ceremonies honoring the gods and it was written otherwise exclusively by the emperor (associating the Emperor with the Roman gods via the power of color). No Roman was allowed to wear the 'trabea,' a toga entirely colored in purple, except the emperor. This didn't matter to many, as purple dye was incredibly expensive, but it was a kind of protection that is closer to 2040 years ago rather than 60. Trademark may be a more extensive, modern, and broad protection, but the power of color in art, culture, and society and what it represents can be argued to go back MUCH further.
What is the song at 0:42
What was the song he used to intro the carbon nanotubes?
I trademark the color Danzarioso. It's like Green, but with less circles.
Here's the thing on vanta black. The trademark is on the pigment (the way the color is achieved) not the color itself.
No, but i can own the people with the color of this thumbnail. 💀
Thank God a video addressing this issue! Donald Judd is right in his note. It doesn't matter if Vantablack is a color or a material. Both of them are what constitutes a work of art, not the work of art itself. They shouldn't be copyrighted by an artist, never!.. You can own a wooden sculpture you make, but you cannot own a wood type. Even though he says that he is working with the manufacturers, which should give him exclusive rights to manufacture it and to sell it, he should not own exclusive usage rights. That's what's making people mad about it.. He wants to own the color? Go ahead. But sell it like a manufacturer does. Otherwise its a goddamn crime. #sharetheblack
your wood analogy is flawed, the wood wasn't created by humans, vanta black was, the material is copywritten and the owner get decide how it gets used. edit: spelling
The manufacturer has the rights to do what he wants, no doubt about it. The problem is the ownership of such material/color by an artist... In color branding, the color must not be functional in any way (just like the John Deere lawn mowers) And in art, color and material are more than just function... they constitute an aesthetic feeling. The problem is how far will super black pigments evoke the name Anish Kapoor. When he starts using Vantablack in the art market, he will start to stick his brand name with the feeling of the color, giving him an unfair advantage in relation to all the other artists around that want to use all other non reflective black pigments. The problem is not the ownership on the production of Vantablack itself. The main problem is the adherence that will occur between the feeling of the material and the name of the artist.
All things fade with time, and so too will any possibilities of materials having a strong tie to an artist, with such ties allegedly hampering humanity's artistic progress, an assertion with no strong precedent that I can think of. I highly doubt such ties will come to exist, in the extreme manner they're talked about that is.
Yeah, I agree with you in the long run. But what troubles me is the impossibility of using a super black pigment right now and not be associated with him and all this polemic concerning what he did...
It's fine. It's not about the colour in this case but the physical substance that makes it. Surrey Systems picked Kapoor after they decided they wanted to limit the use of Vantablack while it's still being developed. Kapoor didn't come along and make them only give it to him.
In regards to the question of whether the product is an
object or an experience I have the following thoughts, specifically regarding
musical (largely tonal) systems as an analogous structure that possesses, across
cultures, disparities in the eventual experiences they are evocative of.
The traditional octave of the Western system is composed of
12 notes (whose positions and relations themselves have shifted over the
years). In contrast, the traditional tonal systems of Hindustan, the Middle
East, Bali, and so forth possess both intervals (distances between notes) and notes
themselves (the precise frequencies) that do not occur in Western music. Thus,
even on the basic axis of consonance v dissonance, the ear of someone
accustomed to X or Y tonal system is going to be wildly different (and the
other emotional/evoked connotations of these elements can also vary).
The conflation of sound and color may seem a stretch, but
stick with me. It occurs to me that the associations I have with, say, the
color red (not just the qualia of my image of it) are rooted in a variety of
influences external both to myself and the art I am taking in. This, I think,
tears enough influence from the artist to yank the answer from experience.
That is not to say for a moment that an artist’s intentions
don’t find themselves expressed in someone’s reaction to a work, in my
experience they definitely do. That being said, the nature of the beast that is
putting such a work out there has enough footing in the dialogue between work,
viewer, and other influences to center the debate in the grey middleground.
The short of it is this. I’m not sure I buy the idea that
any artist can create a definite, predictable experience. Human creation can’t
(or hasn’t in any widespread/largely studied way I’m aware of) be performed in
a vacuum, and thus there may be too many things at play to lay claim to the
experience produced by what you’ve created. In certain terms, the artist provides
the subject of the varied experiences of its audience, the dialogue between the
two is somewhere in the heart of art, I think.
The fact that Vantablack is patented suggests that we shouldn't worry too much. It should eventually be made more accessible to more artists over time provided they learn to safely apply and handle it.
Everyone's discussing the artist's desire to own a category of art that he's never actually made. If that was the only thing at play then I'd be 100% #sharetheblack. And insofar as that's all the trademark is protecting, it seems unfortunate.
But like you said, it's also in the interest of the people making Vantablack to ensure that the material gets its start in the art world at the hands of someone whose work they like. That's completely valid, and it's the other thing the trademark is designed to protect. There's nothing wrong with them selling Vantablack to only one artist in the beginning.
Numberphile has a great video on banned or illegal numbers, and since you can convert numbers to colors (via hexadecimal) they also touch on the idea of banned numbers.10/10 would recommend.
I find the idea of granting exclusive rights to an artist implies that it is the shade that is being granted, not the material. For example, if you were to grant exclusive rights for space agencies to NASA, that would be providing a material to a company with a specific practical use framework. Granting it to a single artist means that you are granting an aesthetic capacity to a single person. That grants that person the capacity to produce seemingly novel pieces that are only novel because of the exclusivity. One that stands out is the Vantablack unicorn. I can imagine that a matte black unicorn is something that has been done before. And that is essentially what Vantablack is. It is the most matte black. The most featureless black. Thereby it's originality lies only in the exclusivity of the colour
Now I can think of myriad was that Vantablack could be used artistically, both in sculpture and painting, and I am by no means an experienced artist. But this does two things. It limits the scope of it's use to the style of one artist with a very specific bent, that I don't personally believe is the most effective use of something as perception warping as this colour. And two it places the responsibility to use this colour to it's fullest capacity in the hands of one person. They may believe that they are the one best suited for that task, but that is hubris, not skill.
Finally, the artist had no hand in the making of the colour. The colour is a technology built with a specific goal in mind, reduce reflectivity to it's absolute minimum. The case study of the IKB shows an artist intentionally creating a colour for the purpose of art, but even he didn't have exclusive rights, it was simply that he made it, he knew it intimately, and he used it with abandon, there by making it quintessentially associated with him. Vantablack, even without the exclusivity clause, would be insanely exclusive. The cost of a small amount would be astronomical, and then there would be the cost of facility time and space, and the cost of the trained technician to apply it. This is not something that I could just order and use in the comfort of my own home. It requires specific temperature, pressure, cleanliness, and process requirements. It would be like buying a 1000 unit limited run Ferrari. It was not made for art. That it can be used in art is a happy accident, and should be shared with whoever has the capacity to afford it's use.
Tl;Dr Artist didn't make it, artist doesn't own it. Giving a "paint" to an artist is giving a shade to an artist, not a material.
Honestly, this is actually something I've been thinking about lately. I'm an engineer, so I like everything to be standardized to a certain extent, and with the rise of computers, that now extends to colors. In my mind, that's great-it brings precision color to everyone, which can be incredibly useful, so what does this mean for that? If you trademark a color, is a software developer not allowed to give access to that color? Can the screen be allowed to display it? What about a color that a computer, for technological reasons, could not be displayed? It's fascinating
Nice SUNN O))) shirt
He should've went for a black metal band instead of a drone doom band for this episode.
Sunn O))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Personally I believe the ownership he has on the colour is so galling because it is an example of superiority via wealth. I believe a core element of art work is the ability to create with anything and everything. It does not matter the wealth you have available to you, you can express your creativity how ever you can. Now, because of the ownership applied to this black, it doesn't matter if you have the means this one material is off limits to the rest of the art world.
If an artist aspires to create a work with this black they can never do it in there life time. It is an unreachable work. What ever imagery or experience they wish to create with this material is unattainable and that knowledge may crush those aspirations of ever creating. However the existence of Black 2.0 helps to assuage this. There is an alternative, and alternative that almost anyone can attain... accept of course those at present monetarily unable and of course Sir Anish Kapoor.
This takes back some small part of what may artists feel they have lost. It in my mind is a way to make Mr Kapoor experience the sensation of lost potential. I understand that he has been able to acquire the pink pigment, and while this dampens my point I feel the essence is still there in the reason for denying him them at all. It is a way for artist to vicariously vent there vindictive feelings and in my case, get over them.
I still believe that the exclusivity hurts the artist community as a whole, but the pain from this though is lessened.
If the problem is the short supply and danger of use them just up the price and require training to use it, don't actively prevent people from using it. You cannot kinda release a product, you release it or not.
This story itself could be spun into a sort of performance art. A multimedia event, performed in part by the audience, which evokes a strong sense of emotion. What makes it doubly interesting is that if that was the case, it would then become a work by Anish that Incorporates Vantablack.
wow. this is such a good episode. I can't believe this is ending.
I think the main difference is that Vantablack is a metamaterial, not a pigment or dye. The "color" is the optical property of this material, it cannot exist in any other medium. Its common for companies who develop these materials to copyright them.
AT&T also owns the Cingular Orange, which I think they call AT&T Orange. l remember that it was listed in Pantone swatches as Cingular Orange, where all the other colors just had numbers.
VantaBlack is definitely the material and method of application. We can all paint black. This isn't a new shade, it's just a novel approach to what everyone means when they say "black."
When I first heard that Kapoor had sole access to Vantablack, I automatically thought about how Monsanto copyrighted seed types so that they'd have a monopoly on crops. And I know those are two very different debates - but, for me, it comes down to an entity trying to own something so they don't have competition. You always win if no one else can compete.
I think the thing that alarms me most is the possibility of confusing patents, trademarks, and copyrights and the very different kinds of IP those things were meant to protect.
This is a interesting idea. I think if we treat colors as a subjective experience than there seems to be a legitimate claim that certain colors can be owned by artists. On the other hand, if colors are mind independent and are universal than no one can lay claim to a color that everyone see's as being blue, red, yellow etc...
Yes I would say that vanta black, as both a material and a colour, should be able to be trademarked as long as the person trademarking it is properly associated with it and the purpose you are trademarking it for is specific - like the examples after 6:00. However I would say that the vanta black trademark for 'its use in art' is wrong on three levels, the person not being associated with it, the usage not being specific enough and also not being an example of 'commercial usage'.
Though the later probably isn't a distinction in IP law itself, I would say that colourmarks should only be used for commercial brands like Pepsi or Cadbury, not art/media like Game of Thrones or the work of Kapoor. I can't put my finger on exactly why at the moment but colours seem to me to be too creatively stifling for this law to apply in the same way that it would for say the Game of Thrones theme song. A similar example would be fonts, should Game of Thrones or Pokemon be allowed to trademark the fonts used in their respective titles? Again I have a gut feeling of no they shouldn't however I can't give a clear answer as to why.
Thanks for giving me brain food for the past 5 years Idea channel, I'll be sad to see you go.
"very long... 60 years"? So what about who was allowed to wear purple all the way back to the medieval times and possibly before?
That was not so much "only nobility owned the color purple," but "only nobility owned (or could afford) purple clothes". And yeah, some nobles outlawed other people _wearing_ purple, but it's not like governments don't have similar laws today. You can own flashing blue-and-red lights, but putting them on your car is illegal.
In Japan the wearing of certain colours was restricted.
it also crossed my mind for a second, but i have to disagree.
colors like purple and red were hard to produce and therefore expensive. it's less like only a few selected were allowed to wear clothes dyed in those colores, more like they could afford it. it was a status symbol like a yacht or a sports car today.
i guess what you are referring to with purple is covered by the sumptuary laws and i would say that it seems similar but isn't quite the same. first off, we are talking about a very specific color here which is trademarked but the main reason, why i think it is a different case, is the reason why those laws got enacted: to differenciate people by class on first glance. impersonating a member of the royal family was the actual crime, which would be done by wearing purple (if you could afford it).
if you break it down, it's more a dress code than a limitation of usage of a specific color. If you see someone in your teams colors you immediately recognize him as a friend, or at least someone you can safely talk to. going to a wedding and seeing someone dressed in white, you know it is the bride because noone else is wearing white on that specific time and place. someone wearing yellow trousers and jacket and a red helmet, driving in a red truck is a fireman... you get my point.
lyadmilo exactly; I commented on that too. While the use of red in Japan was a bit different I believe, in Rome it was actually banned for use on anyone's clothes but the emperor because of its association with the gods.
Timothy McLean in medieval times yes, but the Roman Empire actually banned the use of purple for togas for anyone except the emperor because of its association with godliness. I think in that case your second example could be expanded to a police uniform: the color was associated with the emperor, and you were not allowed to impersonate the emperor (just as today you can get in trouble for impersonating any officer). The color itself had power.
I like the shooting star type transition.
Just wanted to say that this reminded me of the book "Bluets" by Maggie Nelson, which is a beautifully written investigation into color: its definition, its history, our personal associations--such as why and how we choose favorite colors, and how our associations and perceptions of color inform things like sexuality, interpersonal relationships, and the overall human experience.
Just got to say that IKB is my favorite color. I decided this awhile ago but I love weird-ing people out by having the exact hex value, #002fa7 memorized for Photoshop use.
This reminds of the time Michelangelo threw shade at Botticelli when he said "real painters" don't need to paint with gold they should be skilled enough to be able to depict gold. In my opinion, I think art is more than a color. How an artist uses a color is important. How other artists respond to that use and use it in their own way is also important.
To me, one thing you mentioned stuck with me it is dangerous. I got to remembering white lead paint and arsenic green dye. Should this Uberblack be used in cookware? Or garments? I think it is at least smart to limit it to art. As for other more safer colors, companies built their names with the color they use. A person can be mistaken for an employee if they wear a shirt similar to a store's uniform.
Use v black to depict black holes, Sauron's windows into nothing eyes, Morgoth's crest, & the dark portion of the Mandelbrot Set.
If this was solely about the material being potentially unsafe to use, exclusivity wouldn't be necessary, or even desirable given that more people having access would allow more experimentation. They could easily leave the licensing open to any artist who promised to use the stuff safely, possibly with a mandatory safety training course.
From what I'm reading, the _color_ for IKB is merely ultramarine pigment. Supposedly what was special about the paint is the binder; a formulation of polyvinyl acetate, which most are familiar with in the form of white school-glue.
The Blue Man Group color was born when the creators commissioned a new shade of greasepaint from Mehron, a stage-makeup manufacturer. It could very well be that the pigment used is likewise ultramarine; but I cannot find any confirmation of this. While the creators of BMG admit that Yves Klein was a major influence on the creation of the act, according to the artistic director of BMG, "while it’s very close to IKB it sometimes tends a bit more towards cobalt blue." Curiously, Mehron sells a "Blue Man" makeup kit to the public, but, for contractual reasons, the greasepaint in the kit does not exactly match the BMG shade; it comes off as more muted, and less glossy.
After Blue Man shows, the performers "sign" playbills by dabbing some greasepaint from their face and using it to make a thumbprint. Being a stage makeup geek, I made certain to get that makeup sample :)
*color* =/= *material*
(be the material paint;. And I'm sure many paints are proprietary and it's up to their owners who they sell it to. It's not a color. It's paint/coating/material (or technically, recipe to make it).)
this is a tough one. I remember reading that vanta black is technically a duel substance so it has all those scientific properties mentioned in the video but it also has possible military applications due to its light absorbing properties in both the visible and non-visible spectrums.
further more they, in my opinion, are not saying they own the color but the own the substance and proceces used to make the color. I think they can restrict it's use if not only for the fact that it has military applications.
loads of companies own different shades and hues of colors
I think this either falls into the "can you own and idea or concept" or the "can you create vanta-beis and is it classified as a weapon of mass destruction"
I strongly identify with the animation at 9:23
Totally fine. He doesn't have exclusive access to a color; he has exclusive access to a product.
I think what you touched on towards the end gets to what I think is the heart of the issue: owning the colour vs owning the substance that makes the colour. I don't feel like I can say which one is actually having its rights held in this instance, but I see no problem with "only this man can use the thing we made to make this colour", but to own a colour is like owning sunlight; it may not exist beyond our subjective experience and be no more than an illusion created by sensory input (what isn't though?) but it is still [more or less] a naturally occurring phenomena. That's why it seems so wrong to own it.
Thank You. For Everything.
at a guess I would say that sir k has been given exclusive access to the nano-tubes substance vantablack, and if in the meanwhile someone else makes another, even a similar, substance or otherwise reproduces the startling void shade which happens to be the same shade as vantablack-the-substance, that isn't an infringement because it's no the same thing. I make this guess based on, as you stated, sir k's credentials: he can be trusted to make good/effective/efficient use of the substance, which is important because of its scarcity. It wont be exclusive forever, especially not once atomic/molecular level 3-d-printing becomes prolific.
I worked in a government trademark office for 3 years. When I took a taxi to the office, the driver would say: “oh you are going to the patent office?” No, sir, patent is a different office. People are so confused when it comes to protecting IPR. That’s why we have sharetheblack demand. With this energy, why not asking pharmaceutical companies to share cancer medicine?
I'm actually reminded of the "illegal prime" fun from several years back, where a guy named Phil Carmody took a piece of software that could be used to decrypt DVDs, embedded it into a very large prime number, and had the very large prime number verified as being a prime number. After which, legally speaking, it was a number, and not a DMCA-violating piece of machine code, and was thus maybe, possibly, legal to post on a certain website that lists the largest prime numbers people have ever found.
Now, the trick is, you can do this with _all_ computer programs, because in the end every computer program is stored on the hardware level as a whole lot of binary. So does this mean that computer programs can't be copyrighted? Because they're numbers?
If it was just a deal between vantablack and Anish where he was the only one getting supplied with it, there wouldn't be an issue. Like you said, it's expensive and scarce. The only issue I take with it is the legal idea of owning that shade. If the color itself can be replicated with other materials, anyone should be able to use it.
Vantablack isn't a shade so much as a technology, he's licensed to use that particular product. It seems fairly reasonable that a difficult to produce etc material be able to be controlled by its owner.
The artist isn't the one holding the trademark, it's the nanotech company. The artist is the only one licensed to use it for artistic endeavors that's not really the same thing
Artist here! While specific shades are trademarked, those trademarks are extremely limited. There is nothing stopping me from mixing up some Tiffany Blue and using it to paint some water or something, and honestly, there would be no reason for them to come after me unless I advertized the fact. Even then, the transformative nature of painting, and the natural use of art as commentary would probably be more than suficient protection.
On the other hand, there has been a long history of proprietary pigment formulae, and the limited marketing thereof. While it does grate that Vantablack is only selling to one artist, and I think they are being selfish in so doing, it's their patent, they aren't obligated to sell to anyone if they don't want to.
It is also kind of fun to contemplate the irony here. Black is an absense of color in light. The company making Vantablack is obviously using light (spectroscopy) to measure their product's color.
To put it in an Idea Channel style question: Is the absense of something still that thing? In this case the question is: Is the absense of color still a color? In mathematics, the answer to "Is the absence of a value still a value?" is "yes". Because the absense of a value is zero. But how far does that question extend? Is the absense of a building still a building?
Fun side topic.
man, I haven't heard IKB in YEARS! what's next, Baker Miller Pink?
When are more Reasonably Sound episodes coming out?
It seems to me that it would be perfectly fine for Kapor to have the only access to vantablack (the material), but not the color itself. Right now, such a difference doesn't matter, as the material is the only thing that color. However, should another company or artist develop another material that has the same shade, there's no reason to prevent them from using it.
is that Sunn tee from the Black1 album/tour?
Whats the name of that song that plays at the start of the video?
Seems like a perceptual color and a particular chemical process used to create a pigment are two distinct things? Vantablack isn't a new color, it's just a blackness that's perceptually unusual, or that's blacker in more lighting circumstances, right? So trademarking vantablack the physical substance seems like a qualitatively different thing than trademarking a pantone color-- not a physical substance but an idea. BUT I'm really into how this conversation re-orients our thinking re: color towards an older and more physically-embodied understanding of it: colors as not merely theoretical and abstract, but as tied inextricably to their sources in the physical world.
The major complication is that the color, in this tangible form, was invented. While the shade itself should not be exclusive on the basis that it occurs naturally within the visible light spectrum (otherwise we couldn't see it), a trademark on the actual, reproducible paint strikes me as reasonable. The major concern is with national and international ownership laws which often prevent this stuff from falling into the public domain. Paint exclusivity for five or 10 years? Probably not a huge issue. But for 60, 70, 80+ years? Suddenly it becomes non-competitive and excessively exclusionary, especially if the legal applications were overly broad.
Not long ago part of being a painter was know how to make paint, and I'm certain not telling other painters how you got that particular flesh tone was part of the landscape. I'm not certain how the arrangement described is any different from the company deciding not to sell Vantablack to any other artist.
I hope the aliens don't intercept my Vantablack pants suspenders