Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, recently claimed to have conjured the ability to make humans see a “new color” that was beyond the “natural human gamut.” Researchers did this by firing laser pulses into volunteers’ eyes, thus manipulating their sight to induce the new hue.
Now, a British artist claims to have literally bottled the color. Stuart Semple claims to have reproduced the new color and is selling it on his website. He has dubbed it “YOLO.”
“Scientists discover new colour and I’ve already liberated it,” Semple recently wrote on his Instagram. “The most expensive paint on the planet is super affordable for artists. Scientists may not be interested in the artistic uses for their new colour discovery but I am. That’s why I’ve been up all night making YOLO for you all – if you want some grab it from culturehustle.com.”
There’s just one problem: scientists say that the color can’t be reproduced outside of their experiment.
“It’s impossible to recreate a colour that matches olo,” Austin Roorda, a scientist on the Berkeley team, told The Guardian. Because of the way in which human vision is induced to see oso—basically via an optical trick—it means that the color can never really exist in the real world. Semple could easily be accused of merely selling a light teal paint and marketing it as the same color produced by the recent experiment.
“Any colour that you can reproduce would just pale by comparison. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a paint or a swatch of colour or something or even a monochromatic laser, which generate the most saturated natural human colour experiences,” Roorda added.
However, Semple has said that he took pains to create a unique paint product that would emulate the experience produced by the Berkeley experiment. The Guardian notes that the artist added “fluorescent optical brighteners that absorb ultraviolet light and re-emit it as visible blue light, making materials appear whiter or brighter.” Gizmodo reached out to Semple for comment.
“I’ve always thought that colour should be available to everybody,” Semple told the outlet. “I’ve fought for years to liberate these colours that are either corporately owned or scientists have staked a claim to, or have been licensed to an individual person.” He added: “I think they’ve triggered an experience in people that they’re approximating to a colour. What I’ve done is tried to make an actual colour of that experience.”
This isn’t the first time Semple has released a color approximating another more scientifically fantastical one. In 2016 Vantablack, a coating so dark is absorbs light, was exclusively licensed for artistic use to Anish Kapoor. Semple responded by creating an extraordinarily matte black paint that was available to purchase by anyone but Kapoor. He did the same with a super pink pigment. He’s gone on to release at least four version of his black paint, all in a quest to create the paint version of Vantablack, which is a coating that requires special equipment to apply. Semple’s YOLO is as much another art stunt as it is his attempt at creating a color human beings lack the cones to see.
Semple is currently selling YOLO for £10,000, or £29.99 if the buyer claims to be an artist.
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