DDrift

Chapter 01 of 5

A Void in the Gallery

The arrival of Vantablack and the sensory shock of the total abyss.

  1. Origin

    Beyond the Spectrum

    Vantablack was originally developed by Surrey NanoSystems for aerospace and defense, not the art world. It was designed to suppress stray light in satellite cameras and telescopes.

  2. Mechanism

    A Forest of Nanotubes

    It is made of vertical carbon nanotubes, each 10,000 times thinner than a human hair. Light enters this 'forest' and gets trapped, bouncing between tubes until it turns into heat.

  3. Metric

    Absolute Zero

    The substance absorbs 99.965% of visible light. This makes it the closest thing to a black hole that a human can safely touch.

17 more cards in this chapter

Could you answer this?

Why does a 3D object coated in Vantablack appear to the human eye as a flat, 2D shape?

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⬛ Vantablack and the Battle for the Darkest Hue

  1. 01A Void in the GalleryThe arrival of Vantablack and the sensory shock of the total abyss.
  2. 02The Exclusive AbyssAnish Kapoor’s controversial monopoly and the ethics of color ownership.
  3. 03The Pinkest RetaliationStuart Semple strikes back with a neon protest for the masses.
  4. 04Democratizing the DarkThe development of Black 3.0 and the open-source pigment revolution.
  5. 05Legacy of the Color WarHow the Vantablack saga redefined the relationship between art and IP.