Citation Needed - The Blackest Black

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

Vantablack is a material developed by Surrey NanoSystems in the United Kingdom and is one of the darkest substances known, absorbing up to 99.965% of visible light (at 663 nm if the light is perpendicular to the material).[4][5]

I mean truly awful. I could not have respected my time less. Right? Right, what was the whole fucking losing the farm bullshit? Never mattered, never, not once, not one time. Nope, dude, I said hold him. I am, I'm holding him. Guys, what is with the box?

What? Absolutely not. Damn it, it's time in there. What the fuck? Yeah, we got him, we got him in there. Okay, I'm gonna regret even asking this, Absolutely not. Damn it, it's Tom in there. What the fuck? Yeah, we got him. We got him in there. Okay, I'm gonna regret even asking this, but why?

To save our podcast. Save the podcast? You trapped him Tom in a box to save our podcast. Yeah, he was gonna do an episode about the blackest blacks. Yeah, he's staying there. He's in the box. Yeah, we're not sure how he was gonna judge it. Like by skin color or afrocentrism,

but whatever he was gonna do, it was gonna be a real mess. So don't worry, he the nice at this box trap with an old fashioned in it, and boom, he's in there now. Podcast is saved, and we are not canceled, you're welcome. Guys, yeah, no, what's up? Tom's essay is about a paint color. Uh, what now? A paint color. What now? A paint color.

Someone developed the darkest shade of black paint. That's what Tom's essay is about. Not whatever you think he was writing about, whatever you just said. Oh, that's a lot different. Color. That makes sense. Makes a lot more sense with the paint color. Okay, all right, so will you let him out?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, absolutely. Sorry about that, buddy. Tom. Tom, you're going to come out. Tom., I'm just gonna finish the old fashioned one second Hello and welcome, the citation needed. The podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts. Because this is the internet, that's how it works now.

I'm Eli Bosnick and I'll be descending into the darkness tonight But I'll need a lineup of colorful Erickdurs, hmm first up do men who love a good spite story know what and Cecil. Oh shit Now I literally run a successful business so my last boss knows how hard it can go People are constantly accusing me of doing things out of spite, but that's stupid I never run out of spite And also joining us tonight two men who have named specific buying protections against them, but for very different reasons Keith and Tom No idea what that means

Hello, I'm here apparently Better reference to something that happens later. We haven't talked about it Apparently, better reference to something that happens later. No, we haven't talked about it. Is it okay to be proud of your, I think that this claim or was just for me, count? Yes, absolutely. That's absolutely. So before we begin tonight, I'd like to take a second

to thank our patrons. Our patrons give us money for a free show. In an act of generosity so unbelievable, I'm pretty sure we're in unbroken machines from vanilla sky. And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around to the end of the show. And with that out of the way,

no, I tell us what person placed the concept phenomenon or event we'll be talking about today. We'll be talking about the blackest black. And Tom, you've been just to scrounge up an interesting story about watching paint dry Rubber noses and the story this wonderfully petty is not gonna tell itself Okay, but I'm totally doing grass growing now Tom made that okay. No, you this not Grass has to be special all right, so tell us Tom what is the blackest black? Okay, well, this is not all things considered going to be a very complicated story. Although it will involve carbon nanotubes,

snobby, esoteric art stuff, and wonderfully passive aggressive Instagram fights. And it all starts, so that's part of it. It's so good. It's so good. The whole thing starts in a laboratory in England called Surrey Nano Systems. Are the folks at Surrey Nano Systems figured out a way to create a new color? Kind of. Is it black?

You're okay. Now the essay's ruined. That's it. That's it. Okay. There goes the revealing. Oh, he thought he was gonna get it. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Yeah. You like set me up for a super funny joke and I just guess noted and it's really offensive. There goes the revealing. He thought he was waiting for free. Yeah. He likes it. Me up for a super funny joke. And I just guess noted and it's really offensive. We're going to explain the joke. It's just the thing we do silly things. Everyone was like, what was he like saying? He was just like, I'm part of the writing parts of the show are hard for me.

Teeth me up without a golf ball, man. Where did we just start the golf set? All right, well, they didn't really figure out a new color. What they figured out how to do is to create a material that in all practical senses seems to erase light. The science nerds figured out that they could create a material that was, at least in 2017, the absolute blackestest black imaginable. And this creation and the pissing match

that followed it is nothing short of amazing. Waste of government time and resources. What they need to be working on is a green crayon that doesn't run out for a fish. That's it. That's it. I mean, before we delve into the human drama of it all, I need to try to explain to you the big deal about the blackest black.

First of all, in the art world, black itself is a big deal, and the quest for the richest, deepest color of black is not a new venture. There's something universally understood about the emotionality of the void, and the use of the in-chist version of black has been something artists have worked into their pieces for a very long time. But no matter how dark you think that you have seen a black color, I can promise you that you have never seen anything like what the guys at Surinano systems create. It's so black, Candace Owens threw it under a bus.

It's so black. Any painting you use it on automatically makes 40 cents on the dollar less than other paintings. Oh, it's so black. Just we didn't remove it from the Snyder. It's so black, it couldn't be applied to surfaces with a melting point below 1200 degrees because of its massive heat absorption. I'm trying to like the rule of three is demanded that I go in and use this thread.

No, it's different. It's a good rehearsal one. All right, imagine for a moment a color of black. So impossibly perfect in its blackness that it reduces whatever it coats to two dimensions. A color so absent reflection, it defies your eyes and brains ability to create a functional three-dimensional image. This color is the color of void. It is the essence of absence itself, and it is from all descriptions a total mind-fuck to look at. The way this effect is produced is by growing carbon nanotubes in a standing array like blades

of grass. These carbon nanotubes are packed together, there's a billion of them in a square centimeter, and as Brian Jensen of Surinano systems puts it, quote, Light comes in as photons, enters the top of the structure, and then the photons bounce around between the carbon nanotubes and get absorbed and converted to heat, and then the heat is dissipated through the substrate. All of that is nerd talk for light comes in, but it don't come out. But not just visible spectrum light.

This material called Vanta Black captures light across wavelengths spanning the ultraviolet to the wide, hot infrared, and all of the visible spectrums in between. Vanta black absorbs 99.96% of all of the light that reaches it. When you view something coded in Vanta black, you sort of don't even see anything at all. You see 0.04%. I know there's a list about that little bit to leave this They're just chewing at them Since virtually none of the photons that touch the object are reflected back

At any angle All your mind perceives is just a two-dimensional void Okay, but who the fuck cares? Like nobody's being like, why is Batman suit three-dimensional and not a vacuum? Nobody ever said that. Why does that matter? I mentioned a few useful scientific applications, but I feel like me defending his topic would just make Tom feel worse.

Yeah, I don't want that to happen. I'm just saying that. I'm just saying that's not the same thing. Yeah, exactly. I would fuck up the dynamic. Now, this sounds spectacularly unbelievably cool, and you're already thinking, where can I get some? I'm right there with you, but the whole point of this story will be based on the simple Now, this sounds spectacularly unbelievably cool, and you're already thinking, where can I get some?

I'm right there with you, but the whole point of this story will be based on the simple answer that you cannot get this, not at any price. The first applications of Vanta Black were crazy expensive and super involved, and had to have scientists and lab codes to apply it, and it was unbelievably dangerous, like it blow up and catch on fire. Very expensive, that is no fun. So the science guys made a second slightly more accessible version of Vanta Black.

This new version was still bonkers as shit, and expensive and dangerous, but now it could be applied to stuff by spraying on whatever you wanted to just disappear as long as that thing happened. It's very dangerous. Yeah. It catches on fire at the slightest profit. Why did you breathe in it?

And it's super dangerous because it's this nanotechnology that will get all up in your lungs and shit. Yeah. What a crazy crazy. It's very inky. An OLED TV. Those are totally worth it. It just takes a drop. The blackest black lung. That know, OLED TV. Those are totally worth it. It just takes a drop.

The blackest black long. That's what you get. So they could it could now be applied to stuff by springing on whatever you wanted to make disappear just so long as that thing happened to fit into the nerd box of scary danger that applied this stuff over its sorry nano systems. Oh, and you can't touch this stuff, or it ruins the effect, because you'll fuck with the nanotubes somehow.

So it was really finicky and dangerous and expensive, but it's still just cool as hell. Okay, this is starting to sound like the, I can't go when you watch a faints tom, are you really aware? Let's get some advice. Next thing we came up with the clearest paint. It's the most see-through thing you've possibly imagined.

All right. And look, the science guys knew pretty much right away that they had something special, and not just for doing like, sciency optics, like space telescopes and stuff, but if it's something that would also hold a hell of a lot of a feel, even to people who weren't good at math. But they also knew this wasn't something they could stick in a rustolium can and then sell

it to Home Depot. So they reached out to an artist named Anish Kapoor. And they decided to sell Kapoor a license to use Vanta Black for artistic purposes. The only license. Just one guy with a two-dimensional pantone and an alley, sting you over, and say, come on, man. Open just coat. You can't see in it.

It's like, just like in there. What are you holding? Do you say, do you want a black? What? What? You didn't. A little about Anish Kapoor. If you've been to Chicago and you've seen the bean, which is technically called Cloudgate,

but it's really called the beans, fuck you. The beans, the beans. And you're familiar with at least one of Kapoor's works. I don't know fuck all about art, but the guys that's Serenano systems knew enough to recognize the Kapoor, who by the way is a famous enough artist that he has actually been knighted for like, arding. Good. He was really into the whole playing with light and void thing.

As Jensen from Surrey Nano systems put it, quote, his life's work had revolved around light reflection and voids, end quote. So if you were a nano tube scientist with a super volatile, very expensive material that eats light like heath each cheese, it only makes sense to team up with Kapoor to be your nano tube light destroying art. Eat light like an apple.

I don't know if that's right. So if anyone out there has a highly volatile one of a kind cheese that you'd like to eat to incorporate into our podcast, give us a break, you know. We can have it. It's funny, like I also would use the word void to describe anish Kapoor's career, but my way wouldn't

sound as complimentary. Oh, wow, man, polished metal Pringle. Very brave. Yeah. Cool. Cloud game. Oh, yeah, because it looks nothing like a powder. I get it.

So Kapoor has not been terribly vocal about Vanta Black or his exclusive license. Though he has said of it, quote, it's the blackest material in the universe after black holes. I've worked with, I've worked with an idea of non-material objects since my void works from the mid 80s and Vanta Black seems to me to be a proper non-material. Honey, honey, I like the jet black from the bathroom, but what about a venturizing black? What? The media I'm working in is non material right now. You're just waving your hands

in the air. I could see you. The amount of pretension in some of this writing is fucking delicious. It exists between materiality and illusion. This next fucking guy. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. I don't understand what this means at all, but David Ann Fam, an art curator, added about Kapoor and Vanta Black and I only included this quote because it is so fucking pretentious.

Quote, he's so interested in surfaces and colors because they create a very distinct sense of space and many different associations, from the visceral to the immaterial. This sentence, fuck this sentence forever. That's what art, that's a fanta flesh. Vanta black has a numinous quality. That is an anxious propensity

for creating a latter-day sense of the supply. Okay, settle down, Clarence. It's a fucking propensity for creating a later day sense of the supply. Okay, settle down, Clarence. It's a fucking chrome kidney bean. Okay. It's the blackest material after black holes. You know, who's an expert about black holes? Post structuralist sculptors. Oh, yeah.

That's the first thing they teach you. No. I'm not a copter. No, I'm not. That's the first thing they teach you in North. So, say Numinus one more time. Say Numinus again. You'll never say Numinus again. So if you're only going to give one guy a license to use Vanta Black, Kapoor actually seems like a great choice. Unless you happen to be another artist, artists that turns out love color.

It's a whole thing to these guys, I guess. And when a revolution like Vanta Black occurs in the field of color, it makes a lot of them really excited. And then when they discover that no matter how cool this shit is, they can't have it because this amazing material is only licensed to one guy in the whole world, one guy who now has exclusive rights to the visible essence of nothingness invoid, but it doesn't actually sit well with a whole lot of them. Well, yeah, because the only thing artists love more than color is an excuse for why they haven't made it in the art lately. You know that color you've been working on? That's not colored, you're not. And also, people kind of hate Kapoor,

but most people won't say it out loud while he's undeniably respected. He's also not exactly the art world's favorite person because he is so incredibly famous, few in the art world who make their living doing art stuff will openly criticize or even comment about him at all. Kapoor is almost untouchable and even some of his critics have couched their critiques of him by saying things like, Kapoor has quote, a major ego and is a narcissistic maniac, but his work is so good he's earned the right to be.

It's like a really good being you guys. It's so big. Except that for at least one person, no amount of success earned Kapoor the right to be the sole owner of Vanta Black. All right. Well, now that I've got someone to blame for why I haven't updated my blog in over two years, I'm going to go to an artist for treating the Hamptons and playing them out. And while I do, let's take a little break for Appropoe of Nothing. Mr. Smitherson, thank you so much for coming. No problem.

I thought we'd just see what our monies get in us here, you know. And of course, our newest product will revolutionize the arts. It's the blackest black possum. Very impressive. Imagine what painters will be able to do with that. Well, okay, not haters per se. No? What?

Well, sir, most people can't actually use it. You need to be a scientist to apply it. A scientist? Why? I don't know what the... Because of the tubes. The tubes that only scientists can keep, you know, in there, right?

Okay, well, if we can't use it, I'm sure that we can, you know, I'm not sure that we can't, but we created a slightly less black, black, that you totally can't use. You just, you can just spray it right on. Ah, well, well, um, surely whatever is great with that, that's going to change the world of art then, right? Totally, totally.

But well, except, except, wait, what? Except we only gave permission to one guy to use it and, uh, he just hasn't done it yet. You gave permission to use a color to one guy who hasn't actually used it yet. Nope, yep, right, exactly. I see, okay. Steve did the museum guy come with the money yet because the girls say they're down or we're getting another eight ball,

but it's we need the money. Greg, this is Mr. Smitherson from the museum. Hey, hey, I meant, which is now when I meant, I checked the tubes and they are in there. Still, 100% in there. I'm so big. Because we have scientists here, 100%. 100% yeah.

Yep, all the tubes, 100. Now wait, just one second, just wait one second. I think I know what's going on here. You do? Yes, you gentlemen are doing great and important science and I am interrupting you. I'll let you get back to it I'll just show myself out. Thank you, sir.

So the April? Greg! Right? Right? And we're back. When we left off, everyone who took a gap year after college was just about to make art look, we couldn't get the blackest blackest ever! And then all those artists moved on quickly and focused on bringing beauty and universal experience to their fellow band. Brutal. Did you read a

fuck all of modern art? Seriously, fuck all of it. All of it. Thank you. All right. Well, enter now into our story Stuart Semple. Semple is also an artist. They'll be a much less famous one that could pour. And Semple's mom actually told Stuart about band to black. No, what? Yeah, she just read a story about it. She told him about it.

She inaccurately described it as a paint. And so at first Semple was really excited, after all, who in the visual arts world wouldn't want access to Banta Black? Vote from Stuart. The thing with artists is we make stuff out of other stuff. So when we see something like that, our minds automatically run through the possibilities.

Well, they should have sent a poll. I'm sorry. I have to, Mr. Newman, as I appreciate this, but fuck it right? Keep it simple, simple. But no matter how many possibilities, simple's mind would run through. It wouldn't mean fuck all, because one man and one man only had access to Vanta Black. And Kapoor wasn't sharing. I mean, first she hogs all the best reflective paraboloids

and now this. The more that's simple thought about this, the more it's just stuck in his craw. Quote, there's no other substance on the planet that artists are the only people banned from using. He's quoted as saying, though I do have to point out that in fairness, he's very much wrong about that. There wasn't a ban on the use of Vanta Black.

Vanta Black is a whole process. And processes are licensed for use all the time. And to be fair to Surrey Nano systems, this isn't a material you can just throw in the FedEx and ship out. They literally have a special box in their lab to apply this stuff because it is so complex and dangerous. So, Semple's outrage is here a little misplaced.

Just wait till Semple hears about all the sculptures out of depleted uranium and Barack Obama's teeth. He's not allowed to make it. That's crazy. Except that maybe his outrage wasn't completely misplaced because just because Kapoor had the only license doesn't mean that he couldn't Share that license that maybe it wouldn't be practical to just offer Vanta black to every idiot who wanted it But he wasn't sharing with anyone at all. He was hogging the void

And that pissed off simple at a talk at an art museum in Denver Simple was asked what his favorite color was and he replied, Vanta Black. And I can't use it. Okay, but it's for the record. Semple's entire portfolio at this point was a smiley face squished between two walls and some photos with spray-painted words on them.

So a color that turns your lack of talent into nothingness, like I get why you want it. He's going up against the bean guy though. That shouldn't matter. He shouldn't have the banner. So Semple wasn't going to take this denial lying down. In addition to being an artist, Semple was himself also a color creator and he had created a color that was itself a most of the most situation.

Semple made a pigment which was the pinkest pink. It's a pink, so pink that you can't properly see it on your phone because your phone can't make the color pink as pink is the pink in this pinky pink. And simple decided to sell this incredible pigment for five dollars, accessible to absolutely anyone, anyone who is not a niche couple. Yeah, I really appreciate the motivation here, but like the blackest black is a real thing,

right? That's the thing that you can measure in terms of spectral absorption. The pinkest pink is just his opinion about a hue. Okay. So to buy this color, all you have to do is go to Samples website, spend $5, then affirm that quote, by adding this product to your card, you confirmed that you are not a niche coport. You are in no way of showing it to a niche coport.

You are not focusing this item on behalf of a niche coport or it is so sick of a niche Kapoor. You are not focusing this item on behalf of a niche Kapoor or it is so sick of a niche Kapoor. The best of your knowledge, information and belief, this paint will not make its way into the hands of a niche Kapoor. And there was, of course, a hashtag to accompany this hashtag, share the blood. Okay, that's amazing. But again, modern artist stoop so stupid. Yeah, it's like, Taylor Swift teamed up with NASA and they invented a 440.000001. And then Katy Perry start selling B flats on cameo. So, don't. Obviously, a not at my lunch table stipulation in the sale of pink paint is not enforceable, but that wasn't the point.

The point was to create a one-of-a-kind color to make it very much accessible and to drive home the point that hogging something really cool was just a total dick move. Quote, I thought I might sell one or two, but the website itself would be almost like a piece of performance art and the pink jar like the artwork said symbol. Sure, man, because when you're going up against mirrored bean guy, your online store can be a piece of art too. Why does the fuck man? God damn it.

It just means now. Simple didn't sell one or two jars. He sold 5,000 jars. Artists all over began making art with the pinkest pink and using the hashtag share the black. The simple low key performance art protest had exploded. And then a picture popped up on Instagram from anish Kapoor. Please say it is dick and it please say it is dick. Dipped into a jar of the pinkest pink,

what's the dick? Was the raised and pink coated middle finger, sorry, Sons of Anish Kapoor. The reaction was swift and severe. Artists, the world over-responded and none too kindly to the provocation by the Vanta Black monarch Kapoor. In response to Kapoor's pink dipped fingers, simple created the world's glitteriest leaders called diamond dust.

This stuff is amazing. You can look at it. It's amazing. And it is made so it can be applied over an existing painting, and which he released right after the pinkest pink. This stuff is not only just completely amazing to look at, but it also has so much ground glass in it. But if Kapoor had stuck his finger in it,

he'd have shredded that finger. It is a perfect, buck me, fuck you, kind of a moment. Oh, you know, it would really show him if you guys all gave me another $25,000. That's what that'll show the art fat cats big time. That's the money you give me on my art website. Also remember the bean, technically called cloudgate. This is a huge reflective piece of Kupur's art located in Chicago at the entrance to Millenium

Park. Well, Semple wasn't done fucking with Kapoor. In honor of Kapoor's 64th birthday, Semple arranged a kiss the bean event where he encouraged people to show up and smudge up Kapoor's big, beautiful sculpture with their pinkest pink lipstick. An event which only makes sense in a previous. Yeah, that's insane. Two hundred and four people showed up and smeared their lips, schmutz, all over Kapoor's sculpture into fines of his color hogging shit. Eddiness. Yeah, you sure showed that Chicago sanitation worker that had a power wash that shit off. Yeah, but I mean, there is nothing in artist hate more than hundreds of people paying

attention to their rights. Yeah, you really showed them. But again, Kapoor still owned Vanta Black. And no amount of fucking with Kapoor would change that. So the only thing left to do is to make a black pigment to rival Vanta Black. Of course, making the color black so black would rival the creation of carbon nanotube scientists

without being a carbon nanotube scientist would seem to be an impossible task. If that is, you had to do it alone, but Sample had not just his own personal expertise as a color creator to draw from. He now had the aid of an entire disenfranchised art community. So he said about making his own super black pigment. He made a black that was sort of good, which he called black 1.0. And then he did something really cool. He sent a thousand samples of it to artists and color

creators all over the world to get their suggestions on how to make it better. Working in collaboration with those artists, the world over, simple revised and refined his color. And the result was black 2.0. All right, guys, the experts we checked with, they all said, blacker. So what are we doing? Less color. It's a good thing we have that amazing justice league

of disenfranchised. I'm picking it up, press. All right, so black 2.0 is really, really fucking black. While Vanta Black chews up and refuses to spit out light across a wide spectrum of both visible and non-visible wavelengths, that neat little quality is meaningless to the human eye. To achieve the Vanta Black effect,

you don't have to gobble all the light, just the visible light. And black 2.0 absorbs 95% of all that visible light. It is wildly crazily black. black 2.0 absorbs 95% of all that visible light. It is wildly crazily black. And unlike Vanta black, it is non-toxic, does not catch on fire or explode if Miss Handle. That's a nice feature. It comes in a tube that anyone could just buy.

It can be purchased right now for less than $20. And it smells like black cherries. It's so black that Donald Trump wouldn't let it sign a lease in his apartment complex. It's so black and can't vote in Georgia. So black, it's orange now technically and it's all in one voting. Black cherry mended. Cherry man. Very good. Black cherry mended. Cherry mended. There you go.

In nearly every way, samples creation of Black 2.0 renders the exclusivity rights of Capore to Vanta Black, meaning was, Black 2.0 was safer than Vanta Black. It was cheaper than Vanta Black. It smelled like cherries instead of like nerds and lab coats. And most importantly, it was readily available to anyone, except in Ish Kapoor. Yeah. So good.

But sample wasn't done. Black 2.0 was very, very black, but Vanta Black was still better as a color. So sample made black 3.0. Yeah, did you, are you reading ahead? Does it absorb more than 95% of the light? The M.U. Heath and Damn you, heath and right. That is, all right.

Black 3.0, I'm fully 99%. Wow, a blacker. Black 3.0 absorbs fully 99% of all visible light. You can buy it, assuming that you are not anishable or amazing. Fair 22 now. So, it's amazing. It too is non-toxic, it is water soluble assuming that you are not anishable. Amazing. Fair 22 now. It's amazing. It too is non-toxic.

It is water soluble and it smells like fresh coffee. Nice. He also made incidentally the world's mirrorist, mirror paint, which I saw on his website. And it looks like paint that could at any point form itself into a cyborg and fight Arnold Schwarzenegger. You're Van to Black 2.0 needs an update and then it malfunctions making it the blueest blue screen of death right there.

Okay. But perhaps best of all, simple and then produced a pigment, which is basically the exact opposite of black 3.0. I'm not gonna interrupt you. Produced the world's way is what, is it what, yeah, it was. It's, yep, it guesses to the name Ethan Reign. He calls it lit.

Lit is a pigment which reflects so much lit. It's a very lit. It's a very lit of being. That's called the Republican Party. This is a pigment that reflects so much light that it very literally appears to glow since it reflects 99.6% of all the light that hits it. This stuff is also amazing. And like all of Semples' pigments,

it is very reasonably priced. But for anish Kapoor, there is a special promotion. Quote, if you are anish Kapoor, can prove you are an associate with Anish Kapoor or the best of your knowledge, information or belief, this substance is going to make its way into the hands of Anish Kapoor. Your order will be free. We want you to know how lovely it feels to share the light.

And if that isn't an absolute kindness blood bath, I don't know what it is. It's so white, I think salt is spicy. So white, it's Twitter images and egg. So white, it's on this podcast. Splains to all the other colors of both jobs were. All right, and Noah, if you were thinking, okay, Tom, but if we're being pedantic, Vanta Black is still technically the blackest of all the black materials. And that's still just a thing that Kapoor owns. So he's still kind of winning. Well, up until 2019, you would be right. But in September of that

year, MIT created a material that absorbs fully 99.996%. Oh, shit. Percent. So close. Of all available light. And the good folks at MIT immediately allowed artist Dymouth's tribe to showcase this crazy shit, which he did, like coding a $2 million diamond in the stuff and making that diamond for all intents and purposes actually seem

to disappear. Actually, if you get a chance to look at this little art thing, it's kind of amazing. MIT has said that they will make their material, the blackest in all the world available to artists for free without any licensing restrictions. So Anish Kapoor now owns the exclusive rights to second fuck. And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would it be? Once you go black, don't tell my wife.

And are you ready for the quiz? Sure, let's do it. All right, Tom. So Anish Kapoor very clearly put his dick in the paint before he nicely got fucked down. Right. The little finger thing. Yeah. Of course.

What was the name of that dick piece? He is Tommilo. That's so good. That's so good. So good. Girl with a pearl neck. That's so good. That's a come thing.

See? So see a definitely in the cloud gate a.k.a. the so good so good again. Oh God.

Oh man D has two answers so it's like a D.P. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of a.k.a. D.P. is correct. Oh, terrible. Yeah, there's got to be that one. There you go. DP is correct. Oh, terrible. Tom, we talked a lot about the widest white and the blackest black, but what's the widest

thing that's black? A, Metallica's fifth album. B, and Tom LeVays living room. C, Eli under all that shoe polish or D. That off. Rush Limbaugh's corpse. Oh, Mattel. Yeah. It's so great.

It's so great. Yeah. You're crazy. You know, I'm like, Mark's Carts as in that time. Give it a year. It'll be black. Yeah. The lunch started off so black.

I know. Right? Cheating. Yeah. All right, so I have one more question for you here, Tom. Why do we still call this shit art? A, because we're all too worried about looking like we're not sophisticated enough to get reflective metal pringle. Because painters and shit still haven't figured out a reason for them to exist since the invention

of photography. and at this point They're getting desperate. Wow See because the very term art has been rendered meaningless by our unwillingness to exclude anything from it even theoretically or Because it's still not as bad as what poetry gets away with Very true it is the actual answer is definitely it's yeah with apologies to, amazing football. Very true. The actual answer is definitely, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it was a apologies to Eli Shmomet is to, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the,

it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the way with, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the way with, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's the way with, it's. So yeah, so I'm going to, and in fact, I'm going to, we haven't had one in a little while. I think it's time for another Eli. Oh, Jesus Christ.

Oh, no. Let's get spicy. All right, no. For Heath, Tom, Cecil, and Noah, I'm Eli Bosnick. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week. And by then, I will be an expert on something else. That seems very unlikely.

Between now and then, you can join Tom and Seasold in their darkest of dark humor over on cognitive dissonance. Or you can listen to Heath's Noah and myself try to make the podcastiest podcast over on TV, the monitor's the skeptic rat. Got awful movies in the skating atheist. And if you'd like to help keep this show going with the moneyest money, you can make a per episode donation

at hatredon.com slash citation pod. Or, he was a five-star review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episode, connect us on social media, or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com. And remember, you don't hate post modernism. You hate art through the lens of capital. No. I also hate post modernism. You don't hate post modernism you hate art through the lens of capital no i also hate uh...

it uh...