We’ve told you about the wonders of Surrey NanoSystems’ Vantablack before, the blackest paint in the world that absorbs over 99.96% of light, as well the company’s even darker alternate VBx1, which makes 3D-objects appear completely flat. But now another version of the pigment, VBx2, has been used on something so big it’s impossible to miss, even though our eyes still can’t truly see it. Surrey turned the material over to an artist to make a warehouse in Pyeongchang, South Korea into our very own beautiful night sky here on Earth.
Artist Asif Khan used VBx2 to paint the outside of the nearly 33-foot tall, 13,000 square-foot Hyundai Pavilion, which made it’s premiere in front of the whole world at this year’s Winter Olympics. The installation, which we first saw at Curbed, is far from just a giant black box, because Khan outfitted the exterior with different length rods, each with a light at the end. This creates the feeling of bright stars spread across the pitch dark night sky. The effect works so wonderfully because the VBx2 paint makes it hard for viewers to see the edges and contours of the building itself. If you want to appreciate how true that is, the Hyundai Pavilion is actually parabolic.
And as if the outside isn’t enough of a (cosmic) trip, the inside is an all white water installation, where every minute 25,000 droplets fall along carved paths into a pool in the middle.
Surrey NanoSystems has been judicious about who they let use the world’s darkest paint, so it’s only fitting that its first large-scale use transports us out of this world.
If you’re hoping to see this in person, the Hyundai Pavilion is a temporary structure, but it will remain open past the Olympics until March 18.
What other ways would you like to see Vantablack and its alternate pigments used for? Paint our comments section with your best ideas.
Images: Asif Khan/Vimeo
More about this incredible paint!
- The new blackest material on Earth.
- Vantablack turns objects into 2D black holes.
- How Vantablack is connected to a snake.
