How did Gesaffelstein's Coachella cheat the spirits with the darkest black in the world

One of the most impressive shows of Coachella this year was special, not only because of what the audience could see, but also because of what could not see. Behind Gesaffelstein, the record producer and French DJ, was a monolith entirely covered with Vantablack, a very rare, very expensive and very fragile material made by Surrey NanoSystems in the UK. It's the blackest black in the world, erasing all visible features on a 3D surface and making objects very disorienting for the brain. Matthias Leullier, producer of the Gesaffelstein show, laughs as he recounts The edge how difficult it was for their own team to surround themselves with it. "One of our sound engineers was on stage and found himself in the monolith," says Leullier. "[He] became confused and lost his balance. He fell, fell to the surface, and I thought, "Ok, that's $ 20,000."

Gesaffelstein is known colloquially as the prince of darkness, but he pushed his informal title to Coachella this year by becoming the first artist to use Vantablack in a live show. It was not easy either. The team had to visit Surrey NanoSystems in person, expose the idea, create the set, spray each block of the monolith with 70 layers of Vantablack in a special application room and build handling systems for the finished set .

The end result: a monolith of 30 meters high Vantablack can split in two and reveal video screens and a wall of lights. Looking at it creates the feeling that Gesaffelstein stands before infinite darkness.

Coachella spectators could say that something had not fit in their brains during Gesaffelstein's performance. "That's exactly why we were sober and thought we were trippin balls," said a member of the public. commented on Twitter after learning about the Vantablack. "Do you remember me saying that it was probably very expensive because it absorbed all the light?" says another.

When I talk about these tweets in Leullier, he is delighted. "That's exactly the kind of confusion we were looking for."

Vantablack is confusing to look at because our brain is not ready to see total darkness when there is light next to it, as we expected it to illuminate the object or the darkened space. "You're used to standing in a completely dark room in the middle of the night, but you're not used to seeing absolute darkness surrounded by a lot of light," says Ben Jensen, CTO of Surrey NanoSystems. "When you see that nothingness is surrounded by light, your mind can be quite confused and your perception of things like depth is seriously questionable."

To make the effect even more amazing, the Gesaffelstein team drew the monolithic curves. On a 2D surface, the effect of Vantablack is a little easier for the brain to understand because it already knows that it is looking something flat. But on a 3D surface, the mind is even more confused because he knows that there must be depth, while the object seems flat. This inconsistency can be quite shocking. "When you apply it on a three-dimensional surface, your perception of shape changes," says Jansen, "and you recognize that there is something slightly different from what you are used to seeing."

Image: Scenic PRG

Each part of the Gesaffelstein ensemble played this effect. The lights coming from behind the monolith reinforced Vantablack's light sucking abilities. And his performance took place on an outdoor stage just after sunset, when there was ambient light. "That's why his set was at dusk," said Leullier. "It's when people can see the contrast better."

Gesaffelstein was also covered with black. Her outfit, however, was not Vantablack. It was a more reflective black that let him stand out in the dark behind him. The outfit was created in collaboration with Balmain. It is made of a wide range of materials, including velvet, metals, leathers and sequins. "We wanted something that would" dialogue "with the Vantablack," says Manu Barron, the manager of Gesaffelstein. "By having a brilliant black against the Vantablack, this highlights the difference."

Photo of Frazer Harrison

Vantablack is a brand name and Surrey NanoSystems makes several types of super black materials under this umbrella. There is the original Vantablack, Vantablack S-IR; Vantablack S-VIS, the one that's mired in a controversy with artist Anish Kapoor; Vantablack VBx 1; and the type used by Gesaffelstein, Vantablack VBx 2. Most versions of Vantablack use a dense coating of carbon nanotubes that trap almost all the light that strikes its surface. This works by continually deflecting the light around the tubes until it is almost completely absorbed. This makes it a useful material for industrial and spatial purposes, such as improving the accuracy of star trackers. But this comes with conditions: the application process limits it to smaller items and all the micro-cavities between the tubes can be damaged by direct contact.

VBx 1 and VBx 2, however, do not use nanotubes at all, which means they are a little more durable and better suited to large-scale applications such as the Gesaffelstein monolith. This type of Vantablack is composed of a light-absorbing coating that is suspended in a solution and can be sprayed over larger areas. Jensen refused to say exactly what he is doing. "It's a totally new technology," says Jensen. "The coating passes from the gun to a surface and forms a nanostructure as it hits that surface. You must not do anything after spraying it. If you look at the structure very closely, it seems pretty rough, but I'm talking about a few thousandths of an inch. "

Jensen says that the VBx 2 is more durable than other forms of Vantablack, but that the Gesaffelstein team still can not treat it as a normal stage equipment. It can be handled technically, but because of its very dry texture, a greasy finger could damage optical trapping cavities and remain sensitive to scratches. "It's not like a painting. It's more of a crust, "says Leullier. "Our team had a lot of problems with that because it's very dry. It's a bit like dust. If you put a finger on it, it will leave a mark. We had to have a special painter from London [at rehearsals] to repair it in case of scratches. "

The team also had to think about transportation. How do you move a set of shows from town to town when you can not touch it? Leullier designed a custom dolly system for monolithic parts to ensure that they would never come into contact with other surfaces while on the move. He placed special handling frames behind them to avoid touching them from the front. Surrey NanoSystems has trained one of the members of the VBx 2 App Tour Team for touch-ups on the road.

Video of Ben Jensen

"It was a lot, but we were very happy with the results once we finally saw the result," says Leullier. "Is it expensive?" Yes, was it worth it? Yes, Gesaffelstein is a total artist and it was so logical that we had to do it, no matter what the constraints. "

Gesaffelstein has just announced a tour featuring this production titled "Against the Night, Through Time". He will perform at the Governors Ball in New York in May, and then in several US cities in the fall.