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New Statesman
7 hours ago
- General
- New Statesman
How colour is created in the mind
Illustration by Marie Montocchio / Ikon Images What colour is the grass? It looks green to me, and you say it looks green to you, but are we seeing the same green? And what makes it green anyway – the light, or our brains? Welcome to episode one of Stories in Colour, a new podcast from the National Gallery. This is a truly multidisciplinary endeavour – not just art but history, psychology, literature, sociology, economics and religion. World history is told through the story of pigments and how their development shaped centuries of artistic expression. Our emotional reflexes to colour – fear, disgust, calm – are put under the microscope. Paintings in the National Gallery's collection take centre-stage, with the mastery of Turner, Renoir and Monet dissected brushstroke by brushstroke. But it begins with science, as Beks Leary from the gallery's digital department tries to understand what colour actually is and if it's even real. For this, she is joined by 'colour scientist' Professor Anya Hurlbert for a deep dive into physics and then evolutionary biology to understand why we see colour in the first place. If you're still wondering whether the dress in the photo that went viral ten years ago was really blue and black or white and gold, Hurlbert has recreated the illusion in real life and can give you the definitive answer. More interesting, though, is why it divided the internet, with millions of people utterly flummoxed that they could view the same image yet see something so different. Colours are, it turns out, our 'personal possessions': real, but also something we create in our own minds, influenced by both our surroundings and our memories. So is the grass green? You'll need a philosopher to answer that, not a colour scientist or an art historian. But the viral dress wouldn't have bamboozled Monet or Turner. Orange skies, a golden cathedral, fields laid out in purple – the minds behind some of the world's greatest artworks instinctively knew that colours aren't always what they seem. Stories in Colour The National Gallery podcasts [See also: The BBC Sounds series 'Stalked' is thrilling and worrying] Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Related
New Statesman
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
The BBC Sounds series Stalked is thrilling and worrying
Photo by Tim Robinson/Millenium It all started with a selfie. It was 2015 and Hannah Mossman Moore, a 23-year-old graduate, had just arrived at her first London Fashion Week, bristling with excitement. Mossman Moore was interning with Alighieri, a jewellery start-up. Her job involved rubbing shoulders with models, fashion insiders and journalists. She was searching, among the hordes of well-dressed somebodies, for a cash-rich foreign buyer. And it wasn't long before she found one. Mossman Moore was introduced to an elegant Hong Kong national who seemed, to her, to be a big player in the Asian fashion market. The pair took a selfie together, and swapped contact details. This seemingly innocuous chance meeting would change her life, forever. Stalked, a ten-part podcast series on BBC Sounds, tells how Mossman Moore's life was upended after meeting the man. For most of her twenties, she was stalked by a barrage of faceless creeps: each day, she received thousands of emails, texts and messages from unknown accounts who seemed to know everything about her. These anonymous tormentors somehow knew details of her private life, her family, her job and her location. She had to change her phone number over and over again – but still the messages kept coming. Mossman Moore was the stepdaughter of the journalist Carole Cadwalladr, who joins her as the co-host of this podcast. Cadwalladr has had her own experience of vicious cyber-stalking, following her investigation of Cambridge Analytica and the weaponisation of social media in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum. In this thrilling yet deeply worrying series, Mossman Moore and Cadwalladr work together to uncover the stalker's identity. They are fearless in their pursuit. Using sensitive reporting of an extraordinary personal story, they highlight the shocking lack of care being taken to safeguard victims of stalking. Stalked BBC Sounds [See also: Misogyny in the metaverse] Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Related
