Pantone is using Classic Blue to calm our technological anxieties

Fact: Colors influence how we think and feel. Also fact: Standing in a misty room soaked in blue lighting will make you feel peaceful but curious, especially when the only thing you see is a reflective sphere suspended in mid-air. 

At least, that’s how I felt when I saw such a scene in a small exhibition room inside Pantone’s first-ever immersive digital art installation for its color of the year.

For the past 20 years, Pantone has selected a color annually to reflect the cultural zeitgeist. In 2000, its inaugural year, that color was Cerulean Blue. Its calming effect, Pantone Color Institute VP Laurie Pressman told me, offered solace to the anxiety around the Y2K crisis at the turn of the century.

“That was 1999. But where are we today?” Pressman asked as she reflected on Pantone’s decision to partner with ARTECHOUSE New York for the installation. “How do people engage today? How do we get their attention today? How do we start that same conversation?”

Twenty years later today, blue returns, once again, as color of the year  — albeit in a different hue, in a way that speaks to a different audience, and in response to a different technological moment.

Classic Blue  — PANTONE 19-4052, more precisely — offers feelings of protection, stability, and clarity “as we cross the threshold into a new era” and “as technology continues to race ahead of the human ability to process it all,” according to Pantone.

But as I moved from the small exhibition room where I stood, pass the augmented reality bar nearby, to a flat-screen TV with a built-in sensor that transforms my movements into linear forms; I began to wonder why such a message of refuge so openly embraced an art space so inherently futuristic and technological. 

Intrigued, I made my way downstairs, where a 30-minute video representing nine ideas submerged the entire space. The video technically begins with the idea of “mountains” and ends with “earth,” but it cycles through over and over again in a way that feels as though it has no beginning, no end.

Not long after I arrived downstairs, an imposing representation of Madonna and the Child emerged. The iconic image appears just after the installation transitions from a sci-fi-esque, outer space view of “earth” to “mountains,” and just before it transitions to a geometric interpretation of “smoke.” Big bang theory meets the story of Virgin Mary and Jesus. Human origin meets an abstract future. 

As the 18 projectors around the space continued to emit blue lights and as the image of Madonna faded away, I was reminded of how the color blue is fundamental to our understanding of reality. After all, it’s one of only three primary colors that make up the visible light spectrum — the source of human vision and color perception. Religiously, too, it’s often associated with Madonna, heaven, and the divine truth.

For a moment, it seemed as though two contending interpretations of our existentialist questions had converged to nurture a sense of purpose as we enter a reality redefined by technology.

In a gift shop next to the main exhibition space, ARTECHOUSE chief creative director Sandro Kereselidze told me how these references to nature relate to our relationship with not only the color blue, but also with technology — especially since it’s used today by social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

“The whole universe and Earth — everything around us — has positives and negatives. Even an ocean, you can go and swim in it, and it’s beautiful; but at the same time, the storm comes and it destroys everything,” Kereselidze said. “And technology is definitely something that has positive and negative uses, right? But as creators and artists, we are always trying to find the positive. At the end of the day, we want to light up the world with positive emotions.”

Inspired by our conversation, I stepped back into the exhibition space and surveyed my surroundings. Some sat quietly in awe of the art; others posed in front of their iPhones to capture photos for their Instagrams. At once, I became aware of how the audience, too, has become a part of the installation’s narrative with their use of technology. 

“I don’t know if you know this, but if you take a picture, it’s a completely different color on your phone than whatever you see,” Kereselidze reminded me. “And actually on the phone, it becomes the true color of the Pantone Classic Blue.”

It’s a message that points to how technology can, when put in good hands, foster understanding and expand our horizons to where our plain eyes can’t see. 

But more importantly, it’s a message that inspires introspection and agency at a time when we feel our powers usurped by complicated technological systems: For better or for worse, the way we interact with — or abstain from — them can alter how we experience the world.

For now though, I chose to use that agency to return to the bar upstairs. I ordered a drink called “calm” — a silky, sweet cocktail made of vodka, vanilla, orange peel, and frankincense. I played around with it using the augmented reality feature on ARTECHOUSE’s app, and finally took a sip of it. And sure as hell, it tasted like the color blue.