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1. Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:24:36 UTC Lisp Witch

   Most artwork you see today will be dust in 500 years, but the Mona Lisa will live on, why is this? (🧵)

   • asm & tamsyn & bytes, oh my! (millihertz@oldbytes.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:24:31 UTC asm & tamsyn & bytes, oh my!

     in reply to

     @alexandria damn! that's about when i'll get around to reading most of the books i've bought recently too...

     Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 likes this.
   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:24:32 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     But Alexandria, what can be done? Are there any materials that won't fade to time?

     Sure, but it'll cost ya.

     (cont)

   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:24:32 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     Perhaps the best known "longterm" recording medium today is Archival Vellum -- that is, animal skin, prepared in a way that removes acids from it. The best archival vellum parchment can last 1000 years at *least*, assuming it's kept dry and free from moisture.

     This is actually one of the reasons why, since the 1800s articles of British Law have been printed on Archival Vellum and stored in a vault somewhere.

     The Magna Carta, signed 800 years ago, is still readable. The book you just bought off Amazon won't be in about 50 years.

     (cont)

   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:24:33 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     Unfortunately, there's not much interest in this in the industry outside of some dedicated nerds. You can see in this one test by a relative of mine, the Aureolin literally changes colour from being yellow to being brown! They were hung outside in sunlight for only 5 days!

     (cont)

   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:24:33 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     Funnily enough, the page I took that painting from had a critique about inferring the emotional intention behind those colours (e.g. "maybe the yellows represent-") but IMHO it's pretty useless to intellectually analyse a painting that is missing half of it's colours!

     And NONE of this mentions digital art b/cos it has a lifetime of around 50 years at most. SSDs have proprietary firmware that writes the bits to the medium in an unknown order. Platter drives keep magnetism for about 10 - 20 years at most. Image formats specs are lost. etc.

     (cont)

   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:24:34 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     A "Blue Wool Scale" is a test where pigments are put on paper, and half of it is covered. It's then exposed to light after a certain amount of time. Notice how it has a section on it saying 2 days! The next image is a test, notice how some blues become purple or yellow or disappear! (cont)

   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:24:35 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     It used to be that artists would mix paints using gum arabic or egg tempura, and a raw pigment (a substance from the earth that provides colour). Pigments themselves are mostly stable, and gum arabic and egg tempura are both reasonably chemically stable themselves

     These days, manufacturers use lots of different fancy chemicals in addition to the pigment. These can result in very volatile chemical mixes, and because of that volatility, some paints made today can only withstand full exposure to sunlight for 3 hours(!) before fading

     (cont)

   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:24:35 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     Different pigments themselves have different light-fastness, which is a measure of how long it takes it to vanish under UV light. If you look at old paintings, sometimes you will see grey or missing colours. This is because the paint literally faded from the page.

     In this painting by Jacob Van Es from 1630, you can see not only how the paints have faded over the last 400 years, but also the accumulated grime over the background. Notice the grapes look kinda uniformly yellowy along with the plums and pears, but the strawberries are vibrant.

     It's possible that those blackberries were perhaps bluer at one point, or much more vivid and bright. That those grapes were a vivid bright green. But the yellows and reds are the least lightfast colours in the painting, so they have stayed strong these 400 years!

     (cont)

   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:24:36 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     In the 1700s if you got a book it would be printed using ink and paper. That paper production would be pretty primitive, but not too chemically volatile. This means that over time the work is chemically stable and tends not to deteriorate too much.

     Nowadays, because of modern mass production, if you buy a book it is likely printed on paper with lots of nasty acids and volatile chemicals, that in the span of around 20 - 100 years, will degrade the paper to being almost unreadable.

     (cont)

   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:25:15 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     (if you got this far please retoot the most interesting stuff i spent like an hour of my life writing and double checking this and finding the right images lmao)

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   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:25:16 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     SOME manufacturers do lightfast testing but you should also do this yourself, it takes about 5 days of work and it is *shocking*.

     Anyway imma sleep 🥱😴

   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:25:17 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     Another cool (but new!) technology we have is Laserjet. Yeah, those crappy big printers with the drums of carbon! Laserjet printers electrostatically bond pure carbon (the toner) with the paper. So there's no chance of the inks deteriorating!

     (cont)

   • Lisp Witch (alexandria@cybre.space)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:25:17 UTC Lisp Witch

     in reply to

     In summary, the best thing you can do if you want something to last 1000+ years? You put it on Vellum, via a LaserJet printer, and then shove it in a hermetically sealed metallic vault (to avoid moisture deteriorating the parchment) and bury it deep.

     The SECOND best thing you can do is to use non-lightfast pigments, and use archival vellum or a long lasting acid-free paper. Most good paint manufacturers will give pigment numbers for their paints so you can look up the chemicals/minerals used for each colour

     (cont)

   • Anke (anke@social.scribblers.club)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:25:20 UTC Anke

     in reply to

     @alexandria I'm sorry, but you mixed up the meaning of "lightfast". Pigments that are not lightfast fade quickly, and pigments that are lightfast last a long time. (It's the older meaning of "fast" you also find in "hold fast".)

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   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Thursday, 24-Mar-2022 09:32:32 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to
     @alexandria It took us many centuries to figure out how to make really cheap and flimsy stuff.
     
     On the other hand we make all our disposables in material that lasts forever, so it all evens out ...
     
     Thank you for this read, it was a really interesting read!