Earth Beat, 26 August 2011. We explore the magic of colour. From different interpretations of colour in different cultures, to a man who can only see in black and white, and travelling to dodgy areas in the name of lapis lazuli blue, we play with shades and hues.

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Life in black and white
Neil Harbisson was born with a condition that means he only sees the world in black and white and shades of grey. And yet colour fascinates him.
 
So much so that’s he’s made it central to his work as an artist and a musician. But how is that possible when he can’t see colour? Neil Harbisson talks about how he can hear colours - with the aid of something called an 'eyeborg'.

Colour Scores are a series of paintings where Neil transforms into colour the first 100 notes of well-known musical pieces.

Sound Portraits are portraits of people that he creates by listening to the colors of faces.

Paintbox of the world
The wow factor of cobalt blue led Victoria Finlay on a journey that would take her all round the world, from the remote outback of Australia to the mountains of Afghanistan, searching for natural pigments and dyes.
Victoria’s the author of Colour: Travels through the Paint Box and she joined Fiona Campbell to bang the drum for natural colour (more photos below).

Seeing red
The colour red evokes more emotions and has more meanings than any other in the paintbox. We speak to curator Frans Fontaine about RED, a recent exhibition at Amsterdam's Tropenmuseum showing the wide range of ways people and cultures across the world use the colour differently.
Panarama of the exhibition - click and drag to navigate (more photos below):

Green as the grass but is it good?
Green is bad for the planet. That’s right, the colour of choice for the eco-conscious is actually the least ‘green’ of all the pigments out there. At least, according to biologist Michael Braungart.

Or maybe not
Greenpeace scientist Paul Johnston casts doubt on the issue.

The death of green – an obituary
Green might still be ok as a paint colour, but as a concept one could argue that it’s had its day. Because as environmentally-friendly products gradually become the norm, there’s no longer a need to identify them as ‘green’. Writer Joel Stickley laments the end of a (green) era.

Click image for slideshow - use arrows to scroll