Lately, I’ve caught myself looking up. I don’t quite understand why, but whether on walks or simply when the opportunity lends itslef, I’ve been making a mental note of the color of the sky I see. On some days, it’s that almost salmon pink cast by the morning sunrise. On other days, it’s a crisp, almost baby blue that appears after a rainstorm. It’s late summer, though, and it’s the sky that lands on a color, a cerulean blue, that feels uniquely different. It’s this hue that caught my attention and informed my latest mix.
When looking at the history of how blue has been depicted in art, I was struck by how this color, “cerulean,” is for all intents and purposes a recent creation. That deep mix of green and blue, a color that gives off so many emotions, depicting myriad skies and atmospheres in countless impressionistic and abstract paintings from Monet to Picasso and more, was originally a synthetic mix of roasted cobalt and tin oxide, every bit as unnatural as the naturalism it seeks to portray.
Nowadays, anyone with a copy of Photoshop or Illustrator can fire up a blank canvas, open up Color Picker and enter this exact hex code: #98B4D4, and precisely fix their palette on a hue that seemed so improbable to attain for the vast majority of recorded human history. On certain days deeper more saturated choices, like #2A52BE or #007BA7, might strike a closer pigment to your day.
I have to share that on recent, terrifying days, I found myself staring up at blue skies printed on the false ceiling of a CT scanning room. While waiting out this huge state-of-the-art contraption that is going to inform my immediate future, surprisingly, I found some peace and solace in its photorealistic obviously-AI-generated, photorealistic image, and for a deeply puzzling moment experienced a new feeling I never had in this virtual skylight.
In many ways, I see the dreadful promise of A.I. running parallel to that bit of history. As someone who has used and still uses both generative and AI software, I’m rightfully scared of what its future will bring, yet I remain infinitely curious about what we can achieve with it. What can we say of a world where your chosen model remains highly dependent on the tokens you can afford? How far gone is our work to this new reality? It’s a cerulean blue.
When I look up at the sky, though, I’m reminded of what so many man-made things can’t do. While a picture can capture a near-perfect reproduction of our memory, memory has more color to it–it’s deeper, richer than it. For that, once again, I turn to sharing man and woman-made music to paint a color. Through music I can get closer to the sense of spirit, the sense of self, I feel when I access a treasured memory: that of a beautiful late summer sky. It’s this mix of nostalgia for a time that’s past and curiosity for what’s left of the year that I can instantly appreciate by letting my eyes wander just as much as my mind does. When I look up at the sky, this is the cerulean blue I see.
Cerulean Blue (紺碧)
Tracklist
Mariko Yoshida (吉田真里子) – kiki (so breathy mix)
Keisuke Sakurai (桜井圭介) – Namkan “Calling You”
Yasushi Ide (井出靖) – Plein Soleil (Maw Mix)
Hariyo (ハリヨ) – International Mix
Shoukichi Kina & Champloose (喜納昌吉 & チャンプルーズ) – ハイサイおじさん -Obrigado Brazilian Mix-
World Famous – Pacific White Bear
Kenji Jammer (鈴木賢司) – Seafood Featuring Masayuki Ishi From Tica
Naoyuki Fujii (藤井尚之) – Stackin’ Zees
Utollo Teshikai (手使海ユトロ) – 湖の午後
Aquarium By DS – Cerulean Night Sky
