I was reading a physical newspaper recently, as I do. The Observer, I think. Anyway, it was a piece in the lifestyle section about ways to make the smartphone less addictive.
One of the ideas was this: turn off the colour.
Apparently turning off the colour on a smart phone makes the whole experience a lot less fun.
You could say the same about, eg, Van Gogh and Matisse and Hockney. Growing up with books containing grayscale reproductions of their great works I was always rather nonplussed.
In 2016 I was sent by a magazine to write a travel story about St Petersburg, to commemorate the upcoming centenary of the Russian Revolution.
I absolutely loved that trip, perhaps more than anything because it gave me access to artworks in the great Russian collections. And not just familiar, widely reproduced works by artists from the west but also Russian work, tons of it.
Naturally I took photos. Here’s one, a Kandinsky at The Hermitage, modified by me to drain away the colour:
Quite distressing, I think, to see it so depleted.
I did that with my iPad.
A lot of my own art is created on the iPad. What might it be like to turn off the colour on my iPad. What would be gained (if anything)?
And what would be lost? Quite a lot, I imagine.
I had never previously done this, and it was a bit fiddly. I started with my phone, went into Settings, chose Accessibility, then Display & Text, then turned on the colour filter.
Instantly, everything turned to shades of grey.
I used my phone like this for a few hours. And guess what: it’s true. A black and white phone screen is quite boring – and a lesson in how not to take colour for granted. You should try it.