Not everyone understands the limitations. “Some requests are quite amusing,” said Wong. At least one major cosmetics company has inquired about making Vantablack mascara, which is technically impossible. Another typical request: "I want to be the ultimate Goth, can I put it on leather?'” said Wong. Then there was a man who hoped a Vantablack shirt would make it look as if people could put their hands through his stomach. “Well it might work,” Wong told him. “But you probably wouldn’t want them to try.”
As for Kapoor, the sculptor, Surrey Nanosystems has given him exclusive artistic rights to Vantablack, both because of the complexity of the material and a professional relationship they’ve developed over time.
“He was the first to make contact, the first to understand the impact Vantablack could have on the art world,” said Wong. Kapoor is already planning an enormous sculpture, inside of which viewers will experience a room of pure Vantablack. The experience, he said, will be like being inside ourselves.
“When we imagine our own interiors, we have a sense that each of us carries a dark, inner, and quiet—or not so quiet—place within ourselves,” he told Artforum. “To have that out there phenomenologically in the world is quite unnerving.”