Terra X: 2-part documentary “The Magic of Colors”

Only those who can recognize whether a fruit is ripe or poisonous can survive. All colors in nature serve a biological purpose and every living creature has specialized its perception accordingly. But man alone creates colors and gives them symbolic power. “Terra X” delves into the history of our color codes from their beginnings to the present day. Cultural histories and natural phenomena are interwoven and lead to astonishing insights. To what extent do colors still control our behavior today without us noticing? How does this evolutionary code work?

Scientists have been on the trail of this mystery for centuries. Isaac Newton made the first groundbreaking discovery in 1730, shocking the world at the time. In his experiment with a glass prism and light, he discovers that colors do not really exist. An incredible realization. Even 100,000 years ago, people went to great lengths to bring color into their lives. This is what archaeologists discovered in 2008 in Blombos Cave on the coast of South Africa. They find pieces of ochre and shells that Stone Age people hid in the cave. It is the oldest color workshop of mankind. Suddenly there was a way to change one’s appearance, to make an individual mark with color. A milestone in our history! To this day, many indigenous peoples use body painting to set themselves apart from others, from the Maasai in Africa to the Aborigines in Australia. And we do something very similar almost every day when we put on make-up, wear colorful clothes or dye our hair. We use colors to individualize ourselves or indicate which group we belong to.

How did the color come into the world in the first place? The first color only emerged 200 million years ago: the green of plants. Because it was the oldest and for a long time the most important color for all living things, humans can still recognize the most color nuances in green today. However, another color was decisive for the triumphant advance of Homo sapiens: around 35 million years ago, the magical red was created. The American neuroscientist Jay Neitz discovered that the ability to see red became a key skill. His experiments with bizarre relatives, the squirrel monkeys, provide astonishing insights into evolutionary development. To this day, red acts as a signal and alarm color because our eyes have evolved into red specialists and we can perceive red the fastest of all colors.

For a long time, the blue of the sky and the sea was not tangible to humans until miners in the Hindu Kush found a shining stone around 8000 BC: Lapis lazuli, literally the blue of the sky. It quickly becomes sought after all over the world and accelerates the onset of globalization. The Egyptians tried in vain to produce a painting pigment from lapiz and discovered their own dye by chance – the starting signal for a colorful era. And the efforts that people are making to obtain bright colors are becoming ever greater.

Why do colors exert such a fascination on us? Experiments with babies show that we are born with a color program. Colors are a language of nature and the largest communication system in the world.