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"color" Category


Redesign


Tuesday, May 28, 2019

 

 

Making the redesign of an already existing page.

 

It helped me to discover all the interesting moments in the structure of the web page and to divide the webpage into different layers.
I chose that page (https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/?p=77833) and started to draw the structure of it. I noticed that this page doesn’t have a lot of air between different parts of information, words, and texts and all data ranged to the center. Moreover, there are six colors, 4 fonds and two main pictures with bright and sharps form inside. All paragraphs are left-aligned and they end in a rather chaotic order. However, squares around words help to divide information between each other. The quantity of the colors attract the biggest part of our attention and we can feel a little lost.

 

 

Sketch

 

 

 

 

Modular grid

 

 

 

 

The fullness of the page

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Hierarchy of the given information


 

 

 

Colors

 

 

 

 

Example of a new Design

 

By doing a new design for the existing page I tried to pay attention to the pictures and elements on the images which always can become the part of the website.  In that case, I chose circles as the decoration of the page. Also, I wanted to divide the main text (essay) from the surrounding data. So color gave me a possibility for doing that. Plus I added a little bit more space between words and made distance between tags, title, essay. It helps us to get a breath.

 

What made me buy 7 different vegies?


Sunday, May 26, 2019

At the beginning, I just searched blogposts about color by typing  ‘color’ in the search engine. I found out many tagged blogposts were not only about colors but also ‘color system‘. Many of those posts use fruit to show color contrast.  The harmony of between fruits and vivid back ground color looked sexy and aroused my interest. So I ran directly to the market.

As always, as soon as I entered the market, the first thing that catches my eyes were colorful fruits and vegetables.Those colors were made by nature which made clear and bright color. Anyway, I bought different colors’ fruits. Blueberry,rasberry, paprica,pickles,lemons….  and put them on the different colors’ papers. Then I saw the contrast between the color of background and fruit. 

successive contrast is the effect of previously-viewed color fields (“inducing fields”) on the appearance of the currently-viewed test field. To put it simply, If you look at a different color after seeing a color, the color that you see later is different due to the effect of the first color. For example, if you look at red for a while and then look at yellow, you will notice that the pale cyan is superimposed on the yellow by the effect of the red complementary afterglow, and the yellow appears greenish. Such a phenomenon in which the order is determined and the color is continuously viewed with a time difference and each color is seen as a different color is referred to as a successive contrast.

Simultaneous contrast refers to the way in which two different colors affect each other. The theory is that one color can change how we perceive the tone and hue of another when the two are placed side by side. The actual colors themselves don’t change, but we see them as altered.When two colors having different areas such as a background and a picture are directly in contact with each other, a complementary background image having a large area overlaps with a color having a small area, which is different from the actual color. For example, if you put the same pickle on the background of red and blue, a pickle on the red paper looks more darker than pickle on the blue paper.

Hue contrast is a measure of how easily we distinguish between two adjacent colors (hues).Two areas with a high hue contrast will be easy to separate. An object which has a high hue contrast in comparison with its background will be easy to see. Areas with low hue contrast will blend together and be more difficult to visually separate.and this picture is an example of hue contrast. Paprika on green paper is more remarkable rather than paprika on orange paper. Because paprika’s color is an orange, it becomes more vividly remarkable when it’s on complementary color.

Area contrast is the phenomenon that the saturation and brightness vary according to the area even if they are the same color. The larger the area, the higher the brightness and saturation, and the smaller the contrast, the lower the brightness and saturation. There may be a difference depending on reflectance and absorption rate.  For instance, the bigger raspberry under the text looks brighter than the small raspberry.

 

The After Image of a Page


Monday, May 20, 2019

Everyone finds his or her own way of browsing through this blog. There are so many options to click on, which made me unsure where to start. I kept standing still on the blog, frozen on a single page, instead of moving through it. I wondered where do you start and where do I end? I almost got annoyed by the fact that the massive size of the blog was standing in my way, preventing me from looking at it. So I gave myself the assignment to browse through the blog randomly, within the time limit of ten minutes. After these ten minutes I asked myself: “what caught my eye the most?” What did really get stuck in my mind?

So there I went. I started at the base; clicking on the menu of the website. I kept clicking and clicking, without making a conscious decision about what I was clicking on. My most important goal was to make sure the page just kept reloading and changing. Slowly I begin to realize that I’m not even really reading the blog entries. Of course I don’t; I don’t even like reading… So I noticed that for me the most important thing is the visual appearance of the page. I’m interested in the way the shapes change and move when you click to go to the next page. I’m interested in the way the different colours are spread across the screen.

Time’s up. And I started reflecting on what I saw within these ten minutes. To be honest it was very comforting to just look at the constant changing of the page, which was the consequence of my constant clicking. There where two things that really caught my attention.

The first thing that grabbed me while looking at the blog where the colours.

 

If you leave out the white and look at the colours that remain, you get a combination of bright yellow, pink and orange/red, together with black.

 

 

These are colours that I often use in my own work. Especially the combination of the bright colours with the black is something I really like.

The second thing that grabbed me was that I clicked on a broken link. I clicked ‘subscribe’ in the left menu bar and it took me to a page that said it didn’t exist:

 

 

I felt like I found a little secret. This is in itself already nice, but it’s a secret that also pretends not to exist. I clicked a link and it took me to a page, but the page said the page does not exist. Which is of course a bit strange, how can I be on the page, if the page doesn’t exist?

These two things (the colours and the missing page) inspired me to create my own missing page. The one that is used now is funny, but does not really fit the style of the blog. I wanted to create a missing page that matches the blog. I tried to achieve this by using the colours from the blog. The image itself seems random, which it actually is. But this randomness fits in with the great diversity within the content that is present on the blog. The text that I added to the image is a reflection on the paradox that the page is there, but is also missing.

 

suscribe!

 

 

Colorconsequence.


Thursday, April 18, 2019

Color consequence.

As a student in the Basicyear at the Rietveld Academie I have started to discover the lack of teachings on the consequence of color. Many of the employees in the Academie I have discussed this matter with has answered (according to my perception of their given answer) that it is not an up-to-date topic. Yet I consider myself aiming at this from a painting perspective, the knowledge of color consequence is important, so it seems, also within the realm of what I define as Design. The Rietveld Academie has been described to me, during my time as a student, as it takes great pride in the use of what could be called ”The Bauhaus” model. Design and Fine arts share the same space with all of the crafts that you can fit into those two realms.  What I have started to investigate has begun to make me realize that there is color consequence to pretty much everything for someone whom has the ability to see, and is therefore of upmost importance as a subject in our education for every department in the Academy.

Johannes Itten mentions in his introduction of the book ”The Elements of Color” a simple example of how important color can be to space,

– ”The mausoleum of Galla Placidia, now at Ravenna, Italy, is dominated by a remarkable colored atmosphere of grey light. This effect is produced by bathing the blue mosaic walls of the interior in an orange light, filtered through narrow windows of orange-tinted alabaster. Orange and blue are complementary colors, the mixing of which yields gray” 1.

He goes on giving examples on how the element of color is used in other scientific professions,

– ”The physicist studies the nature of electromagnetic energy vibrations and particles involved in the phenomena of light, the several origins of color phenomena such as the prismatic dispersion of the white light and the problems of pigmentation. He investigates mixtures of chromatic light, spectra of the elements, frequencies and wave lengths of colored light rays. Measurements and classification of colors are also topics of the physical research.”

“The chemist studies the molecular structure of dyes and pigments, problems of color fastness, vehicles and preparation of synthetic dyes. Color chemistry today embraces an extraordinarily wide field of industrial research and production”.

“The physiologist investigates the various effects of light and colors on our visual apparatus-eye and brain – and their anatomical relationships and functions. Research on light -and dark- adapted vision occupies an important place. The phenomenon of afterimages is another physiological topic”.

“The psychologist is interested in problems of the influence of color radiation on our mind and spirit. Color symbolism, and the subjective perception and discrimination of colors, are important psychological problems. Expressive color effects, what Goethe called the ethic-aesthetic values of colors-likewise fall within the psychologists province.” 1.

It strikes me how color is such a essential part of our visual world that it is crucial to understand how it works, it is a very subjective matter among humans but also between species. If I look to nature I would like to state that the fundamental meaning of color is communication. Communication in the way of understanding what to avoid and not to survive.

After having some time digesting this research, having discussions with students, teachers and people whom are not professionally involved in fine arts and design, I’m starting to change my approach towards color and its consequence, also understand why color does not have the same essential role in our education as it had for the Bauhaus students. The other week my roommate had his father visiting. We were strolling around the center of Haarlem (NL) when we decided to enter The Frans Hals museum. An exhibition suggesting contemporary aspects of Frans Hals work was showing including art works by contemporary artists. One of the main focuses was the color of the walls in the museum rooms. Instead of the normally used white, changing hues of a green/yellow color represented each room. Even if I read this before entering I did not notice how the constant change of hue was effecting our approach towards the exhibition. I was very focused on analyzing the art itself, until my roommates father (my room mate had been in the same over analyzing state as me) suggested that the change of wall color had effected how we criticized the exhibition and it’s art pieces showing. It struck me that I’m so over focused on criticizing artworks that I lose perception of what else is happening around, which might suggest that my overthinking of how I use color based on the old color studies published is only an obstacle and not an asset. During painting classes after this I realized how I produce more balance with color by not thinking about the old color studies but by using my instinct. So after presenting my idea last time in class a short discussion with our design teacher ended up with him stating that our contemporary perception of color and its consequence is a common knowledge based on that the society we grow up and is now posses with a greater awareness, in difference from to what people during Itten’s time learned and experienced. Though Itten also said;

”For the artist, effects are decisive, rather than agents as studied by physics and chemistry. Color effects are in the eye of the beholder. Yet the deepest and truest secrets of color effect are, I know invisible even to the eye, and are beheld by the heart alone. The essential eludes conceptual formulation” 1.

We are observing the world and our reality from our perspective, the person next to you has another perception of reality. We tend to assume that the rest of the people have the same moral, same understanding and same ethics as oneself but when it comes to what is right or wrong, good or bad I would like to think that there are as many truths on this planet as there are humans. One reality for every human. All others, plants and creatures on the planet, experiencing the moment in ways not understandable to humans. This also would mean that there is one perception on color for every human, so in the end it is up to the artist to determine what purpose the colors used fits his or hers reality. Josef Albers writes in his book “Interaction of Color”,

In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize that color deceives continually” 2.

Color study from the book Interaction of Color by Josef Albers. 2.

For a more contemporary (digital) approach towards color please visit “The Color Library” made by Maximage.  Maximage is a Swiss collaborative studio established in 2008 who created a website they call ”The Color Library”. You can also visit the website where it is described how color is used in the Rijksmuseum.

If you have further interest in reading about color please visit some of the other color researches at the designblog, here is also one on surface.

Additionally here is a link to a lecture on Color Theory from YouTube.

 

  1. Johannes Itten, The Elements of Color, John Wiley and Sons Inc, Hoboken, 1970, page 9, 12 and 7.
  2. Josef Albers, Interaction of color 50th anniversary, Yale University Press, London, 2013, page 1.

ross, m1


Saturday, March 9, 2019

I chose the book Ethical Actions: A Critical Fine Art Practice based on it’s size and colour.
There is a whole section in the middle of the book which is red and the cover has this mystical redness to it.
The book being a red thread I grabbed and then tried to find this red thread throughout the book.
I have been very attracted to the colour red lately and it has been like a red thread in my life having lured me towards it.
I wear a red coat and red glasses and I feel the best if I am wearing the colour red from head to toe. For me the colour red reminds me of something warm. Maybe by being so drawn to the colour I might be getting closer to something of value in life. Getting warmer.

Getting back to the book from the colour red I get so distracted by the book is very convenient both in size and shape.

Fits well in your hand. It’s quite a decent thickness and I like how therefor the pages are matte and quite sturdy. It has quite a strong interior. The overall design and layout is quite clean and well-balanced by text and images which are given enough room to breathe. It also helped that the artist was a woman and the editor are women.
The book is designed by a design practice called Julia.
Here I leave a link to their website but there you can see several images from the book. These images will give you a good idea about what this text is about or the content and layout of the book.

https://julia.studio/project/monica-ross/

                                                http://www.lespressesdureel.com/EN/ouvrage.php?id=5207&menu=

The publication fully documents Ross’s works from the year 1970 to 2013. She worked with video, drawing, installation and text.

She was very socially engaged and a feminist. Her artwork is know for being very performative. Her work is said to have left  a deep effect on contemporary art and society.

When you open the book quickly you can see that it is divided into three sections.
The first section appears to be essays about the artist Monica Ross, by other well known theorists and artists. For each essay there is a lot of space given to the title, the name of the people writing the essay and a photo which seems to be of a piece or an artwork related to the content of each essay.
The first spread before each essay, introducing individual writer with a name of the author and the photograph, are all design in the same way.

The essays themselves on the other hand are either placed vertical, situated in the middle of each page or horizontal, spread over two pages. Some of the essays also have photographs intertwined in the text.
Then we are situated in the exact middle of the book where there is a bunch of red pages. On these pages is a critical text, piece or an essay written by the artist. The text is situated on the left and is written in the style of a prose or a poem.
The colour red seems intentional because when you look at the pages on the inside of the cover of the book, they are also red. So in a way it is like she, the artist, runs through the book. Like a red thread. With the red pages opening, closing and centering the content.
In the second half, the third section of the book, are photographs of works by the artist.

It seems to be more informative and is very clearly sectioned. It is easy to find what the reader might be looking for. A summary of all the works with small pictures and a short text that seems to be information about each artwork. Then the paper changes from matte to slightly more glossy and the photographs of the works are printed bigger so the reader gets the opportunity to observe them. Most of the photographs seemingly being documentation of her performances.
Like I said earlier the book is mostly printed on matte pages. Including the cover. The font is in most cases the same and very approachable to the reader.
Between each section there is enough space that gives the reader time or room to breathe or to contemplate or appreciate the content throughout the book highlighting the essays and the artists work as separate peaces. This book is said to be a valuable art-historical document and is designed in a very accessible way.

Monica Ross : ethical actions: a critical fine art practice , designer: Julia, Rietveld Library Cat. no: ros, m 1

DOES GREY EXIST?


Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Grey is everywhere. Grey is the sky, the concrete of buildings, the street and its tiles, the walls of the room I am now sitting in, steel linings of windows, many pieces of clothing, the hairs of aging people –

There are many shades of grey, colder and warmer ones. Grey can be defined as the colour between black and white. It can also be seen in a slightly more abstract way as colorlessness, being undefined, without character.

Several definitions of the word grey are:

  • Without interest or character; dull or nondescript
  • Not accounted for in official statistics
  • (of a person’s face) pale, as through tiredness, age or illness
  • (of the weather) cloudy and dull[1]

What all these definitions have in common is that they, in some sense, refer to an absence. It is the absence of color, of character, of definition – it is a lack of capacity to be interesting.

So why would anyone ever choose the color grey for something they made? Would this then be for the object to go as unnoticed as possible? Would it be to suggest neutrality?

THE BOOK

I found a book in the library that was completely covered in grey. The grey enfolded the text and the images that were inside, also filled the empty pages in between. The sides of the pages were grey, as was the cover, so that the book looked like a tile.

It was called “Power?… To which people?!”. It was a book about the Dutch artist Jonas Staal and contained a collection of essays and images related to the work of this artist. The graphic designer was called Laura d’Ors.

The greyness of the book was so dominant that I could not get past it. Although the content seemed interesting and I was somehow

tempted to read some pages and look into the images in detail, I mostly kept turning it around, covering my eyes in the grey that was all over.

I think the grey put a kind of silence around the book that made it into a very solid object. It was such a big visual decision that it forced me to relate to it

before relating to the book itself .

I found myself just flipping the pages in search for more grey, tracing the surfaces that I found with my fingers. I found the colour was also very present in some images in the book. Because of their connection with the cover that had struck me, these images stood out to me more than the other images that were in the book.

It took me a while to realize that the text was written in the same grey. Contrasting with the white background, it looked somewhat darker. I only realised its greyness when there was a big symbol placed next to it in the same colour.

THIS GREY

So what was the grey of this book exactly like?

I think a picture will never show the colour right as I saw it. It was a cold tone, with some hints of blue in it. It reminded me of the Rietveld grey, the colour that is used to paint the walls of the academy. It had the same natural and deep, yet cold quality.

Still, it was different from the Rietveld grey. It seemed less accessible. It was not a colour you could walk into. It was not a colour you would put on a wall. I think it was less green than the Rietveld grey. It was a bit darker as well.

WHY?

To come back to the question I posed earlier: why would anyone ever choose grey for something they made?

In the case of the book there are two aspects of the choice. The first one has to do with the excessive use of the colour. If another colour, for example green, would have been used in the same way that now grey was used, this would have equally caught my attention.

Now, let’s imagine it was green; what would this then result in? I think I would have thought that it would be a book about nature. Or imagine it was red; what kind of associations would that give? It could be about violence, love, blood…

The encapsulating of a book in one colour the way it was done here, immediately results in questions from the reader: why is it like this?

So why then did the designer choose grey? This is a hard question to answer, because associations with grey very often relate to backgrounds, such as walls and skies. Seeing it in such a prominent position where it is taking a lot of attention, is confusing.

Maybe that’s exactly the reason why she chose this colour – it is an anti-colour; like I said, a kind of absence. It puts the book into a background and by that enfolds it in the greyness of the world. It becomes part of the sky, the concrete and steel. It doesn’t have a colour to speak, it has a colour to be. To be a thing.

[1]Oxford dictionary

Jonas Staal: Power?… To Which People?!. design by Laura d’Ors, Rietveld library number: staa 1

Grey Hypocrisy


Thursday, November 29, 2018

Continuing my Quest for the Dull. I did not find any books by the tagwords connected to my previous result: ’Boring’ or ‘Seductive’. Only the third and less subjective ‘Interior Architecture’ gave a match. Though, this match wasn’t the ‘right’ book for me, in the sense that it was maybe too mediocre, but its neighboring book did catch my eye. It looked kind of dull, but at the same time demanded an autonomous authority. Not so dull after all, and therefore forcing me to adapt the definition of my Quest. Perhaps it was the rather small size (15 x 15 cm.), or the textless spine. I realized how the blanco spine is actually quite a sensation in this library, considering that most books contain either a title, some text or other imagery on this part the book. At the same time did this book blend in well with the rest. Just like all other copies, it is plasticized, and then some: front, back, top, bottom – everything drenched in the monotonous clammy layer by the name of adhesive cellophane. A perfect recipe for blending in, at least in the world of books.

Even though this grey square of about 50 sheets of paper could be considered boring, there are a few elements that make this otherwise invisible copy stand out by its demand for adapted care-taking. For example, the thinness of the book made it impossible for the librarian to place the code sticker in its entirety on the spine, the rest of it had to be placed on the cover. I can imagine when doing this job, the irregularity of books like this is quite bothersome. A visual rupture in the repetitive rhythm of the surrounding stickers. Besides, because of this invisibility, it is harder for a person wanting to look up a book only by the code he/she was given by the library’s database. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to it, the code was missing, or at least not visible at first sight. Maybe that’s why this book has this size; it only wants to be noticed by people who don’t follow the code, but choose by its appearance only. A stubborn little fella, this “cDIM Valencia”. Hypocritical even. Its innocent appearance, yet sneaky way of asking for attention.

774.4 cat 17

Colour System Project


Wednesday, May 9, 2018

January 30th

Hi all,

Sunny morning, the colours are back!  pilz

Colour systems are created from very different starting points and urgencies, often related to a specific application and context. Some are based on observations, others on textual theories or visions. They can be technical, poetical, philosophical, tactical or speculative, they can be developed “for home use” or for a large audience or group of users. They are both political and personal, and almost always related to ideology.

Here’s the story about a fake art movement SPECTRA. Also all the other bulletins in that section (from ‘Umberto Eco: THE COLORS WE SEE’ till ‘James Langdon: NOW IN COLOUR’) are on colour-related  topics.

The  question is to develop a new colour system. A colour system that comes from your own, subjective starting point. Medium, scale, application, etc. is up to you. It would be interesting too if you all develop a colour and  a visual, graph-like representation as part of your colour system,

This was how the project started and ended with the publication of all process documentations which you can read if you scroll down.

 

April 4th

But before you do,

 

Look at all the colours we created, silkscreened with Kees Maas as part of this project and glued on the Rietveld Billboard. The next day it was a sunny day..

 

Builboard_Colours2

 

– All Color Names–
–Night Sky Violence, Walking on Light Tears, Sancho Panza, Lost-Diving-Mask-Green, Sickatoum, Sea Bird Blue Goes Dancing, Retired Rosy Brown, Flu Blue, Lost in Some Wax That Game Out Of Shrek’s Ear Green, Uta Grass, Hope Empty, Lizzard Wizzard, Capitalistic Pink, Maria Markan, I’ve Got Leaves In My Eyes, Tolerant White, Dragon’s Egg, Daniel’s Jeans, Adolescent Moss, Glass White / Glaswit, Don’t Be Blue Boo –

 

WORK IN PROGRESS

 
(more…)

A Letter of Rejoice


Monday, May 7, 2018

During the research of Isaac Newtons colour-wheel I had the image of colour being spread into flakes, much like flakes in the paint of cars. Another thing is also the separation of the colours within the prism that is projected by Newton. These to points gave life to the idea of the book: A letter of rejoice.

 
Screen Shot 2018-04-03 at 14.49.44

 
The colours of cars come in every shape and form just like the rainbow. With the paint from cars as a starting point I went out in public trying to gather as many photos of car colours. With no system in what pictures of cars I took I quickly gathered +70 pictures of different car colours. Looking through the pictures on a laptop one thing was clear. The reflection of the sun changes the colour of the car. A black metallic will turn into a less black and a bit more dark blue.

 
Screen Shot 2018-04-03 at 14.51.33 Screen Shot 2018-04-03 at 14.51.53

 
The reason for the dramatic change in this case is because of the blue sky reflecting in the paint. This was the case with some of the colours. Some will stay true to their original colour while some change significantly. In order to create a system I had to select the images of cars that were relative to each other and remove them from the collection. Reason being to create a book that isn’t boring to look through. Reading a book where at least 50% of the images are difficult to distinguish from each other can be, quite frankly, boring. Another reason for some of the images being removed is because of the main inspiration which was a catalogue from 1982 by Porsche (911 G (1982) – COLOUR CHARTS AND PAINT COLOURS).

 
Screen Shot 2018-04-03 at 14.52.14Screen Shot 2018-04-03 at 14.52.29

 
In the catalogue the colours are far from similar. This is to make it easier for the buyer to choose a colour for the car they want to order.
Using the Porsche catalogue as a template for the project I sculpted my own “German” catalogue. For this I used Adobe Illustrator. Anyone can set up an illustrator page like the catalogue from Porsche. Its just like copy paste. However the real obstacle was to name every colour in the book. In order for the text to become alive and for the reader wanting to read on wards the text needed to be related to what I felt when I see the specific colour. The text attached to each picture but in total it creates a story and that’s what I wanted to create. A story with no end nor beginning. If the pictures were to be switched around the story would still be the same because of the nonlinear course of the text. One restrain that I wanted to keep from the Porsche catalogue was that the text shouldn’t be any longer than a few sentences. A lot can be said with just a few words. A lot can be felt with just a few words. A lot can be misunderstood with just a few words.

Screen Shot 2018-04-03 at 14.52.54 Screen Shot 2018-04-03 at 14.53.09

design theory process compressed (1)

Layout became like so:
flakes of colour pdf compressed

The draft for the catalogue looked like so:

flakes of colour sample flakse of colour sample 2

This draft is very close to what I would imagine the catalogue looking like back in 1982. Or at least my interpretation of what it could look like. However it is also very plain and it doesn’t have any flare to it. When making a book the outside has to reflect whats on the inside. It was therefore back to the drawing board.

Screen-Shot-2018_1400
Using Adobe Illustrator CS6 to set up the pages

A few problems were to be considered when I was changing the catalogue into a book. What page size, matte or shiny paper, the printing setup etc. All these problems are something that can be difficult to choose from but once you narrow it down to what you want it look like it is fairly simple. I went for A3 paper, so I could fold the A3 and have two A4 pages on one A3 page, and a different setup with the order. The reason being that the pages with images now could be on shiny paper while the text pages could be on matte paper.
The experience of going through a book like this is a lot more enjoyable.
Rather than having to flip the pages upwards its now the normal way. It also changes the characteristics of the book it self. Before it was leaning more towards the original catalogue from Porsche where as now its something on its own. The departure from the catalogue is a great improvement.

 

letter of rejoice 1 letter of rejoice 2

letter of rejoice 3 letter of rejoice 4

 

Orders can be done on my instagram account @carlottolinde

 

chasing after something unclear


Sunday, May 6, 2018

good

At first I thought of two spheres, one based on pigment, and one based on light. The spheres would hold all colours, but on the outside, the pigment-based sphere would be black and the light-based sphere would be white. It was kind of an immediate response to the three-dimensional colours system shapes I saw during our presentation on already existing colour systems. A lot of artists and taxonomists from this presentation had decided on a certain shape either two or three dimensional, which would hold all, or at least all (for them) relevant colours. These two spheres I had in mind were maybe an ode to the two things I believe decide colour; the pigment an object contains from itself, and the light that makes it possible to receive the colour by the eye. The pigment-sphere is black, with a white center (all other colours exist somewhere in between the white and the black), because this creates a bigger arera of black in opposition to white, just like the more pigment something contains, the darker the colour gets. The same goes for the white sphere, as more light will eventually create white, and no light at all will create complete darkness (black).

But far before I started working with this idea, even before I completely thought it through, I started to doubt. Because, if light and pigment completely depend on each other, than what reason is there to “pin down” colours, in a system? Of course I could create a scale model, animated version or a couple of drawings of these spheres to show what the colours inside are like and how they work, but what would be the use of that if anyone seeing it in a different room, with different light would receive it completely different?

I wasn’t sure how to continue now, as the word “system” felt like I had to make something clear, or at least something that can make sense and be repeated in multiple situations, which I thought wasn’t really possible with something and changeble as colour. It took me a while to realize that I should just start working with colour, and not worry too much about it making perfect sense. But as soon as I realized, I got sick and didn’t do much more than lay in bed. This, in combination with the feeling that colours mostly depend on how our eyes perceive them, made me want to approach the assignment in an unconcious way. A couple of nights I slept with a different colour light in my room. Afterwards I tried to capture what my dream was that night, and if there was any noticeable difference from the night before. Though I remembered the dreams well, it was surprisingly difficult to pin them down. I wanted to show the general feeling of the dream, and no specific details or story lines. I wanted to capture them in a simple way, in which the sense and atmosphere of the dream is immediately there and clear to anyone.

I noticed that sleeping a shorter amount of time had a different influence on the dream than sleeping the entire night. If i only slept an hour or two with the coloured light on, I could clearly remember the first random associations mix up with the usual memories and thoughts I have when I’m awake. To put it differently: I felt myself fall asleep, and I felt myself sleep, and then I felt myself dream and then I felt how an alarm clock woke me up and brought me back to the logical world. Within those few hours, there was not enough time to form coherent, “full” dreams. I dreamed in feelings and associations, not about stories or places or people. I think the lights had some effect, in the short term.

 

yellow light  Yellow light, 8 hours, no clear difference from my usual dreams, except that everything was darker, This corresponds to an old dream I have each time the morning sun shines into my eyes: That my eyes don’t work and there is a black spot in the middle of my eyesight.

geel 5

 

green light Green light, three hours. Some images I had with this one were of dark wood furniture and music instruments.

groen

 

light blue light Light blue light, 1 hour (maybe shorter). This one had very clear images, as I was still half-awake. I woke up pretty soon too, so that I remembered them very well.

lichtblauw

 

red light Red light, 8 hours.

rood 2

 

purple light Pink/purple light. 2 hours. I dreamed about textures and places, no clear story lines involved.

roze

 

dark blue light Dark blue. I don’t remember how long I slept. I dreamed about people crossing a busy highway in the dark, so there were a lot of orange headlights.

blauw

 

I really liked the coloured light and the many effects it had on the colours I was used to, so I wanted to do a little more on it and show what a power the light has. I had two coloured lamps change constantly while painting, so that the way I choose the colours wasn’t like usual. Thinking about it, maybe it were better if I had painted something realistic, so that the choices I made had more of a purpose. The painting then would also “make sense” in one light, but not in the other.

 

blue light painting green light painting

orange light paintingpink light painting

purple light paintingwhite light painting

 

In the end, I still feel quite confused about what I did in this assignment.
By focusing on the things that go around unconsciously in my head, I can never be sure if I have “catched” what I was chasing after.

 

The Pursuit Of Completeness


Sunday, May 6, 2018

 

ColourCard-4

 

Once in a time, lived a young hero who found himself on a quest: the pursuit of completeness. He traveled across the lands, west and east, observing cultures and reading the ancient texts. He discovered so much on his journey, and came across many wise sages who offered him mysterious advice. And yet, the hero found that the more knowledge he gained, the more distant his goal seemed to become. At certain moments the target would completely disappear and he would be left raw and dizzy, lost. In these moments he would cling even more desperately to the words of the wise-men, reading, researching, searching obsessively until his vision would once again appear in the distance. But it was hopeless, it hovered like a mirage on the horizon, never any closer no matter how fast he ran towards it.
On a particular night, exhausted and alone, stuck but stubbornly holding onto hope, the hero fell into an unexpectedly peaceful sleep. It was as if his body was floating gently on a warm sea, and, in the eye of his dreaming mind, an image appeared: A full rainbow across a grey landscape. It was so dazzlingly crisp and clear, so bright and vivid. The air was still and perfectly silent and in that moment the hero knew that he had received the sign that he had so desperately been needing. He woke up with the new day, crying tears of joy and gratitude. His quest was far from being over, in fact he was certain that the hardest challenges were yet to come but, finally, he had clarity and direction. He would leave his texts behind, all his pointless, distracting knowledge and set out on his own path.

The next night, as the hero was sleeping, he dreamed of the devil and of fear. The dream was bathed in a red glow and the devil knocked on his door. Terrified, the hero resisted but then a calmness came to him. He opened the door and invited the devil in and together they sat down for a meal.

The following night, the hero dreamed of a woman of the night in an orange dress and a fight against yellow men, a dream of guilt and shame but also of an incredible strength and willpower.

The night after that, he dreamed a beautiful dream of the woman he loved. Lost together in the night, in an empty world, they mourned the loss of all those they had once loved but, gazing into each others eyes, saw the eyes of their parents and friends and past lovers and they smiled in their hearts.

 

ColourCard-1     ColourCard-2     ColourCard-3

 

The hero could feel it in his body. Finally it had come! Life was guiding him. So strange and peculiar these dreams, so profound the significance of these colours! The full spectrum of life, in the full spectrum of the rainbow. Now he understood red, orange, yellow and green with an understanding beyond words. Oh silly, silly words he laughed. It was all in the colours, it was all in life always. The hero fell asleep that night full of anticipation, but the blue dream did not come. Nor did it come the next night, or any of the nights that week. No blue, indigo or violet dreams. He started to worry, he had made such incredible progress. He was almost there but now he could feel himself slipping away again. Weeks went by and the hero had no dreams. The colours which had once seemed so vivid now seemed dull and meaningless. Life seemed dull and meaningless and the hero mourned the loss of those clear, bright eyes he had once looked through. Weak and confused, he reached again for his books. He was desperate to understand and so desparate to feel that beautiful way once again. But, remembering how certain he had been of their futility, he put them away again.

Gathering up strength, the hero resolved to set himself out into the world to search for the answer. If the colours would not come to him, he would go and pull them out of whatever situations he found himself in! He would do whatever it took. He started with painting the dreams he had had. And then he painted paintings with all the colours of the rainbow, trying to understand what they had meant to him and how they were in relation to each other. He came to some interesting, intuitive understandings. It seemed that the first four colours existed on the foreground plane and the blues and purple in the background plane. The further he explored this, the more obvious it became to him that there was a divide. There was the realm of human emotional experience, of textured and colorful personality, all belonging more to the material world and then there was the realm of the spiritual, the land of the soul which belonged to a mystical, divine world. Yet how to split this mystical world up into blue, indigo and violet, he could not yet work out. He needed some kind of way to access them.
Remembering his earlier dreams, the hero went in search of the devil. Let me find the adventure that will take me through the full spectrum, he thought. He kept his ears and eyes open and wandered the land. After weeks of following symbols and signs he found himself, one dark night, approaching a huge and abandoned church. He heard a terrible, hypnotic chanting inside. He quietly pushed open the door and looked inside. There was a huge crowd of all terrifying, evil beings; men with knives and guns, gangsters and crooks, giants and witches and demons. They did not notice him as he crept inside. He was scared but calm in his determination. He looked to the front of the church and saw, standing by the altar, a man leading the chant. The hero’s ears singled out the man’s voice and he was gripped by an incredible torment. The voice was so

big, powerful and so direct. It felt like it was calling him directly. He was filled with fear and immediately regretted his ever having come here. He wanted to turn and leave but the voice was so beautiful and hypnotic that he could not. He was trapped in indecision but then the calm voice of his red dream came back to him, ‘open the door and let him in, offer him something to eat and drink’. He watched himself as he pushed his way to the front of the crowd to stand in front of the devil. The devil slowly turned his fiery eyes upon the hero and as he did this the hero felt his body fill up and he stood taller and he felt amazing and powerful and he lifted up off the floor and reached out his arms and roared. The crowd of people roared back and he flew up higher and higher spreading himself out more and more until, all of a sudden, he came crashing down to the ground. He felt a sharp sensation in his face, it took him a second to realize what had happened and then he got up and started laughing at himself. Walking back through the crowd, his nose bleeding, he laughed because it seemed so funny how seriously he had been taking it all.

 

ColourCard-5 Tarot7-1

 

Color Swatch


Tuesday, April 10, 2018

 

Screen Shot 2018-04-10 at 23.12.43 Screen Shot 2018-04-10 at 23.12.37 Screen Shot 2018-04-10 at 23.12.31Screen Shot 2018-04-10 at 23.12.26

We were asked to make a colour system.
And in the first phase of assignments, we were asked to go over medieval colour systems that made no sense. I’m not a mathematician.
I even once wrote an article about how little of a mathematician I am.
That’s how little of a mathematician I am. Or am not.
The word system really bugged me.
I thought it had to have a religious structure that made sense and was clever at the same time.
Then I thought, no, It’s okay, it can be anything;
because this is Rietveld and you can get away with a lot.
But then my mind went back to it having to be a system.
System. Mechanism. Complex. Arrangement. Order.
ORDER. Structure. Network. Institution. Rigorous. Mathematical. Detailed. Exact. Accurate. Meticulous. Diligent.
These were some of the words that kept hitting my brain. Some Icelandic ones as well.
Then I thought again, no, this is Rietveld. Everything will be okay.
It can be anything.
Once I calmed myself down, after a week or so,

I thought of a painting I’d wanted to make for a long time. I had never actually made it but the idea of it was in my head.

The idea was to collect every single swatch from a paint colour swatch board in a store like GAMMA or Praxis, and exhibit it.

color swatch wall installation

From that idea, came this one: I took all the colours swatches from the wall at GAMMA, or at least I am pretty sure I took every single one… It was very confusing and I almost went blind while doing it because they were SO many.

 

After that I had around 500 swatches.
So my next thought was to arrange all of the swatches by preferance.
I played a game with my friend where she handed me a colour swatch and I had to choose
if I liked it, hated it or thought it was “okay”.

The ones I loved went to the top, the ones I thought were okay went in the middle and the ones I hated went to the bottom. Then I layed them down next to each other, forming a rectangle. It was fun, it was fast, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it. It made an interesting mosaic.

[Insert VIDEO HERE]

FullSizeRender5_950 photo-compositie_950

 

This idea of arranging colours by my own beauty preferances,
came from another idea I had at the beginning of the assignment.
I drew this picture, below, of colors I liked at the top and the ones I didn’t like at the bottom.

 

bookscreenshot

 

Then, these two ideas formed into one.
I painted different kinds of colour combinations that I liked, hated.
Matthias, my mentor, had shown me this book by Sanzo Wada (1883-1967), it is a really thick book with billions of beautiful color combinations. I was very intrigued by it and it made sense now what I should make, my own preferance of color combinations, in the form of a swatch stick.

IMG_4962_950color_waaier_950

So, that’s what I did….
I painted on transparent building plastic because it’s smooth
like a baby’s bottom and it is see through
so when I had painted, I could pile them up
and from there they would form all kinds of different paintings&combinations.

FullSizeRender1_950FullSizeRender2_950

My forms are mildly inspired by Hans/Jean Arp’s paintings and sculptures,
but sometimes I just did what ever, and sometimes the
bigger the colours are the more I loved or hated them.
Depending on my mood.
Here you can see Hans/Jean Arp’s form’s stacked on top of each other
forming a composition.

Jean Arp
Meanwhile having this assignment in my head I thought A LOT about colour
combinations, more than I’m used to. It was nice..

 

05:24 Colour System


Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Light is paramount for us to see any colour in the first place, so I began creating my colour system with this fundamental thought in mind. I started with our obvious source of light, the sun, noticing the subtle changes in light from sunrise to sunset and how it effects the appearance of colour. I wanted to record this somehow, but then I began thinking about the importance of artificial light and thought it would be necessary to include it in my system. The first source of light I turn on when the sun begins to set is a filament lamp on my desk, from there I began thinking of solution of how I can combine these two essential sources of light and the ways in which they effect one another as the day progresses. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible so I took a white (white to ensure that the interference between the natural and artificial light was clearly visible) piece of paper slightly larger than A4 in size as a surface to reflect the light off of. I placed the paper on my window, positioned the filament lamp above and a camera directly in front of the paper, the time I completed this set up was just before sunset and is when I documented the first image. I was unsure if anything would be captured when photographing the paper, perhaps just a light to dark gradient but unexpectedly I was amazed to see how the colours in the image almost exactly resembled the colours in the sky at that moment in time. I decided I wanted to record the progress of how the light emitted from the sky and the filament lamp interact on this white surface from sunrise to sunset. I waited until the weather was forecasted a day with few clouds and from when the sun came up I took a photo every two hours until the sun set, producing a timeline of photos. After repeating this twice more and observing the sky enough I concluded that my final colour system was not going to be series of images showing a timeline, I found the certain hours which I thought were of most importance to take the images showing the interaction between the two lights on the paper.Sunrise, Noon, Sunset, 15 minutes after Sunset and Midnight.

1 Sunrise 3 Sunset 7:47, 17:58

2-Noon 5 Midnight 12:00, 17:12

4 After Sunset 00:00

 

COLORBLIND PHOTOSHOP


Tuesday, April 3, 2018

COLORBLIND PHOTOSHOP

To a lesson of color

from the German Zur Farbenlehre

Goethe focused his notion of colour on the spontaneous sensory experience. His theory is based on how colors are perceived by human brain. He’s not looking for a material definition as Newton did.

He did a lot of experiment, describing phenomena such as coloured shadows, refraction and chromatic aberration.

After some observation, he deducted that Newton’s theory was missing something about colours. He didn’t see darkness as an absence of light but rather at polar to and interacting to the light; colour is a result of interactions between light and darkness.

Goethe’s studies began with the experiments which examined the effects of turbid media such as air, dust, and moisture on the perception of light. He observed that light seen through a turbid medium appears to us yellow. He took the example of the sun seen through the atmosphere: when you look at the sun rising it appears yellow red, the particles there are, the more the sun is red. Otherwise, when we look at the sky we actually look at the darkness of the space. The blue of the space are the particles from the atmosphere reflecting the sunlight, so we have light on obscurity ( more the layer of particles is thin more the sky is dark blue).

From this starting point, Goethe developed his theory on the polarity of colors: real close from the light there is yellow then red, and real close from the darkness there is blue then green. He also concluded that colour is a dynamic process from his experience with a moving prism. He founded a spectra different from Newton, adding: cyan, yellow and magenta.

Goethe also include aesthetic qualities in his colour wheel under the title “allegorical, symbolic, mystic use of colour”:

cercle-chromatique goethe

red is beautiful,orange is noble, violet is unnecessary, yellow is good, green id useful and blue is common. These six qualities were assigned to four categories of human cognition: the rational (red/orange), the intellectual (yellow/green), the sensual (green/blue) and the imagination (red/ violet).

Goethe also made the “rose of temperaments”, an earlier study (1798/99) by him and Schiller, matching twelve colours to human occupations or their character traits (tyrants, heroes, adventurers, hedonists, lovers, poets, public speakers, historians, teachers, philosophers, pedants, rulers), grouped in the four temperaments: melancholic, choleric, sanguine and phlegmatic.

Goethe_Schiller_Die_Temperamentenrose

 

Should your glance on mornings lovely

Lift to drink the heaven’s blue

Or when sun, veiled by sirocco,

Royal red sinks out of view –

Give to Nature praise and honor.

Blithe of heart and sound of eye,

Knowing for the world of colour

Where its broad foundations lie.

—Goethe

watch this movie about light, darknes and colours

 

A little story about Daltonism
Early in the 18th century, Isaac Newton discovered color spectrum through his experience with a prism.normal + vison ++

During his experiences, he discovered that human eye is not capable to distinguish the combination of colors: thus at the intersection of a green and a blue light beams, the human eye perceive cyan.
Then in 1801, the doctor and physician, Thomas Young expose his theory of the trichromatic vision: three colors must be enough to recreate all the colors. In addition, when those colors are mixed in the same proportion, it gives white. Thereby he explains human color perception by the action of three retinal nerves which are excited respectively by red, green and purple. Disorders of the colored vision result from the malfunction of one of these nerves. He also shows that accommodation is ensured by the deformation of the crystalline.

This theory is confirmed by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879). He publishes a series of research on color perception and color blindness.
The scientific name of the anomaly is “dyschromatopsia“, but it is generally known as “Daltonism“, a term created by the physicist Pierre Prévost after the name of its discoverer: the English chemist John Dalton. The latter published the first scientific article on this subject in 1798, “Special Facts About the Vision of Colors” in a communication to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, following the realization of his own disability at perceive colors. He had also noticed that his brother had the same abnormalities, without concluding as to a possible genetic origin. It is only two centuries later, in 1986, that Jeremy Nathans locates the genes responsible for color vision and publishes this discovery in his treatise “Nathans, J., Thomas, D., Hogness, DS Molecular genetics of the human vision of colors: the genes coding for blue, green and red pigments, Science 232: 193-202, 1986 »

dantonisme

Thus humanity with the apparition of electronic devices searched for a color system for screens based on his owm perception of colors. The RGB system appears for electronic devices. Indeed, RGB is a device-dependent color model: different devices detect or reproduce a given RGB value differently, since the color elements (such as phosphors or dyes) and their response to the individual R, G, and B levels vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, or even in the same device over time. But still, even if RGB is based on human perception, computer are not working the same as the human eyes.
From this research, I asked myself: what if Photoshop was colorblind? My starting point for the project was photos of colorful flower, that I modified on Photoshop with different mechanism. I based my project on the six differences types of colorblindness depending on which sensors (cones) red, green or blue is touched by the illness and if it’s missing or just dysfunctional.
Applied to the RVB system, if a cone is missing I deleted all the layer corresponding to the color missing cone on Photoshop and if it was only dysfunctional I was only playing with the value of the layer. As if it was “more or less colorblind”. All the experience was a game with the different RVB layers, showing how different a computer and a brain with a missing or dysfunctional sensor or not going to recreate or perceive the same colors even if RVB is a color system based on human perception. It appears to me that the computer was more powerful in a way because it was capable to make up a lot more of colors than humans with different type of colorblindness.

 originals

 Capture2_1


final works

 

_V0A6105test3 copie 5 _V0A6074test2 7
_V0A6096 V0B0R100 test 4 _V0A6088 test_1 3
_V0A6079 200V 220B -150R test  2 _V0A6078test 1

changing colors of fruits


Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Color is very important to me. But my fascination of colors has been more unconscious, even though i haven’t thought consciously about choosing colors, it has been playing a big role in my work.
When i started my research into colors i noticed that what i found very interesting about colors, is usually how almost every color is to be found in nature. I am fascinated by how nature is always changing, and by that also changing colors. I started to research into how food changes over time. I find it interesting how the perception of the color, tells us about the ripeness and by that also the taste. As an example, we never buy brown bananas, we usually always try to find the red or yellow mango, trying to avoid the green. it is a knowledge that we unconsciously choose from. Even though that we all know a Banana should be yellow to be ripe, we still have very different ideas on which color is the most perfect for a certain type of fruit. Personally i think that bananas are perfect when they are still green. What i also find compelling is how, the fruit peel has another color than the inside of the fruit. By that the peel somehow is an expression on how the inside is feeling. I find this as a way of the fruit expression itself in the form of colors.

I find it very interesting how food can change to much during time, not only in the same tones of one color, but completely different colors. Milk as an example can go from being white to green, when rotting. In this case, the green color would be a very clear sign that the product would be too old. On the other hand, when a mango is green, it would also be a clear sign that it is not ripened yet.

As a first step of creating my own system, I bought different fruit and vegetables, and placed them in the corner of my kitchen. Here i photographed them each day for a week, and studied how they changed color. Unfortunately, the problem was that the lighting on the fruit in every picture were very different, and by that completely changed the colors in the photographs. I therefore had to redo the whole process again, to make sure that the results could be used for a system. I then build a small photo studio, so i would be sure that the light would be the same, and wouldn’t change the color of the fruit. I bought new fruits and photographed the fruit in the studio for 2 weeks, to see how the colors evolved. I collected 14 pictures of each fruit, but i chose only to use the first weeks pictures.

 
Screen Shot 2018-04-03 at 08.32.33

 
I used the photos to make a digitally color scheme, and i wanted to use the exact same colors as the one on the pictures by using photoshop. After deciding that i wanted to make a color system based on how fruits changes colors, i was looking for a medium to present the final system. I chose to use stickers, because i wanted to somehow bring the project back to where it all started. I thought of fruit stickers, and on how they are always used in a way of advertising. By making one colored stickers, i feel that the sticker as a medium is taken away from being commercial to being something different.

 
yellow-strokes_1200 red-strokes_1200

 
Unfortunately my printer wouldn’t take the sticker sheets, so i had to make the colors by hand. I printed out the digitally made color schemes from the photos, and made color test from them, and painted sticker sheets with gouache paint. Of course by using this method you will not get the exact same colors as digitally, but now i feel that it is a blessing in disguise, that the printer did not work. Now the colors of the sheets has more debts than when printed digitally, and also i like that none of the colors are exactly the same, and in nature it is not either.

 
color-circles_1200

 
I still have the feeling that the system is not completely finished. I am still thinking about how i can make the final step. But I think that I have to take both the fruits and the stickers back to the supermarket, where it all started. I really enjoyed the process of following something change. When i took the pictures, i didn’t recognize that the colors was changing, but when comparing the pictures, it was very easy to see the change in color.

 

Gaze Order of the Shades Harmonium


Monday, April 2, 2018

 

 

Everything around us has a color, from the ground we walk on to the sky above, the world we see is anything but black and white, never achromatic. Some people prefer to wear black clothes while others feel them selfs most comfortable in white, empty spaces. Red light automatically makes us cautious, while green lets us know that it is ok to go. Could the colors you see actually influence the way you feel and the decisions you make in your life? In fact colors can represent many different feelings, moods, and concepts. There is reason why people have certain favourite colors or why some shades become color of the season in fashion. By looking deeply at the colors of the things a person is choosing in their everyday lives, a cognitive perspective could help to understand the reason of this occurrence. Colors are one of the many things that play a part in our daily lives, whether we realize it or not.

colorbottles_1200
nail colour analysis

The starting point for my color project was observing my own personal color choices. I made an attempt to look consciously at my closest, most colourfull surroundings –my wardrobe, my make-up kit and my personal belongings. I was inspired by color analysis, also called skin tone color matching, personal color or seasonal color. It is the process of finding colors of clothing and makeup to match a person’s skin complexion, eye color, and hair color in cosmetics and fashion industry. The goal is to determine the colors that suit best persons natural coloring and it was popular in 1980. My aim was to simply observe how often I would choose certain shade over the other, so to determine it’s importance in my personal color system. The colors that I like to wear most are from variety of pink-purple-blue. I do tend to avoid red items, as I associate it with aggression, except for classic red nails. Interestingly in my paintings and drawings I use a lot of red, usually combined with contrasting blue. When I’m sad I tend to surround myself with gray and brown. In general observing people’s behaviour in context of colors we can agree that colors are communication as well as they have direct influence on us. Many examples show that when people see certain colors they feel different emotions. Bright colors portray happiness and excitement, dark colors are more somber and sad, and those in between trigger all kinds of activity within a person’s mind and body.

DSC_0735 copyDSC_0740

wardrobe colours

 When you look at an object, the “color” of that object that you see is actually the wave length of the light reflecting off of the object itself. Color as feature of our vision don’t exist without light. From what we know, the primary colors are, red, yellow and blue. Followed by secondary colors and then more complex color mixtures including green, purple, orange, black, grey. Red expresses passion and draws attention to itself, positive and negative, and it has also been known to cause a rise in a person’s blood pressure. Yellow is the color of happiness, but if it is seen in too large of quantities it can have an ill tempered effect. Blue is the most popular color of mens wear, it is calming and basic and shows to lower blood pressure. Green reminds us of nature and tranquility, purple represents royalty, orange is often very friendly, and white is the color of cleanliness and purity. On the darker side of the spectrum is black which we see as depressing and bold and even grey that can make one have a feeling of loss and sadness. The other significant aspect of colors I focused during my research for the project was color combination and contrast. As I discovered color where never to be alone, there no such thing in nature as perception of a single color without influence of other shades. They can be contrasting or complementary or may appear to change a tone of each other when they are together. A very good example of this phenomenon is glitter. Glitter describes an assortment of small, colourful, reflective particles that comes in a variety of shapes. Glitter particles reflect light at different angles, causing the surface to sparkle or shimmer. Since prehistoric times, glitter has been made and used as decoration, from many different materials including stones such as malachite, galena, and mica, as well as insects and glass or nowadays from plastic.

Screen Shot 2018-05-09 at 16.11.34

So it it something that appears somehow consistent but hard to describe as one single colors, more like seeing few colurs at the same time. Something like this may occur in synesthetic experience when sensorial perception can link a colur to a smell or a word. Also people having hallucinations whether caused by substance or medical condition can have problems with describing a color or seeing a single color at once.

box_book_stones_9006B9E55CE-7BE1-416F-9CCE-B7AB6C149792

14 stones, 12 colours

In my color sytem I decided to extract 12 colors as a basic set of shades of nature. Instead of white and black I introduce metallic colors of gold and silver. A metallic color is a color that appears to be that of a polished metal. The visual sensation usually associated with metals is its metallic shine. This cannot be reproduced by a simple solid color, because the shiny effect is due to the material’s brightness varying with the surface angle to the light source. In addition, there is no mechanism for showing metallic or fluorescent colors on a computer without resorting to rendering software which simulates the action of light on a shiny surface. Consequently in art would normally use a metallic paint that glitters like a real metal. I think it is a great emphasize of unique and variable nature of colors. Metallics are both light and shadow at the same time. By applying seemingly synthetic medium of color to the organic surface of stoned a specimen of colour system is created. A circle of colors is closed and harmonious. The shades remain unnamed as they are intuitively recognised. Together as a part of the project I created an abstract acrylic painting, which tries to represent full range of shades.It is an expressive palette of colours that are dripping, smudging and shining. It it a vibrant landscape with it’s only inhabitants – colours. Created this painting as an exercise for perception of colors and becoming color sensitive.

 

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Untitled, 2018, 80x90cm, Acrylic and spray paint on cardboard

As well as photo book with silver/gold covers that can reflect the photographs in a various tones. It is a publication with no text, just blurred, abstract photographs that focus on the colours in my surrounding.  To experience the colour with metallic reflection I flip the cover to overlap the page.

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Systematically Confused


Monday, April 2, 2018

After I made my research on Michel Albert-Vanels innovative colour-system which pushed processes related to colour forward, I had a very scientific image on colour-systems.
After the announcement of creating our own colour-system, I remained being caught in a very theoretical and scientific image of the function of a colour-system.

When I look through my notes, I see a lot of short-living attempts of different approaches to the assignment.

First, it was mostly notes from already existing colour-systems, which should inspire my own one. The first idea was, to connect our free longterm assignment in mixed media with the colour system and looking back, I should have stayed with this idea. In our mixed-media assignment, we work with texts as a starting point. The text I’ve chosen is an excerpt of a dialogue between two friends: Wolf Singer, a distinguished neuroscientist and Matthieu Ricard which left a career as a molecular biologist to become a Buddhist monk. In their dialogue they discuss meditation-practice and it’s direct influence to the human brain.

I’ve started with the idea of making a series of etchings and silkscreen-prints on the topic.

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I thought, it might be handy to break down this dense and complex article with the help of colour by, for example giving both of the positions – Singer and Ricard a certain color. So their points and positions are expressed in a certain colour tone of the print.

That would have created automatically a colour palette which is linked to their positions and a mix of new colours when, for example, they agreed on a point, so that both of their positions come together as one.

I wasn’t fully convinced of this idea and missed the systematical approach to it, which I thought is the centre of a colour system. To select some colours for both of the speakers was more of a colour-palette, rather than a system, through which I could „run“ these prints and which would automatically create a colour-composition.

This wasn’t the last idea which started to crackle when I was thinking about systems and probably it was this image of a programmed application like on a computer, which was standing in my way for a long time.

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Soon, I realized, I could look for a Buddhist and neuroscientist colour-system and bring them in a next step together. But how would this look in the end? what would be the product and the outcome of this idea? I remained helpless and moved on from idea to idea until I rediscovered these promising systematics in music.

I’ve heard about micro-tuning systems a while ago in connetion with the Finnish DJ and producer Aleksi Perälä.

Perälä and his long-time friend and collaborator Grant Wilson-Claridge developed a musical tuning system, the „colundi sequence“. Despite that, Colundi has the character of a spiritual entity, which makes Perälä refering to it as the creator of the music he is producing.wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Schermafbeelding-2018-05-23-om-11.20.23.png

It remains a mystery for most of the people, including the journalist from the article I’ve read about it, what the „Colundi Sequence“ actually is, but what was very inspiring to me is it’s origin:

As we know, most western music is based on the 12-tone tuning system. All of these tones have a certain frequency in Hz, based on harmony.

Like other artists did before, Perälä started developing his own tuning systems in his music which resulted in the Colundi scale, a sequence, which is not a tuning system, according to Perälä.

The Colundi scale „is a sequence based on specific frequencies, often not related to each other in a traditional musical way“.

Grant Wilson-Claridge, Perälä’s friend which was mentioned before, came up with the frequencies for the colundi sequence.

“via experimentation and philosophy, each relating to a specific human bio-resonance, or psychology, traditional mysticism or belief, physics, astronomy, math, chemistry.” he told the music magazine „the wire“.

What he meant by that becomes more clear in one of his Facebook-posts:

“E.g. 90-111Hz – Beta Endorphin range. 126.22Hz – 32nd octave of Earth year, The Frequency Of The Sun, Color=Green, Tempo=118.3 BPM, centering of magic, Hara (chakra).” So the frequencies all have a specific origin in something natural.

This approach highly inspired me to do a colour system, which is based on specific frequencies, which then would be transformed into colours.

Around this time, the idea of creating a video came up, in which I would involve certain narratives, which carry the colour of their frequency, so there would be the ocean and the frequency of it’s currents as a narrative, as well as other positions like myself and the frequency of my heart-beat.

On the search of different narratives, I rediscovered a Youtube-Video, I used to watch very often as a child.

It is one of the first Freerunning-Videos I’ve seen, where Latvian Traceur (Word for people practicing parkour and freerunning) Oleg Vorslav climbs up buildings, flips walls down and jumps from roof to roof.

This video was probably one of my first experiences using youtube regularly as an archive. I was watching this video over and over again with my friends and it was very exciting to rediscover it after so many years.

I knew, I wanted Oleg Vorslav as one of the narratives, so I started to cut out short excerpts from the video to use them for mine.

Oleg_on_the_roofOleg_roofjump

I also started to go through my own video-archive and discovered alot of interesting material associated to colour. At the same time I didn’t know how to continue with my idea of frequencies and this system started to stand more in my way, rather than being a rich addition to the process, what made me decide to drop this idea and naroow it down to it’s essence: producing a video – in anyway.

During the whole process, I had a very thoughtful and conceptual approach to the project which often became an obstacle. At this point of the work, I had a need of a more free and spontaneous approach, so I started soon to edit the video and combine it with animations. I made my decisions quickly and intuitive, which opened up more possibilities for me.

Slowly, a system developed itself, where animations and moving images guide each other through the video, from colour to colour.

Get the Flash Player to see this content.

Looking back to this process, it was very much about handling disturbing thoughts and bringing me back to motivation in any situation or stage of struggling. In the end, I realized, that I could have trusted more into my own ideas and directions which I was attracted to.

I’m still a bit confused about the video I did, because I can’t really explain what it is and where it comes from. It’s been the first time, where I had to act on my gut-feelings out of emergency and tie-pressure, which was a unique experience. Under circumstances like this, great things have been discovered, so maybe we should appreciate stress and time pressure more as an opportunity to make us explore new grounds of our creative process.

 


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