#aa sca yr 3 sem 1 week 10 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aangussca · 1 month

Text

Art Studio 1 Applying visual experiences to my multi-sensory installation (as detailed in the book recommended in individual consultation on 21.4.24)

Notes: Techniques of the observer: on vision and modernity in the 19th century

Polymath Johann Wolfgang von Geothe, in his Farbenlehre/Theory of Colours (1810), explains that visual deprivation is just as important to vision as viewing the presence of an image.

Geothe urges one to focus on an image in a dark room, before proposing that they "man schliesse darauf die Offnung" (Translation from German: "close the opening on it").

He discusses this transitional process (between 'image' and 'no image') in relation to the camera obscura, but this can be applied to my own work.

Excerpt from Goethe's Farbenlehre/Theory of Colours (1810): "The hole being then closed, let him look towards the darkest part of the room; a circular image will now be seen to float before him. The middle of the circle will appear bright, colourless, or somewhat yellow, but the border would appear red. After a time this red, increasing towards the centre covers the whole circle, and at last the bright central point. No sooner, however, is the whole circle red than the edge begins to blue, and the blue gradually encroaches inwards on the red. When the whole is blue the edge becomes dark and colourless. The darker edge slowly encroaches on the blue till the whole circle appears colourless."

Despite this visual deprivation, the original image may continue to shift and change within the space, sometimes with new images emerging.

In a silent room, hearing may become hypersensitive, which is why you may hear certain sounds (e.g. clicking of electronics or your own heartbeat). In darkness, however, the brain may compensate for the perceived lack of images by actively 'producing images'.

Excerpt from Goethe's Farbenlehre/Theory of Colours (1810): "Let the observer look steadfastly on a small coloured object and let it be taken away after a time while his eyes remain unmoved; the spectrum of another colour will then be visible on the white plane... it arises from an image which now belongs to the eye."

Excerpt from Goethe's Farbenlehre/Theory of Colours (1810): "Colour itself is a degree of darkness..."

Reference (Chicago 17th)

Crary, Johnathan. “Subjective Vision and the Separation of the Senses.” In Techniques of the observer: on vision and modernity in the 19th century, 67–96. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1990.

#sca projects #year 3 art studio project 1 #aa sca yr 3 sem 1 week 9 #aa sca yr 3 sem 1 week 10

0 notes