1. Color Lab
Speaker: Chiara Possoni

2. Overview
Introduction to color
Visual variable
Psychoperspective space
The necessarity of number 3
System of color
Color-matter
Way of appearing of the color
Phenomenology of color

3. Introduction to color Ethymology of the word ‘color’: warm/ emotion
Chroma
Celare = to hide
Cloros (yellow-green)
Historical point of view about color:
Color-idea by Cartesio
Color-useful by Berkley
Color-inuseful by Kant
Color-biocenotic by Darwin

4. Visual variable 8 Visual variable Dimension Value Trasparency
Position
4 variables of image
8 Visual variable
Direction
Texture (tactile by sight)
Hue (hue + value = color)
Shape
4 variables of separation

5. Shape and how
can they
be assembled

6. Psychoperceptive space

7. Psychoperceptive Space. What is it?
It’s just like a window open to the world

8. Psychoperceptive Space
The space is defined through the psychoperceptive activity of the
observer.
Nino Di Salvatore - Archetipo oggettivo verde e giallo
The space is not only physic. The perceptive space is metric free.

9. The psychoperceptive space is composed by:
a. Vectorial constances of the perception
a1. Retinical image’s dimension
a2. Axis of gravity’s parallelism
a3. Chromatic gradient
a4. Color focusing
a5. Position in the visual field
b. Spatial forces
b1. Shape
b2. Dimension
b3. Orientation
b4. Optical weight
b5. Latent lines (visual flow)
b6. Interval

10. Task: Spatial expression

11. a.Vectorial constances of the perception
Retinical image’s dimension
Axis of gravity’s parallelism
Chromatic gradient
4. Color focusing
5. Position in the visual field

12. 1. Retinical image’s dimension
NEAR
FAR
NEAR
FAR
2. Axis of gravity’s parallelism
STILL
ON MOVEMENT

13. 3. Chromatic gradient 4. Color focusing NEAR INTERMEDIATE FAR
ADVANCING
RECEDING

14. 5. Position in the visual field
RETROCEDENTE
AVANZANTE
Loretta Lux
Walk 300

15. Exercise
UN QUADRATO FERMO VICINO ALL’OSSERVATORE
IN UNO SPAZIO TRIDIMENSIONALE CON TRE QUADRATI
IN MOVIMENTO CHE SI ALLONTANANO
Which is the best way (color, dimension, position,..) to represent
this situation?

16. ..?..

17. This is the best solution!!
...because it uses at best the vectorial costances of the perception

18. b. Spatial forces The spatial forces can manifest through: Shape
Dimension
Orientation
Optical weight
Latent lines (visual flow)
Interval

19. Spatial forces
Putting a shape in a field is just like putting a stone in a pond
Every shape has an extention much bigger than its physical extension.

20. 1. Shape
Every shape has his own spatial forces

21. Ilya Chashnik, Russian (1902–29)
Cosmos — Red Circle on Black Surface with a Supremacist Cross, undated

22. Batti i bianchi con il cuneo rosso
El-lissitzky, Russian
Batti i bianchi con il cuneo rosso

23. Quadrato nero su sfondo bianco
Malevic, Russian
Quadrato nero su sfondo bianco

24. 2. Dimension Dimension is critical in generating 2D and 3D spaces. 2D
Vassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944)
9 punti in ascesa

26. 3. Orientation
Static space
Dynamic space

27. Rodchenko, Russian

28. 4. Optical weight

29. 5. Latent lines
Everybody makes the same visual path to join the shapes in the visual field.
This visual path is constituted by the latent lines. They are not real, they
are generated psychoperceptively by the observers. Althought that they have the same
value of the designed lines.

30. 6. Interval

31. Quality of the space Bidimensional Tridimensional Static Dynamic
Concave
Convex

32. Victor Vaserely, Russian

33. Opposition in geometry
..it’s can be defined as..
● Polarity in the space
● Duality in the shape
● Complementarity in the color

34. Complementarity in the color
If I had only 1 color there will be no color. For a color to exist it has to be created something of different nature. Only in this way it can feel its existence.
If I fix a color and then a black sheet, the color creates his complementary, its contrary. The two colors together form a unity. A color is really itself when near to its contrary. A color expresses at best its property when it is near its complementary color.

35. Klee’s lessons The balance between opposite colours is not grey
Klee speaks of a pendolum.

36. different hue
different lightness
PEN relative to the gravity, the weight
high contrast
different hue
similar lightness
TEN relative to the tension
low contrast

37. Klee’s lessons

38. Newton
Weight of color

39. The necessarity of the number 3
The passage from 1 to 2 can be seen as a passage from being to appearing.
If I had only the 1 there will be no term of confront. If I had only 1-2 there will be a tautology. The number 3 establishes a principle of order. The number 3 is a structural necessity.
Solido, liquido, gassoso
Punto, linea, superficie
Colori primari
Regni della natura
Soggetto, verbo, complemento oggeto
Sistema dei sillogismi

40. Subtractive color mixing
- CMY are the primary of the matter
- Nearer to the black (K)

41. Additive color mixing - CMY are the primary of the energy
- Nearer the white (W)

42. NCS: Natural color system

43. Color’s conjunction

47. Association between color and state of the matter

48. Way of appearing of the color
COLORI FILMARI
COLORI RIFLESSI
COLORI STRUTTURALI
COLORI SUPERFICI
COLORI VOLUME
COLORI LUCE

49. Phenomenology of color
1. Trasparency
Conditions:
a. The field should be divided in 4 parts, 2 for the figure and 2 for the background
b. Each of the 2 parts of the figure should be in contact with only 1 part of the background

50. c. The 2 parts of the figure should be perceived as an unity (Figural condition)
b. The succession of the colors of the figure should be related to that of the background (clearer figure on clearer background and viceversa)

51. 2. Induction - Interraction

52. The same squared perimeter, but one time interaction and the other induction
Cause: different disposition of the color in the perimeter

53. 3. Marginal gradient

54. 4. Color’s diffusion

56. 5. Hermann’s grill

57. 6. Munker White’s phenomenon

58. 7. Teodorovic’s experience