SEARCHING FOR THE RAINBOW Google Image Search Results for the Eleven Basic Colour Terms in English
The philosopher Wittgenstein famously asked ‘How do I know that this color is red? —It would be an answer to say: I have learnt English.’ But how do we know what is red? In today’s digital age perhaps a more pertinent response would be: ‘Google it’. The use of Google image search as a tool to provide a visual interpretation of colour terms began as no more than an exercise in understanding, However, repetition of the process began to reveal both the changing nature of the internet and the similarities and differences between the colours in the
images retrieved by each search. Although translated through Google’s algorithms, collectively, the images represent the level of understanding of colour and colour terms by those posting them. The methodology for this exercise involved inputting each of the eleven basic colour terms into Google Image Search with the addition of the word ‘colour’. I then took the first thirty images from the search results as a foundation to work with and analyse. This poster displays the original images from the search, without any image manipulation and functions as a
snapshot of colour on the Internet that due to it’s constantly shifting nature, can never be replicated exactly. It shows not only the variety of responses to the names of colours but also the level of consensus across the range of images. This method is but one of the many possible ways of exploring the relationship between colour and language but it one that is truly a reflection of our digital age.