CHROMATIC CITY THE MIND’S EYE - DISAPPEARANCE
THE MIND’S EYE - DISAPPEARANCE
CHROMATIC CITY TAI KOK TSUI, HONG KONG 2020 - 2021
Acknowledgement This is the first time that Master year 1 and 2 students gather together to work on a year long studio project. We would like to thank all parties that are involved in this research project, including the community in Tai Kok Tsui and also other expertise of varies creative industries across the globe for their expert advise on the respective project.
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Studio Leader
MArch 1
MArch 2
David Dernie
Charmanie Lin Chris Chen Julie Fong Sam Leung Sonnie Chan Teresa Tin Vero Li
Aflie Fan Annie Zhou Julia Wong Leslie Tsang Maggie Yang Michael Lam Otto Chung Sarah Chan
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Acknowledgement
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Content
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Introduction - Chromatic City
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Chromatic Studies
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1 Fading Stories- Sam Leung
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2 Nature and Artifice - Julia Wong
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3 Spiritual - Vero Li
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4 Lonely City - Leslie Tsang
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5 Strange-ness - Otto Chung
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6 Street Space - Annie Zhou
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7 The Essence of Light - Michael Hui
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8 Shlonek - Julie Fong
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9 Street - Reflecting - Mirror - Alfie Fan
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10 Imagination - Maggie Yang
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11 Depth - Stability - Teresa Tin
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12 Mix - Chris Chen
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13 Light + Shadow - Reaction on Light - Charmaine Lin
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14 Observing the Unexpected - Sarah Chan
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15 Colour Reaction - Sonnie Chan
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Introduction In the wonderfully vibrant and colourful urban context of Tai Kok Tsui we have explored the ways of life, the colours and fabrics of place. Through the lens of colour we have explored sight as integral to the ‘enmeshed experience’ of the life of the city. We acknowledge that the experience of any singular colour has a multiplicity of readings, and that there is no absolute value to colour. Our chromatic experience is material, mobile and fleeting - the components of colour experience shift and overlap. But we also look to traditions where architecture and the visual arts combined to transform formal simplicity, opening up the visual boundaries of space into the realms of the Mind’s Eye. We reject the white ‘immaterial’ spaces of modernism, and the clichés of contemporary material practice. We ask how spatial richness, real and imaginary, can be achieved using fewer complex geometries, less material resources. In an age marked by resource crisis, we ask how the ‘fictive spaces’ of fabric, colour and light contribute to our spatial practice as architects? How can ‘opacity’ engage our imaginations ? This book composed of varies colour studies by The Mind’s Eye studio, working in 5 empty shop spaces in Tai Kok Tsui. Each student has taken a different approach to colour, from the colourful material life of place, to narrative space, movement, light and reflectance or the stillness and spatiality of night.
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1 Fading Stories Sam Leung, MArch 1 Julia Wong, MArch 2
Right after the moment, things become history.
Our experience of any particular colour is only one part a visual experience. It is otherwise also a consequence of contexts – and our own memories and associations, that accumulate over time. Colours are not absolute, but they shift with light, with time and according to the life and changes that are an integral part of urban life. Today we tend to see the world through monitors and capture moments to memory cards. We habitually see colour as digital colour, disembodied, immaterial and removed from its subtle contexts and histories, personal and cultural associations. Our subjective response - that depends on such conditions – is replaced with a pixelated screen and the neutrality of colour-as-value. In this colour study I explored the contexts of colour, by observing the changes of chromatic environments with changes in the community. I sought new perspectives for ‘seeing’ the colours of spaces, people, and the community around me.
Left: Photography of aged, exposed concrete facade on ‘Tong Lau” in
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Tai Kok Tsui.
Left: Photography
record
of a leaf from fresh to decayed. Right: Photography of aged facade with fading words on ‘Tong Lau” in Tai Kok Tsui.
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Left:
Right:
A re-interpretation of
Pixelating details of
image by five elected
the original image
colours from human
in different levels by
eyes.
digital filter.
Right: Analysis and image the missing pieces and layers of the existing paint on the wall. Left: Photography of a wall with layers of grey colours, which is covering and hidden something underneath.
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Left:
Right:
Photography took from
Photography took from
a cylinder model with
a cylinder model with
transparent, translucent
the same location but at
layers.
a different time.
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Left:
Right:
Photography of the
A re-interpretation of
weathering marks
the weathering marks
on the shelter on the
by painting on canvas.
ground floor of shops.
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Right: Rotated and zoomed views of the painting. Left: Painting-1.0: inspired from the weathering marks on existing buildings in Tai Kok
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Tsui.
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Right: Photography of a wall with layers of grey colours, which is covering and hidden something underneath.
Left: Painting-2.0: Mixed media paint based on the painting-1.0 with by add-on and erase of colours.
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Anonymous (b. unknown) Look From The Past. 2020 Digital photography
An accidental visit of a abandoned apartment somewhere in Tai Kok Tsui.
Left:
Right:
Analysis and transform
Image took from the
a Tong Lau elevation to
interior of a Tong Lau
colour blocks and lines
building.
from its facade and details.
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Right: Simulate the appearing time of different building in through time by lines and colours.
Left: Photography of the old building together with the new build residential building.
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2 Nature and Artifice Julia Wong, MArch 2 Tai Kok Tsui has streets that are full of hardware, metal and mechanics shop, a legacy of the infrastructure of the wharf and docks that were built in the district. And as a consequence of this historical urban change (land reclamation) the hardware shops and metal workers workshops often retain a scale and urban structure more reminiscent of industrial buildings than the typically tight commercial spaces in other parts of Hong Kong. These ‘halls’ (or caves) are places of work, conversation, social gatherings and even worship. They are busy, noisy, dimly lit, lofty and deep. They smell of metals and oils and Thave a character of a shadowy theatre, as their depths are dimly illuminated with isolated lamps. This essential character of urban-theatres, of spectacles shrouded in rhythms of noise, light,
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STUDY 01
STUDY 03
STUDY 02
STUDY 04
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STUDY 05
STUDY 07
STUDY 06
STUDY 08
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shadow, the decay of material and peeling colours - the wonderful dramatic settings of everyday exchange - inspired my imagination: what stories might have happened under those spotlights? What magical transformations might have happened, as people, machines, flesh and metals merge to become something else - something whose texture is less differentiated, but at the same time somehow strangely choreographed. I explored the alchemy of the magical interactions between flesh and machines through collage, some of which note the presence of a shrine. With its shades of red, yellows and greens, it’s burning incense, it is like a silent - and ancient - protagonist in this contemporary drama, illuminating – and offering to hope – to an otherwise a penumbrous stage.
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Right:
Left:
Imaginery scene of the
Cave like space in the
craftman in shop slowly
hardware shop, with a
turned into machines
very strong focus on
himself after the long
the spotlight above the
period of working.
workstation.
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Left:
Right:
Collage of textures can
The imagination on how
be seen in a hard ware
humand and machines
shop and the street.
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being merged together.
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EVERYDAY LIFE AND RELIGION
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Top: Imaginaery space inside the shrine.
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Right: Relational drawing on the sacred materials for worship and an ordinary rock.
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3 SPIRITUAL Vero Li. MArch 1
Hung Shing Temple has witnessed the development of Tai Kok Tsui for over 100 years. It is a peaceful, sacred space amidst the noisy, chaotic everyday life of the city. It offers a retreat, a place for contemplation of a world beyond the city, unbound by the human condition. It is characterized by light and colour as much as the figurative representations of the deities themselves. Light is a ubiquitous part of spaces aimed to enhance the spiritual dimension to life: Western religion tends to uses light and create a sense of a vertical direction whereas Eastern religions tend to make use of natural light in a way that more respects people and nature. Places of worship tend to be more grounded in garden-like spaces. My colour studies of spiritual life look at light and explore the intangible relationship between light and community.
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4 Lonely City Leslie Tsang, MArch 2
Bottom: Strong spot light in back
Observing loneliness in Tai Kok Tsui through the lens of a camera.
Allay at Tai Kok Tsui, Western Kowloon
Hong Kong, more than most contemporary urban environments, is characterised by its density: and the crowded social conditions. As a consequence, one might expect that greater sense of community, a kind of bonding between diverse people, and between people and the material objects of the places so densely structured around them. This is not however the case. Instead, the modern urban condition, extreme in Hong Kong, is more characterised by alienation than social coherence. The objects of everyday life are displaced, disembodied from an ‘original’ context, unrecognisable or otherwise distorted from normal appearances. This study explores these often uncanny objects of the day-to-day urban life in Tai Kok Tsui - objects that are often excluded in spatial or topographic urban studies. They comprise the fabric of the everyday in its historical context, as we can still observe today but which may disappear very soon. These photographs represent a snapshot of the landscape of the uncanny, that is Tai Kok Tsui, where deep histories resist the rapid cycles of change, but which has become eroded, reduced to a fragmentary memories of a rapidly disappearing city – and the lives and peoples that lived in it. In these fragments there is inevitably a sense of nostalgia - and isolation, and loss.
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Top Right: Woman sits on street, Tai Kok Tsui. Bottom Right: Wooden chair and office chair, Tai Kok Tsui.
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Right: Collage form by displaced office chair under flyover.
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Right: Collage form by displaced office chair and street lighting.
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Left: Pao Yuen Ho Right: Joss paper It is paper craft or sheet of paper made into burnt offerings common in Chinese ancestral worship.
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Top: Batch of joss paper overlay to study the interaction between colour and light. Right: Space between joss paper increased, Different colour shades are significant and observable.
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Top Left: A model in black and white act as an reference to demonstrate the effect of shadow to colour shade. Bottom Left:
Top Right: Various shades of red reflected from a colour paper according to different light intensity and projected angle.
Colour deviated under different light source.
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Right: A fictive space is created by a collage of the red light box and photo on site. Left: Collage form by street lighting, toilet door and map
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5 Strangeness of daily life
Otto Chung, MArch 2
The urban condition of Tai Kok Tsui is ‘strange’ in the sense that its hybrid urban structure is today atypical. It’s character is the product of historical urban change as much as it has to do with the anticipation of future change – and disappearances. Its bricolagelike, bustling life is also unexpected (metal works, animals, shrines), a landscape of periodic collisions (historic shops-new malls; old residents-shiny new blocks; flesh-machine). Its streetscapes are inhabited by an array of everyday fragments that are seemingly collaged together as a stage set for everyday life. The streets are full of colour and create a strange quality of place, or rather displaced-ness, is in no small part created by the illuminance of a rather disquieting palette. Initial studies focused on this colour field and its night time illuminance. It became clear that the use of artificial lighting dominates the urban landscape – particularly at night - and that light (as a material) brought a sense of spatial integrity to the otherwise fragmented landscape. There was an overriding redness to the night, an absurd redness. It was the redness of raw flesh, celebratory flags, ornamental cloth, danger, warmth, sex, freshness, happiness all at once.
Right: The strike division between commercial activities and tradition has contributed to a state of strangeness.
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Upper: Collage ‘RED’ of Fire station and workshop .
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Right: Studying colour of Fruit Stall in Tai Kok Tsui. Left: Studying colour of Fishmonger Stall and its surrounding area.
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Left: The empty voids of streets are not empty because it is filled with memories and unconscious of the past. Right: Death is closing by, dancing through the street in rhythm of the music in radio, bringing death to the community.
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Bottom Left:
Bottom Right:
Night view of Fruit Stall. Studying
Grey formica cladded
the effect of lightings to the
restaurant. Oil pastel on
landscape. Oil pastel on paper.
paper.
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Right: Red Street. Poster colour on paper. Colour of street is dominated by the colour of lights, reflected on the original materiality of the street.
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Upper: Signage of Frozen drumsticks. Right: Frozen meat shop is a cemetery for animals.
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Left: Spatial collage of market and restaurant in tai Kok Tsui. The use of abundant red and pink lights on their settings dying the space into the colour of blood and flesh. The city seems to be a living organ.
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6 Street Space Annie, MArch 2
Right: A photo of Herbal tea shop at night. Influenced by varied illuminant, it is bathed in an warm and quiet atmosphere.
Tai Kok Tsui is a place that is full of colour and artificial illumination. Coloured lights blend with each other, giving street space a very particular atmosphere that alters people’s perception of the physical parameters of space. Especially at night, when the city skyline is engulfed by the night sky, the outline of buildings blurs, and people turns to focus on the space of the street, brought to life with light and colour. For each scene, a photograph recorded the coloured light conditions that seemed to determine a fleeting moment. The experience is the combined effect of multiple layers of colour and lights in that street, the dream-like interference of coloured light.
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Left: Photos of street space and the spatiality of them according to different choice of colour and light. Right: A common colour palette of street space at night.
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Layers of lights: Environmental light, light for store front and interior light of shops etc. Overlap of layers of lights (with different colours)
forms
people’s
colour and light experience of street space.
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Prototype of Street Space: Different combinations for space and coloured light, and how it affects brightness and colour of adjacent space, and the interaction of coloured light.
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Colour interfilter of lights with different colours. Right: Colour interfilter on plain surface Page Down: Colour interfilter in space (90°, 270°, with inbetween space)
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The Essence of Light
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Michael Hui, MArch 2
In my chromatic studies, I have focused in the thresholds of colour and light as well as the power of artificial brightness that have the power to alter our perception of the street. I began by carefully observing various shops in order to then capture the division of light and colours in experimental drawings. Studying the works by James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson reinforced my interest in the relationship between colour and emotion.
I progressed with a series of experiments to represent the changing, essential qualities of the built environment, using a model and integrated colour filter. This resulted in a series of images that articulate the essence of what I experienced in my studies of the urban fabric.
Left : A photograph of a feature in the Tai Kok Tsui neighbourhood with an
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integrated colour filter.
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Right: An abstract interpretation of the thresholds between colours and light.
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Left:
Right:
with
An abstract transition of
colour paper and filter
the thresholds between
to explore the mixture of
colours and light..
An
experiment
colour and light through a frosted material.
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Left:
Taking
a
between Bedford Rd and
through
an
Maple
looking
colour filter to change the
towards
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Right:
Captured at the junction Street, the
photograph integrated
Kowloon
dull essence of a funeral
Funeral Parlour and the
parlour to a celebrative
flower stall.
tone.
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Left:
Right:
A photograph featuring
A model with a pink
the red light district inside
neon and a mysterious
the mysterious alley.
tunnel to manipulate our perception of certain tone based on the imagery we
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captured. r.
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8 Shlonek? Julie Fong, MArch 1
Left: A picture of neon light signage in Tai Kok Tsui
Shlonek? - is an Arabic greeting meaning How are you? It also translates literally to be What’s you colour? Colour is more than a visual element, it can represent mood, behaviour and even characterise a city. Colour attracts, also repels, it provides signal to brain and triggers human response. Colours interact, are integral to materials, physical and cultural context – colour affects how we perceive space. The initial study of colour begins with my daily experience. I am particularly interested in human perception of ‘place’ and colour, in terms of both intimacy of response and the possibilities of an imaginative interpretation of ‘colour fields’. Concurrently, and as a result of spending time on site, I combine aspects of urban noises - and silences – to my interpretation of the colour environment. This multi-sensory or ‘enmeshed’ experience of the visual and auditory begins to open-up fresh dialogues for thinking about urban places and place-making.
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Colour and light are inseparable. Without light, colour does not exist. Reflection is the vital physical behaviour allows us to see colour. So, what is the ability of reflection?
Left: Colour reflections on shadows Right: Shining blue light on a white cube
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Testing models on the colour reflectiveness in spacial dimension
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is the
Intimacy The most intriguing elements that I encountered in Tai Kok Tsui is the continuity of contrasting colours appears in a same perspective. It creates an imaginary and fictive space right inside my mind.
Left: Two colours coexist
Right:
in a same perspective
Elderly playing chess
creating feeling of
under the weird orange
imaginary space
lighting in the park
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The hallucination creates by using light, hole and colour. Is the rectangle a screen? A window? Or a space behind?
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In physics, reflection is a natural phenomenon for human to perceive the living space. Spiritually, people also reflect to evaluate their past engagement or as an action to arise a certain memory. This collage presents my imagination of reflection in a physical form coexist with an essence of the local community behaviour.
Left: Disappearance / appearance of colour Right: My imagination of space and community
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9 Street - Reflecting - Mirror Alfie, MArch 2
We often notice the reflection of something before seeing the object that’s being reflected: reflections bring an additional – and often compelling – component to our urban experience, and especially as a walked experience. Reflections, mirrors, and mirror-like surfaces radically alter our spatial experience, and they abound on Tai Kok Tsui’s streets. One the one hand these reflective surfaces offer a view of the fleeting changes, movements of people and traffic, the passage of the day. On the other hand, the depths of the mirrored surfaces offer a more still, and contemplative place, the domain of romantic self-reflection. This dialogue between mirror’s surface and depth is that between real and fictive space, or between superficial reflection and a journey into an imaginary and fictive world. In mirrors’ depths reside our dreams: we can see into the virtual space of the mirror, just as we see the actual spaces reflected on a mirror’s surface or through a window. By noting the street’s reflective surfaces, we acknowledge that the city is only part what we see optically - it is also part imaginary. In the space of the streets of Tai Kok Tsui we observe an architecture of mirrors and reflective or polished surfaces, glass, plastics and mirrors, mosaics, and polished stones. The visual experience of the street is constantly reflected as fragmented and colourful glimpses of the actual environment. The city’s buildings are fused in our imaginations by the play of reflections and movement of the walker. Characteristic of modern street experience in Tai Kok Tsui, this movement, surface reflections and mirroring is in contrast to space opened by the stillness of the mirror’s ‘interior’: in the combination of such visual and imagined experience lies the fascination of this study.
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Left Street reflections Here the emphasis is no longer just on the direct model-like reconstruction of material structures and street fragments as such in full detail.
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Right Mirroring The concept often affects other individuals’ notions about the individual that is exhibiting mirroring behaviours, which can lead to the individual building rapport with others. Human beings learn behaviour through imitation and mirroring. Under the guidance of this primitive learning method, the formation of a person’s personality is closely related to his growth environment. A person’s environment and his personality are mirror images of each other.
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Colours in coloured mirror
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Reflecting paint Composition with reflected light
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Mirror paint Composition with colour on the mirror
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10 Imagination Maggie Yang, MArch 2
About light and colour... About mirrors, mirroring, reflections, and the imagination... Hong Kong is a city full of artificial light and colour. Everywhere in Hong Kong is similar and different. Since the wharf reconstruction and the development of light industry, Tai Kok Tsui has developed from a fishing village to an area characterized by light industry. Today, Tai Kok Tsui has uniquely colourful streets that form a lively background to the day-to-day life of the streets, its dwellings, and workshops. As an observer, I used a camera to capture colour and light, and the visual illusions. I experiment with light and mirrors to explore the imaginary boundaries of colour.... “
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Left: A lone light in the darkness.
Above: Experiment of monochromatic light in the same colour system.
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Left: Interlaced lights in Tai Kok Tsui shops.
Above: Experiment on the interaction of two colour light. Imagine yourself in these lights. Which two colours and space move you more?
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Above:
Above:
Reflection fragment of the Tai Kok Tsui.
Mirror Experiment I. Mirrors can replicate scenes, and when multiple mirrors are put together, what kind of world can they create?
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What do you see? Coloured ribbons? DNA double helix structure? Butterflies?
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These shadows cast on the wall change with the angle of the light. What do these gorgeous projections look like? Waterfall? Surface of the water? The curtains in the breeze?
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Above:
What do you see? Bats? Black hole? Eyes?
Mirror Experiment II. Mirrors can tear scenes, and when multiple mirrors are put together, what kind of world can they create?
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These shadows cast on the wall change with the angle of the light. What do these gorgeous projections look like? A women? Smog? Feather? Petal?
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11 Depth Stability Teresa Tin, MArch 1
Left:
Blue is a dynamic colour, it associated with stability.
Digital photo. Captured the blue fragmented of urban context in Tai Kok Tsui, Chung Wui Street
BLUE IS: TRUST LOYALTY WISDOM CONFIDENCE INTELLIGENCE FAITH TRUTH HEAVEN Blue is also the colour of the unrestrained sky and the mystic ocean. I have explored a variety of blue elements, focusing on observations of digital photography of different objects, from a range of pigments to digital pigments and artifices. Tai Kok Tsui is a district full of rich urban fragments, warm and friendly people. Behind the each fragment there lies a story connected by a common thread and related to the colour blue: blue is the colour that cannot be replaced by other colours - it underpins much thought.
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Left: Digital Collage. A preliminary observation collage in Tai Kok Tsui, inspirited by a Germany artist, Josef Albers Right: Blue is a dynamic colour, it associated
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with depth and stability
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Right bottom: Digital photo. A residential corner in Tai Kok Tsui, Chung Wui Street
equal colour tone
Natural colour Painting, shadow, reflection and weathered colour
Painting
Weathered colour
colour
The visual (colour and light)and spatial experience (context)
Left Top: Digital photo. The weathered blue mental door of the Christ Baptist Church, Tai Tsun Street
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Right bottom: Digital photo. The redeveloping residential is rapidly expansion in Tai Kok Tsui, Chung Wui Street.
New build dwelling overlap the cultural heritage
Orginal colour
Fabric
Natural
Fabric
colour
colour
colour
Layering colour
Complexity
Left Top: Digital photo. The real fabric between urban fabric, Kok Cheung Street
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Right bottom: Combination of the digital colour palette. Virtual pattern - boat
Colour Combination of the urban contextualize of my mind eyes
Artefact visual effect
Left Top: Combination of the digital colour palette. Blue is a visual colour that merge with different environment and context.
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the Collection of blue of the urban fabric
EXPERIMENTAL PIGMENT The narrow and gloomy staircase caught my eyes when I first visited the site, 172-189 Tai Kok Tsui Road. It appeared mysterious, dark and dangerous. I was interested in the way in which the blue altered my perception of space, the illusion of depth and ‘imagined space’, the ways in which the ceiling lamp reflected on the blue panel and created a very particular spatial condition in the otherwise narrow space. I initially tested colour matching between the blue and other pigments, using water colour. This experiment explored the relationship between real and digital pigments/ colours.
extraordinary points
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Right: Chromatic color studies Watercolor
by zoning, to define each color with space and gradient
Light Cerulean Blue
dark Brown
Site Photo
Experimental real pigment Left:
Experimental digital pigment
chromatic color studies
The experimental aims to study colour with my mind eyes to visualize space.
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Digital Pigments
Site Photo
Experimental digital pigment Left Top:
Moasic studies
Digital photo. Moasic study with 50 cell size. The experiment demonstrated the context contains plenty of color pixels, which we would not perceive from our eyes.
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12 Continuities Chris Chen, MArch 1 My colour study is based on the life and urban fabric of Tai Kok Tsui, a unique and rich blend of old and new buildings and artifact, long-standing families and new inhabitants. Traditions endure and live alongside new building forms and new ways of life. While new industries and commerces thrive, some of the old industries and shops are still preserved – others are on the brink of disappearance. The history of Tai Kok Tsui over the last century, reveals radical changes, rapid urban developments but also, importantly, continuities. This urban landscape can be said to robust and fragile at the same time. It is brilliantly colourful. In its vibrant walls, its patinations, the wear are tear etched into its materials, we see these changes, disruptions and continuites of the site and the lives of its people: its colours embody the narratives of place - and by uncovering them, we reveal the wonderful material culture of Tai Kok Tsui.
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Colour of Tai Kok Tsui Why irregular?
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Colour of Tai Kok Tsui Extraction
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Colour of Tai Kok Tsui
Comparision of old and new
Practice: “Ruins of memory�: Collect things which are gradually disappearing and clues related to things which have gone, and then put them together to imagine the story of the site. 192
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Colour of Tai Kok Tsui
Cinematic approach to capture life
Picture 1
Picture 2
A cinematic approach to everyday life and architecture implies a focus on everyday environmental experiences and situations of people in the built environment. We can use a camera to capture either one scene at different times (pic 1) or different scenes following a route (pic 2). 194
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13 STRANGELight + Shadow Reaction on Light
NESS
Charmaine Lin, MArch 1
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Under natural light:
Yellow box experiment
Under household downlight:
Under strong desk lamp:
With different light intensity, the colour of the box changes drastically.
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COLOURING OBJECTS LIGHT + COLOUR ON DIFFERENT TEXTURES In this part of the experiment, the two objects below were put in boxes with same size but different colours (shown on next page), to explore to how different materials react to light reflections and to what degree the objects could be coloured by light.
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Colours on Wood
In red box sunlight
Test on wood with sunlight and daylight.
daylight
In blue box sunlight
daylight
In green box sunlight
daylight
In yellow box sunlight
daylight
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Colours on Plastic
In red box sunlight
Test on plastic, a more reflective material, with sunlight and daylight.
daylight
In yellow box sunlight
daylight
In green box sunlight
daylight
In blue box sunlight
daylight
Different light gives different colour reflection onto the object. Differnt colour produces different amount of light reflected onto the object. The more reflective the object is, the more light could be reflected onto the object.
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COLOURING SHADOWS In this part of the experiment, two light sources with same intensity are used to create two shadows overlaying each other. Colour filters (red, green, blue) are applied onto the light source on the right, to see how the shadow would be coloured.
1. White light
white + white
white + red
white + green
white + blue
The colour light colours the shadow created by the white light. The colour light (shone from the right) colours the shadow on the side where the colour light is shone from.
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Further Experiments
2. Colour light
green + red
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blue + red
blue + green
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3. Third light source
blue + red + green
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blue + red + white
white + red + green
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14 Observing the Unexpected Sarah Chan, MArch 2
Colour experiment Coloured cellophanes are placed in front of the light source to create a colour filter to be directed at the colour paper. One would have a preconception of what the colour papers would look like from memories or perhaps even from colour theories, but this experiment shows some astonishing outcome. Palette of Materiality The variety of materials are not only colourful and vibrant, different patterns and texture also the narrative about time and history. When one looks intricately, the variations of colour gradually appear and different shades and combinations would be seen. This is a fascinating discovery when we pay attention to our surroundings.
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Study 1: Primary colours- RED, BLUE and YELLOW Under normal circumstances, one would imagine that if a filter is added onto the light source, the same colour paper would either appear as the same or darker. However, as the results showed above, that could not be the case, as most of them appear to be the same or even lighter, e.g. red and blue filter light cast onto the respective colour paper. If red filter is added onto blue colour paper, one would expect the outcome to be blue. However, the colour turns out to be a dark maroon. Same case scenario for the red filtered light added to the blue paper.
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Experiement 2: Complimentary colour - RED and GREEN Overall the results from these are more predictable compared to the previous. When red filter is added to a green paper, or the other way round, they appeared to be brown or dark grey. When yellow filter is added to the green and red paper, the difference was not too noticeable.
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Experiement 3: Complimentary colour - BLUE and ORANGE Looking at the first photo, which is when the red filter is added to the light source projected onto blue and orange paper. As mentioned in the primary colour experiment, the outcome did not show a purple, but a dark red. In the second photo, when a blue filter was added, the orange colour paper turned into a dark green to our eyes, which can be considered as a surprising results as it doesn’t match the colour mixing theory. Such unexpected results are also presented when yellow filter is used to cast onto the blue colour paper, which is perceived as a brownish red.
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Expriement 4: Complimentary colour - PURPLE and YELLOW With the red filter added to the light source and directed onto a piece of purple paper, it turns into a dark red which is considered as an astonishment. In the second photo with the blue filter, the purple paper appeared to be a very vibrant blue. Apart from the mentioned above, some results are expected. When a blue filter was added to a yellow paper, the results showed a green outcome, which matches the colour theory and can be understood easily. Another result that was predicted is when yellow filter is added to a purple paper, which appeared to be brown.
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15 Colour Reaction Sonnie Chan, MArch 1
Colour Study : Colour Reaction to Light
Colour is never constant or an absolute value. In fact, all colours are transient. The colours we perceive are particularly dependent on the natural and artificial lighting of the surrounding environment – everyday colours are ever-changing under sunlight shining at different angles and with varying degrees of warmth through the day. With colour constancy, a feature of our colour perception system, we can perceive the same colours even under changing illumination. This series of experiments focuses on how colours react with their environment, such as lighting and background colours, as well as the interactions between objects with different colours, in order to observe the wide range of transiency of colours.
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Time: 1200nn
Left: Top: blue cube at midday Bottom: blue cude at sunset
Time: 230 1200nn
231
Original Colour
R G B
159 237 242
Original Colour
1
2
159 237 242 5
R G B
147 204 221
2
1 Original
1
3
R G B
135 171 200
4
Decomposition of colour 1
R G B
178 203 193
1
R G B
113 157 181
R G B
Original
78 116 138
232
1 Original
4
6
R G B
197 169 144
2
R G B
67 77 120
Decomposition of colour 2
R G B
103 133 133
Original
5
R G B
47 29 24
R G B
0 0 0
5
Original
3
5
4
2
Decomposition of colour 3
6
Colours at time 1700
1
Decomposition of colour 2
4
3
Colours at time 1130
Decomposition of colour 1
R G B
3
R G B
0 0 34
Decomposition of colour 3
R G B
73 97 99
Original
6
6 233
Colour Study : Invisible Paint
This study is to look at reaction between colour and its environment. In this experiment, several blocks with different colours were placed in a non-reflective white setting. The changes in the colours of the white background is observed and captured for analyses.
Left: Top: blue cube at midday Bottom: blue cude at sunset
234
235
Original Colour
R G B
255 255 255
White Setting 3
White setting with red block
1 2
Digitally Recreated White Setting
Extracted colours
1
2
3
White setting with blue block
White setting with yellow block
Extracted colours
Extracted colours
1 236
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3 237
Original Colour
R G B
255 255 255
White Setting 3
White setting with red block
1 2
Digitally Recreated White Setting
Extracted colours
1
2
3
White setting with blue block
White setting with yellow block
Extracted colours
Extracted colours
1 238
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3 239
Colour Study : Invisible Paint
This study is to look at reaction between colour blocks. In this experiment, several blocks with different colours were placed together in a nonreflective white setting. The changes in the colours on each blocks are observed and captured for analyses.
Left: Top: blue cube at midday Bottom: blue cude at sunset
240
241
Red block
Yellow block and its extracted colours
Extracted colours
Yellow block next to a green block and its extracted colours
Red block next to a yellow block
Blue block and its extracted colours
Extracted colours
Blue block next to a yellow block and its extracted colours
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243