Favela - A Mural Artist using Color to Enliven the Slums of Rio

Another Light Artist

I was wandering the internet in search of more inspiration for my Journal Exercise and happened upon some interesting "light art" from the Venice Art Biennale in 2009.

Ivan Navarro's light sculpture entitled "Death row"




Buildings are illuminated as part of Biennale

Behavior and Light

Examine how the presence or absence of light has affected your behavior in a particular space (public and private):

1) Hospitals:

Every hospital is the same. I think there is one architect that designs all of them and just spews out the same design each time. All have an over abundance over fluorescent lighting around every corner. Desaturated and sterile colours that make me feel:
-Uncomfortable - They feel like places where you will be a test subject. There is no personality because of the lack of colour and the blandness of it all. The lighting is irritating and and bright keeping you on constant alert.

2) My Nana's House:Not actually my Nana's house but a good representation of it

My Nana passed away a while back but I still remember her apartment's colours and lighting. It was always very dimly lit or only lit by sunlight that came through the heavy curtains. The furniture was all dark burgundies and olive greens with dark wood. All the decorations were intricate and delicate consisting of porcelain, glass and large brass pictures frames making me feel:
-Not so cozy - The dark colours added with the absence of a lot of light gave the place a sombre, museum like quality.
-Out of place - As a child I didn't feel like I belonged there because of the dark uninviting colours, lack of light and lack of objects to play with that weren't porcelain.

3) Cambie Bar:

I used to work yeeears ago and I remember it took on a different vibe for me from day to night. The bar has large windows all around that let in light during the day while low lighting and xmas lights lit up the bar at night.
During the day the bar felt:
-Friendly, easy going, cozy place to eat - The light coming through all the windows onto the old wood tables and floors made it feel cozy and inviting.
At night time the bar felt:
-Frenetic - Lights all around. Coming from xmas lights, inside fluorescents, machines (keno machine etc), light from outside streetlights spotlighting action out on the the streets

Journal Exercise 2 - Playing with Light

I experimented with a laser pointer and a decorative glass full of water and got this shot. The laser pointer was just the normal single red beam of light but once I passed it through a clear glass that had decorations of fruit and such on it, the light started twisting and dancing. Kinda like a spirograph on crack. The slightest movement change it's whole movement and the light played with all the bumps and indentations on the glass.


Note: My camera was not taking proper shots in the dark so I am going to continue to try to get better shots as well as video because this shot does no justice.

Journal Exercise 1 - The Colours of Valentine's Day

Before

After



Before



After



Before



After

The Colours of Valentine's Day

Even though the sentiment and the graphics of Valentine’s Day are mostly marketing executive created, the images and objects of Valentine's Day surround us on February 14 every year. The bright reds and baby pinks. A colour scheme that by certain tastes may be a bit garish but the colours of those objects that surround us on Valentine’s Day are deeply ingrained in to our “colour beliefs”. If they change colour, they no longer have any day on the calendar that they belong to.

In the first example, I altered the colour of a nice hearted shaped box of chocolate. The heart shape symbolizes love and the bright saturated red symbolizing that it’s intended for a romantic partner. So once you take the red out of the equation, and in my case make the box black, the meaning and symbolize COMPLETELY change. With the black and the blue box, one would expect to receive this box at a funeral. It’s colour now implies mourning but the shape stills says love. The same line of thinking applies to cupid. When red, cupid looks like he brings the message/symbolism of love but when cupid is pitch black, he looks he has been sent to bring you a special message of death. Black, in our culture, has a profound implied meaning of death and the unknown.

The coloured valentine’s day candy in the last example may not follow the red and pink colour scheme mentioned previously but the pastel colours and cutesy sentiments on the candy imply a softness. Once the candy colour scheme is changed to deep blues and purples, the candy looks inedible or if you take to many, you may not wake up. The blues imply something medicinal and stark.

Most of the time colour is tricking our minds and our pre-determined beliefs on “how things are”. Your mind needs to categorize things and put it in it’s predetermined place otherwise, we’d be on overload all the time so when your mind sees that black box of chocolates, it doesn't fit in the Valentine’s Day category anymore, it has to belongs elsewhere and because of historical/political/social uses of the colour black and the shape of a heart, our brain puts it in it’s nice little category of funeral…..well because it fits.