Fall Statement

When a color is contextualized by its place in a familiar framework, like the spectrum, sets of primaries, or binary opposites, its identity is presented as a concrete occurrence. Factual colors individuate one another in name, similarly to the visual phenomenon of simultaneous contrast studied by Chevreul and Albers. The clarity of these mutual definitions erodes as a color shifts across the field. It departs from its name, advancing toward another name, dissolving the semiotic framework that allows it to be understood. It can be imagined that these middle colors exist outside of language, as “southwesterly northwinds’‘ (Wittgenstein), indifferent to an observer’s ability to apprehend them. Known units of color act as words that decay into phonetic particles, dampened, but charged with the potential of existing in multiple states. In the shadow, neither color nor audiological instance is declarative, but in flux, and actively engaged in the transformation of the particles that connect to it.

As definitions of colors dissolve, so does the boundary between observer and image. Frontal surfaces lose their opacity as color concept gives way to color sense. Though the field is structured with compositional indifference, shadows and warped matrices compel a reading of space, and seriality indicates passing time and shifting atmosphere. Different pressures are created within the frame, engaging the observer in simultaneous conditions of expulsion and gravitational entrapment. By analogising audible, spatial, and temporal impressions, chromatic systems have the capacity to produce small destabilizations that create room for the prosthetic fusion of senses, leading to broader opportunities for synesthetic experience.