Hidey-ho, color mavens! I write this while half the country is beginning to feel the effects of Fall creeping in. I can only hope that fluttering some gorgeous color eye candy before your eyes will produce a lovely warming (or cooling) effect, depending on where you are.
Tirana, Albania, via Architizer: http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/93360/colorful-social-housing/
We’ll start off with a more mentally strenuous, then proceed to some visual popsicles. Plug this into your reading list: Colorful Camouflage: Painting Buildings Brushes Problems Under The Rug on Architizer isolates the subtler distinctions of how splashy color can be used effectively in poor housing projects worldwide – and lambasts the many uses where color is, sadly, so much whitewashing, a rendering-cheerful of a building that functions badly for the people who dwell within its walls. One project where bright colors aren’t serving the enemy is the downtown district of Tirana, Albania by Mayor Edi Rama. Click through on this link for a TED talk expanding on the mayor’s project.
Speaking of TED: while the breathless enthusiasm these Merry Postcapitalists elicits has flagged in recent years, “I Listen in Color” does not disappoint. Colorblind artist Neil Harbisson sees only in grayscale, but finagled his way out of this limitation by getting an “eyeborg” installed in his skull. The pioneering device senses colors of objects Harbisson gazes at, and transmits those colors to him as audible tones. As systematized synesthesia goes, it’s mighty awesome. See the infographic explaining how this works or watch Harbisson’s TED talk here.
Via the TED blog: http://blog.ted.com/2013/07/11/the-sound-of-color-neil-harbissons-talk-visualized/
I’m still reveling in several single-hue art projects sent my way by the indefatigable Josh Rutner of both saxophonist and color-maven fame. Like “The Color Project” by Brooklyn-based artist Adrien Broom. Its premise is gloriously simple: she’s building a series of single-color rooms that bring to life a specific fantasy-world swimming inside a particular color. According this Q&A with MyModernMet, she plans on using the rooms to create a photography series, a children’s book and a film. Even more salivating pics here.
“The Color Project” by Adrien Broom: http://www.adrienbroom.com/
Another gorgeous nugget of single-color art: Sara Cwyner’s “Color Studies”, thoughtfully weird assemblages of everyday objects hewing closely to a given shade – in this case, sea-foam green:
“Color Studies” by Sara Cwynar: saracwynar.com via http://www.booooooom.com/2013/04/17/artist-sara-cwynar-2/
These projects remind me of previous cousinly efforts by other artists, like “Colour Stills” for SightUnseen.com by the Dutch design firm rawcolor.nl. I particularly love how these studies use naturally colored objects to meditate on how that color – white, below – live in the everyday world. They’re both familiar and marvelously estranging at once.
“Colour Stills” for SightUnseen.com by the Dutch design firm rawcolor.nl: http://rawcolor.nl/project/?id=283&type=ownProduction
For Print’s 2010 edition of New Visual Artists I interviewed German illustrator-photographer Katrin Schacke, another clever specialist in the witty art of stacking. This got me curious as to her latest projects. Here are just a few of those gems:
“The Belly on the Couch”, illustration for Stern Gesund Leben Magazine (Star-Healthy-Life), April 2012, via http://www.katrinschacke.de/bildwelten.html
“Of Pearls and Balloons”, illustration for Brand Eins Magazine, July 2012 via http://www.katrinschacke.de/bildwelten.html
Last but not least, I leave you with a hot-weather classic that’s also a smart meditation on the changing colors of the rainbow. I love these incredibly macro soap bubbles by photographer Jane Thomas, discovered courtesy of davidsketchbook. Stay cool, y’all!
Incredibly
macro soap bubbles by photographer Jane Thomas: http://jane-in-colour.redbubble.com/
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