Ambient Color Field
A transect (transverse section) is a mapping technique. It requires an observer to move along a path to document a sequence of occurrences. Rather than begin with the map of a real place, this investigation asks you to work in reverse: starting by composing a few sequences and then projecting what space or system would generate ambient evironments.
Instructions:
Construct five long color sequences. These can be long rectangles subdivided into bands of color. Imagine they tell the story of a moving body experiencing the light and color of a still unknown environment. The length of each subdivision could be calibrated to time.
Think about the quality of changes in intensity and character (hue, shade, tint). Are they suddent or gradient; smooth or striated? Solid colors might signify a constant encounter, gradients might signifying a time-elapsed change, overlapping colors might signify simultaneous experience.
Now establish a simple geometric boundary that represents the limits of park. Imagine each of the five linear sequences start somewhere beyond the boundary, pass through it, and then leave. Copy and re-arrange these lines so they cross through the boundary, meet inside it, and then diverge. If you imagine these lines are transects through a range of environments, they can represent the experience of different bodies meeting and divering in a color field.
Now extrapolate/interpolate from these transects to imagine the field between these zones. Now redraw, identifying the materials, objects, activites, or phenomenae that generates these colors.
Instructions:
Construct five long color sequences. These can be long rectangles subdivided into bands of color. Imagine they tell the story of a moving body experiencing the light and color of a still unknown environment. The length of each subdivision could be calibrated to time. Think about the quality of changes in intensity and character (hue, shade, tint). Are they suddent or gradient; smooth or striated? Solid colors might signify a constant encounter, gradients might signifying a time-elapsed change, overlapping colors might signify simultaneous experience.
Now establish a simple geometric boundary that represents the limits of park. Imagine each of the five linear sequences start somewhere beyond the boundary, pass through it, and then leave. Copy and re-arrange these lines so they cross through the boundary, meet inside it, and then diverge. If you imagine these lines are transects through a range of environments, they can represent the experience of different bodies meeting and divering in a color field.
Now extrapolate/interpolate from these transects to imagine the field between these zones. Now redraw, identifying the materials, objects, activites, or phenomenae that generates these colors.
Possible Tools:
Drawing on paper.Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Nodebox
Relevant Texts:
Albers, Josef, The Interaction of Color.Allen Stan, From Object to Field.
Other Inspiration:
Marcel Duchamp, Three Standard Stoppages (link)Olafur Eliason, Color Experiment #78 (link)
Olafur Eliason, Feelings are Facts (link)
Albers, Josef, Interaction.of.Color, Ch4.Ch7 (link)
ChicagoParks to Reference:
This investigation can begin in the imagination. It can also begin by observing an existing park.
2025 Spring — Second Nature