Week Seven response: By Allan Hill
Week Seven response: By Allan Hill
So, art abandoned color in the seventies and was ordered to the land of dormancy, not unlike certain recording devices that have had an effect of the English vernacular, ‘it went the way of the eight tract’. In this case, history has been tender to color as it its roots are also vested in art history, architecture, ceramics, pottery, poetry not to mention countless other mediums. In relating to the Psychedelic posters of the era, it was a visible explosion of the tablecloth that 'the busboy' was cleaning. Black-lighted blacks and blues, hardball orange TANGERINE in your face, full, firm, and busting purples, yellows that did not know when to stop, and the greens, well they would put one to sleep all the time. It was like an explosion. An alphabet on drugs, that went off-line, off the matrix and did not owe to anyone. Woodstock II was a corporate fart. Woodstock, the original was . . . . I actually do not remember. I was there, but I do not remember. Sorry bout that. Nevertheless, I remember it was raining on that Sunday, and all the colors were wet.
The author, Dave Hickey relates the common irrevocable truth that, “There are thousands of colors in the world (currently 16.4 million) and only a few hundred words to describe them,” and their similitude. In looking forward to taking a Color psychology course, I can agree that the presence of color in a photograph can ruin, dictate, lie, or at the least stretch the truth concerning information regarding the tense, setting, concept, or even context of an image.
The author is correct when he states that the color “red” of a blossom , “tells us next to nothing about it,” however the human mind is built upon an awe inspiring imagination and our values, opinions, personal signifiers and associations all assist us with differing contexts of ‘red’. Just today, another additional hue was formatted forever in my memory archives when I was watching a piece about AIDS in Africa, and I remembered the RED campaign that BONO (U2), Oprah and others started to combat the virus in that continent. However, this still does not help the writer any, just more horrible nights spitting and cursing at their computer, or the reflection of their BLOCKED mind in it. What I would really like to know however is that just how were we indoctrinated into reacting to the concept of color in advertising?
-Allan Hill
