Module 2 - color, texture + creative technologies

I. Introduction

This module will continue to explore digital image editors through the lens of both color and texture, which are also foundational aspects of visual art and design. Color and texture are crucial aspects across creative mediums, formats, and applications - painting, film, games and playable media, interactive artworks, UX/UI design, sculpture, graphic design, illustration, costume design, character design, photography, fashion, lighting...you name it, if it is even tangentially related to some kind of creative application or process, color and texture will usually factor in.

This conversation also includes works in black and white, which was the primary form of photography we explored in the previous module. Black and white media - much like older forms of color photography - communicate a sense of color, texture, and meaning, just as much as works in color. Consider the information a black and white photograph might communicate, even if unintentionally, about time period, location, technology used, etc. These are the types of associations and contexts that are a crucial aspect of creative technologies and digital design, which we will explore further in this module.

Digital photography and video, digital scanners, digital image editors and post production tools, 3D modeling programs, and other digital creative technologies allow artists and designers to explore color and texture in new possibility spaces. Many of these tools and technologies allow designers to adjust, apply and experiment with color and texture in new ways, that could not be as easily achieved using physical or analog methods. This module's project will explore some of these technological affordances, and the lecture content below will go over many artists and designers that work specifically with color and texture in different ways, along with some basic properties and definitions of color and texture.

1. Color Technologies

In order to understand digital color technologies and tools, we will first explore the physical technologies that these tools are based on. This is especially important since color selection and application in digital design is one of the most “flattened” processes of production, and many of the physical limitations of color selection and application - across analog creative technologies - have shaped its meaning and associations in art and design fields.

1.1 Color + Paint Technology

As we have discussed in class, pigment, paint, canvas, brushes, and other painting components are creative technologies. Some of these technologies have existed for thousands to hundreds of years, but still, at the time they were innovated they were the first methods for communicating color and texture to some kind of an audience. Much of the meaning that was conveyed via color in those points of history was based on the affordances and constraints / limits of pigment and paint technology, along with the artist's intentions and other social / cultural meanings.

Below are two videos about paint and color technologies, that help describe and contextualize pigment and paint as a creative technology. Once these technologies advanced to a point that artists and designers could be more intentional about use, selection, and application, color could be used to communicate meaning, and some of that meaning was connected to the pigment technology itself.

The videos below are required viewing, but will not be covered by the async lecture review quiz.

The cost of modern oil paint technology

Reconstructing Historical Methods of Making Oil Paint

1.2 Color + Analog Photographic Technology

Color technology in analog photography is much harder to control at the capture, development and printing process, compared to choices and adjustments that photographers can make when working with black and white film and images. This is for several reasons: the process of "capturing" color is more dependent on both camera design and the chemical composition of color-film, and developing color negatives and photos is a much more intensive process that involves additional chemicals, temperature controls and an absolutely light-free darkroom / photolab.

For these reasons, many photographers and artists working with color photography as a newer creative technology produced works that were very much linked to the devices themselves - different types of cameras and film produced different visual aesthetics, and some of those aesthetics were out of the photographers control, especially if they were not developing and printing their own film and photographs. As we will discuss later in this module, this type of technological dependence led to embedded biases in color photographic technology, some of which translated into digital photography and computer vision.

1.3 Embedded Bias, Color, and Photographic Technologies

Since color-photo technology was so much more complicated than black and white technology, it was dependent on a handful of companies to produce the cameras, the film technologies and even the development technologies and processes that the majority of artists, designers and everyday users relied on. These technological monopolies limited some of the color choices artists and designers could make, and also made the technology more susceptible to embedded bias - where the design of the an aspect of a creative technology was biased to favor one type of user or subject over another.

This occurred with consumer and even professional grade film technology produced by Kodak, up until the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The color film and the development process was calibrated only to a set of test portraits with light complexions and “white” skin tones. Since the film and development technologies were tested and tuned using only these types of images, the film and photos were not tuned to also represent a high level of shades and tones in subjects with complexions and skin tones darker than the test images. This led to Kodak-produced photographs and videos of people with darker complexions, including Black individuals, being less detailed, expressive and tonally rich. This embedded bias was somewhat corrected as more photographers and designers began to take notice, along with other consumer and industry pressures, but aspects of it carried over into digital photography and facial recognition / tracking, which will be discussed more in a future module.

2. Texture Technologies

One of these reasons why I focus on texture as part of a module is that I believe it is something heavily overlooked in digital image making. This might because of the ultra clean, pristine new documents most programs start with, and the fact that designs that are made in digital formats for screen-based output are never in a real “physical” state. Or, perhaps it is because screen-based works do lack the properties of physical texture that most analog creative technologies produce.

2.1 Texture and Physical Creative Technologies

The physical aspects of paint technology complicate understandings of "2D" artworks, since paint itself can be layered to create physical textures directly onto the canvas. The artistic use of this "affordance" of this technology was explored as an option for expression in painted works throughout time, such as the addition of gold leaf or minerals in pre-renaissance paintings, but was much more explored starting with post-renaissance movements, such as the impressionist movement in the 1800's.

Many artists work with paint to create a physical texture in their works, in addition to simulating implied textures in their works. This expands to different paint types, as well as mixed mediums. As soon as the artist ads a physical - or actual - texture to a surface, whether it be with layering paint or by gluing objects into the surface of a canvas, it ceases to be strictly “two-dimensional” by definition. Even the most minimal application of watercolor technically adds volume to an artwork, and paper, canvas and other surfaces have both texture and volume. This is a huge contrast compared to screen-based digital works, where the texture of the output surface is not something the designer decides, but is limited to a few standard options and technologies.

3. Digital Translations of Physical Artworks

Something very important to consider when discussing color and texture in art and design is that, for the most part, our interpretation of color and texture in physical artworks are being mediated by several invisible factors unless we are viewing them in person.

First, all physical and digital reproductions of paintings, sculptures, and even photographs - like the ones in books, magazines, prints, and this module - are mediated by the camera or scanner used to capture and convert those images into digital and or analog images. Those images are usually further "color corrected" or otherwise adjusted. When printed, the printer settings are another layer of mediation, and even if only screen-based, individual screen settings also change the colors somewhat. This type of invisible mediation is why understanding things like embedded bias is a critical part of recognizing how media technologies actually change or alter the way that information is communicated.

Physical texture of physical artworks and designs is also something fully translated and mediated once reproduced in digital or physical form. The loss of physical texture is a huge level of transformation when viewing physical artworks digitally, and can drastically change the overall meaning of a physical artwork. This is something to always try to keep in mind when viewing physical artworks digitally, as your understanding for the most part is being informed by a translation and not the actual physical work.

4. Physical Properties of color and texture in art and design

Color and texture are aspects of design that can communicate information through physical properties and communicate meaning through cultural understandings and other contexts and associations. For example, an image with high color contrast or bright colors can use those physical properties to guide a viewers attention. A drawing that reproduces the texture of wood grain communicates that visual representation to the viewer, even though the design does not actually include wood. Conversely, the colors red and orange, especially in relation to other images and/or symbols, have specific meanings via cultural contexts and associations. A painting produced with visibly, dramatic textured brushstrokes communicate information about the artist's actions and movements while painting, even though those brushstrokes might be representing an entirely unrelated visual image.

This section presents and defines some of these more basic visual properties. Doing this can help clarify ways in which artists and designers work with these properties, in combination with cultural contexts, to form and convey new meanings in their works.

The descriptions and examples below might be similar to ones you are reading in other art and design courses, especially other design courses that I teach. This is just a matter of utility, as there is a little overlap in foundational courses, and things like color theory definitions and concepts are relatively static. For these few areas of overlap in descriptions and examples, you do not need to worry about small differences if you notice them, and can skim through info and examples that are duplicated. Just be sure to review the different or additional examples, especially when there is a new section, artist and/or video.

4.1 Physical Properties of Color

Color theory is a vast area of study and research that organizes and classifies some of the "physical" properties and techniques of color {and to a big extent, light, but in a less literal way}. It creates a system or framework for understanding the physical aspects of color - which can be helpful as a starting point for color design in artworks and games - but, much like game design frameworks, this theory cannot account for all the different ways colors and combinations of colors, along with the applications of light and dark, lack of color, and/or contrast, will be interpreted or experienced by viewers.

There are many modern and contemporary artists who focus on the ways in which our eyes see and our brains interpret color on a physiological level. Some of these artists worked directly with color theory principles. In many instances, these practices and resulting artworks further expand the general scope of knowledge surrounding color and color theory. Color is a topic where art and science overlap extensively - Sir Issac Newton developed the first color wheel, and many pre-industrial painters throughout the world needed to employ chemistry and experimentation when developing pigments and paints.

The concepts, terms and properties below are mostly being presented to help establish a vocabulary for talking about color and one starting point for thinking about color in games. Describing these concepts a bit more will also be useful when exploring the way different artists work with color in the examples presented later on in the module.

Color Wheel Basics

The color wheel below is a common way of understanding and navigating a color spectrum. It shows the relationship between primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, and also describes the difference between warm colors and cool colors. A color's position on the color wheel, in relation to another color, is used to develop color relationships that are often then used in color schemes and in color combinations and color mixing.

Hue

Hue is another term for color-name on the color wheel. The primary hues are red, blue and yellow, the secondary colors are the mixes of two primary hues, which are green, orange and violet, and the tertiary/intermediate hues are mixes of a secondary with a primary hue.

Warm and Cool Colors

The warm colors are on one half of the color wheel, and include the range of red-violet to yellow, and the cooler colors range from yellow-green to violet. To many people, warm colors appear brighter and come forward visually, while cool colors are less bright and recede visually, but, as I will argue throughout this module, there are always exceptions to these general color properties.

Color Wheel Relationships and Combinations

There are 3 common relationships utilized in art and design on the color wheel. Analogous - three colors together, Complementary - the two colors directly opposite one another - and Triadic - the 3 colors that form an equilateral triangle.

Many artworks demonstrate the properties of warm and cool colors, as well as complementary, analogous and triadic color schemes, and in some cases these relationships are used intentionally to produce some intentional visual meaning, however, these concepts alone do not usually carry meaning alone. Often times they are used to either explain how and/or why some aspects of a visual design are highlighted, or stand out in a certain way, or why something might be visually appealing, after it has been designed and created, especially with older artworks.

Utilizing this color wheel alone, also, is limited, as it is based on a "subtractive" color model, and on color pigment and mixing based on paint technology {yes, paint is for sure a technology}. Some designers work with different color systems, such as the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow + Black {CMYK} ink system in printing, and the Red, Green and Blue {RGB} additive color system for working with light-based colors, such as those in monitors.

CMYK is still directly related to the color wheel above, where the combo of all colors produces black on a printed page - this is classified as "subtractive" color, but since it is not economical to combine pigment to produce black, black was introduced as its own "key color". This inclusion of black as a "primary" ink, thus required the primary hues to be as bright as possible, shifting them to yellow, magenta and cyan.

RGB is different from the painting color wheel and CMYK systems because it is working with color as light. This type of color system and mixing is additive, where the combo of all 3 primary RGB color at full brightness produces white. I think there are some actual physics and science to all of this, which I do not nearly understand, but I did want to be sure to highlight the difference. I believe that some folks are able to design thinking more in an additive color system, but most digital tools and programs still use a default color selection based on the visible color spectrum and the traditional color wheel.

Value + Saturation

Value can be defined as the brightness of a hue when mixed with pure black or pure white, until the hue is black or white. Mixes of white are called "tints" of a hue, and mixes with black are called "shades" of a hue. Tints and shades can be used to impact overall brightness of a hue, and also contrast with other hues and colors in the frame.

Uses of different values can provide an infinite number of "colors" using only a single hue. Value is also tightly interwoven with light and shadow in games - a red item can appear bright red, and highly visible, or dark red, and barely visible, depending on if it is in shadow or full, direct light.

Saturation is the scale of a full intensity of a hue mixed with different proportions of grey {mix of white and black}. Working with saturation allows designers and artists to incorporate a range of brighter hues without attracting visual focus. It also allows designers to work with a more limited palette, especially with "cooler" colors, while still allowing the designers to direct visual focus using contrast via color.

Definition - Color v.s. Line

Line is something used to define shapes and create contrast throughout many examples of visual media, including textual designs, interactive artworks, animations, paintings, comics, drawings and illustrations, and games. We will explore line more in the next module, but for this module, I wanted to be sure to create a different set of categories for contrast defined by differences in hue, value, saturation or texture, and the "cuts", "boundaries", and/or "limits" defined by lines and/or line work. Lines, for sure, create a contrast in visual images and designs, however, this module will focus more on the contrast between color, shade, tint, and saturation.

4.2 Physical Properties of Texture

Implied Texture

Many artworks and designs, especially digital artworks or completely screen-based artworks, incorporate the use of "implied" textures. These textures do not contain actual, physical, texture, but aim to reproduce the visual information or representation of a texture. These textures can be implemented through photographing, painting, drawing or otherwise rendering a texture or surface different from the materials it is physically constructed from or represented by.

Indexical Texture Capture

Indexical images are images that are directly connected to the place and/or subject that they capture. Examples of these images are traces of objects or traces or outlines of silhouettes. These images need to made in the physical presence of their subject at one step of the production / making process.

A technique called “Frottage” or rubbings, present an indexical method for capturing textures. Most people have probably done this at some point - used crayons to rub over a paper covering a leaf or a some other textured surface to develop almost carbon-copy of that texture. These indexical images all feature a unique 1-1 ratio with their related physical textures. In some ways, they are both implied AND actual texture.

Physical Texture

Physical textures are textured formed by the material technology used to create artworks and designs. These physical textures can reinforce meaning when tied to visual representation, but do not need to be related. Physical textures for screen-based works could relate to resolution or fidelity of the images, as lower or higher resolution images can communicate a texture that has to do with their digital construction, the closest thing to a "physical" architecture in digital spaces. Additionally, if working with projection or light and digital work, the surface that visuals are projected onto could also present an opportunity to experiment to use physical texture to communicate meaning or additional information.

5. Artworks and designs that work with color

5.1 Photography + Color

Since digital image editors allow artists and designers to much more easily adjust and change color in photographic images, it is important to understand how photographers worked with analog color photography, as many of the digital effects and changes are linked to these physical processes and associations.

Nan Goldin

Photographer Nan Goldin started experimenting with portrait photography using more affordable "instant" cameras and widely available and store-developed color film and photos. Goldin and then moved into working more with single-lens-reflex cameras (SLR), which were more expensive - in order to afford those cameras, she would buy stolen cameras, and often did not have a lot of choice in different brands, lenses, features, etc.

This different relationship with creative technologies and somewhat random method of camera selection and film choice influenced the look and color of her portraits. Along with her choice of subject matter, her work presented a unique aesthetic style and form and a visual shift for photography in the 1970s and 1980s. This aesthetic is still very relevant to digital photography, selfies, and social media now, especially in the use of digital filters and effects to mimic the aesthetic qualities of older analog cameras and color film effects and processes.

Syreeta McFadden - Teaching the Camera to See My Skin

The images below detail photography experiments by writer and photographer Syreeta McFadden. McFadden's photo essay Teaching the Camera to See My Skin describes her experience navigating embedded bias in color film, and demonstrate the inequities in representation and expression that embedded biases caused for Black individuals and other people with complexions that were darker than the light complexions used to calibrate film development and composition.

These photos are evidence of her process selecting cameras, camera settings and film types that produced more representative and expressive photographs of Black subjects. This essay is both a means to share this information, and to also call attention to this serious issue with a widespread creative technology and production process.

Camila Falquez

Camila Falquez is a contemporary fashion and style photographer who works with material color, texture, and other forms to explore definitions and expressions of gender. When reviewing these photos, consider how Falquez uses both physical properties and cultural contexts to communicate new meanings and information through her photographs and the intentional design choices - who is being photographed, graphics aspects of the scenes, color and texture of the clothing, etc.

5.2 Color + Pattern

The artworks and designs below all explore interactions of color via different repeated patterns of color and shape. Some of these explorations of color are more random. Ellsworth Kelly, for example, developed some of his grid patterns completely based on chance - he randomly drew numbers for each square in a grid and then applied the corresponding hue or swatch to that space on the canvas. In these examples, Kelly is using the random grid of color to express not a color theory, but to illustrate the chance operations his painting was generated by.

Other artists worked with pattern and color more methodically, guided in part by physical properties. Piet Mondrian attempted to achieve an expressive visual harmony that had less to do with scientific color theory, and more about the balance and visual harmonics with patterns and grids of primary yellow, blue and red hues. As much as these images also rely on complex patterns and shapes to direct the eye, color is still a key compositional element that creates interactions, movement and different focal points.

Josef Albers + Interactions of Color, 1960s

The images below are physical prints by Josef Albers, from his design book Interactions of Color, first compiled and published in 1963. This book used color exercises and diagrams to explain several of the color theory principles that Albers explored - and in many cases helped define - in his stand alone prints and paintings. Many of these prints explore the contextual properties of color - how colors interact with one another, and how perception of color changes based on the colors nearby.

5.3 Color Field Paintings

If you have ever visited a modern-art museum, you have probably encountered a large-scale color field painting - usually a huge canvas painted with large fields of a single or a few field of color. I've noticed that these types of paintings tend to draw a lot of criticism from viewers who argue that they “aren’t art” because they look relatively straightforward in their design. I don’t agree with this sentiment, but I do think it's worth noting this response, and that this more “simple” aesthetic is often misunderstood.

These paintings are one way to better understand and navigate “conceptual" or "abstract" art. For many of these artists, their work was about immersing the viewer in color - they were attempting to turn color into a subject. Instead of a painting with the color red, they hoped to create the sense of “red”. Scale is also an important factor in this design. These artists were not concerned with a complex technique or making a painting that "looked like" a subject - their primary goal was an idea or a feeling they were trying to invoke. Consider this theme, especially when working with digital tools where many of the processes and operations are regarded as “easier” than their analog counterparts. How might this perception influence meaning or aesthetic value for some viewers? What is your goal, or the idea, motivating whatever digital process you are attempting?

5.4 Color + Light

Many artists work with a combination of light and color. The two together can often shift a work from 2D, to 3D, to even 4D, where time and change over time is one of the driving components. For these works, that change, interaction, and/or movement, can be the focus of the work.

Claude Monet + Impressionistic Painting with Light

James Turrell

Works by James Turrell place colored lights in specifically constructed spaces or environments, or create environments to view changes to natural light - like the color of the sky- over time. The three dimensional spaces themselves become a critical part of the artwork. In Turell’s “Skyspace” installations, he creates a portal for viewing the sky as a color, which constantly changes throughout the day and the night.

Turell's color and light aesthetics have influenced many other forms of visual media, including film and video. Below are two examples of relatively recent music videos that directly reference his specific use of color + light.

These videos are required to watch, and are covered by one question in the lecture review quiz.

Carlos Cruz-Diez

Carlos Cruz-Diez experimented with color, light and texture in pre-digital forms that pushed the visual limits of analog creative technologies, and later incorporated a combination of digital and analog creative production technologies. These artworks also incorporate texture in interesting ways, considering the projection surface as an important part of the full artwork.

These video below is required to watch, but only to observe Cruz-Diez’ process - you do not need to pay attention to the narrative, unless you are interested - this video is not specifically covered by the lecture review quiz, but the artist’s general process is covered by one question.

6. Artworks and designs that work with physical texture

The artworks below all incorporate physical or indexical texture in ways that change or communicate additional layers of meaning. This can include textures that are in contrast to what a form or rendering might otherwise communicate, the location or surroundings of the artist while producing the artwork, or the physical actions of the artist while making the artwork. In these examples, the texture adds meaning or context to the overall artwork, and therefore plays a significant, central role, v.s. reinforcing or supporting meaning.

6.1 Indexical Artworks

These textured artworks are made via an indexical process that captures and translates the texture of a physical 3D object or landscape into a 2D visual form. This is another way to capture, translate, and incorporate physical textures into new 2D spaces, that could be further adjusted in digital works.

Jill O’Bryan

Jennifer Bornstein

After viewing the above artworks, read and consider the {VERY} short story below - how does it relate to these artworks, and how does it also relate to digital files - that can also include high-resolution translations of physical textures?

On Exactitude In Science by Jorge Luis Borges

. . . In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

—Suarez Miranda, Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV, Cap. XLV, Lerida, 1658

6.2. Texture as Subject

Daniel Rozin + the Tension Between Digital + Physical Textures

Daniel Rozen is one artist who explores the tensions between digital and physical creative technologies, via projection, screens, translations and implied and physical textures. Rozin's mechanical "mirrors" mimic the ways in which screen based images and video are displayed digitally, but in physical ways that are visually evident via the use of actual textured materials. This calls attention to the layers of translation that higher-fidelity digital displays and projections - such as phones and computer screens - still filter images through.

The video below is required viewing, but is not covered by a question on the lecture review quiz.

This type of mediation will be an ongoing theme throughout the quarter - the ways in which digital creative technologies "flatten" some of these mediation layers, and change the ways in which we understand information or communicate ideas without realizing it is happening. Hopefully, through exploring these technologies more closely, and through experiencing artworks such as Rozin's that interrogate these layers of less-visible mediation, we can begin to take them into account when creating our own digital artworks and designs.