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What are the biological and emotional effects of coloured light
on human beings, and how is it evaluated and appreciated?
This type of research often deals with relatively narrow ques-
tions, such as the experience of tree illumination with different
colours or the appropriate colour of light for a dinner table.
Diodes with different colours are used for art installations and
for so called media facades, where complete facade surfaces
serve as huge screens. Those conference papers and articles
that treat such phenomena most often have the character of
describing presentations of installations made by the author or
others, and a critical debate or analysis is found only rarely. For
a number of examples see Porter & Mikellides 2009 p.143-169
and the regularly published PLD Magazine.
Also in the field of design and pictorial art it is most common
to describe and discuss the use and effects of colour and light
in the single work, without the ambition to reach conclusions
of general validity. More methodical art oriented research
involving colour and light deals with such as the interaction
between pictorial art and illumination, and the possibilities to
recreate lost paintings with the help of coloured light. At Zürich
University of the Arts (ZHdK), a pedagogical and artistic re-
search project has explored the possibilities of coloured light in
interactive demonstrations of different colour phenomena, but
in spite of the ambition to create new knowledge on the rela-
tionship between colour and light, the project does not include
light’s interaction with coloured surfaces (Bachmann 2011).
Research on colour and/or light in directly architectural
contexts is not common. When it occurs, it most often deals
with the colouring of specific buildings, towns or time periods.
Sometimes it includes also illumination and the use of daylight.
The perspective is most often that of architectural history or
building conservation, and the interaction between colour and
light is most often not analysed. The AIC conference in Stock-
holm 2008 presented and discussed several examples of the
colouring of urban spaces, exteriors and interiors. Also see
Porter & Mikellides 2009; Boeri 2010; Kjellström 2009; Serra
Lluch 2010 and Ferring 2011.
Colour and the third dimension
Shape and space are experienced through simultaneous
perception of the colours of surfaces and of the direction and
character of light. In everyday life we can most often, instantly
and without reflection, draw correct conclusions about the
three dimensional world around us. The strivings to under-
stand colour as a visual phenomenon has, however, so far dealt
mostly with simplified two dimensional contexts. One field of
such research deals with what is called visual illusions, and the
AIC has a study group on visual illusions, lead by Osvaldo da
Pos. Several studies are presented in the proceedings from the
AIC congress 2009.
The relevance of two dimensional colour studies for architec-
ture and other spatial contexts is discussed in Fridell Anter
& Billger 2010. Recent research has increasingly dealt with
colour in complex situations and realistic spatial contexts, as
well as its interaction with light. This has given new insights,
showing that the learnings from flat colour studies on such as
visual illusions, simultaneous contrast or assimilation phe-
nomena seldom are valid in three dimensional space (Ols-
son 2009; Klarén & Fridell Anter 2011; Fridell Anter & Klarén
2009b;Fridell Anter & Klarén 2009a; Klarén & Fridell Anter
2009; Mizokami & Yaguchi 2010). A few studies have also dealt
with the role of colours and chromatic contrasts for the percep-
tion of shape (Akizuki & Inoue 2009).
A pioneer within systematic three dimensional colour studies
is the American artist Lois Swirnoff (2003). Also many other
artists have used their art for investigating the relationships
between experiences of light, colour, shape and space, and a
handful of them have presented their findings in a way that can
contribute to a systematic formulation of knowledge (Wessel et
al. 2008; Häggström 2009; Moorhouse 2009; Häggström 2010
and some of the artists presented in Bachmann 2011).
Galen Minah, professor of architecture at University of Wash-
ington, has used Lois Swirnoff´s methods and analysed how
buildings and other coloured elements are visually grouped
when we observe landscapes and urban views (Minah 2001). He
and other researchers have also investigated haw the per-
ceived colour of buildings is influenced by viewing distance and
weather conditions, and developed methods for measuring and
analysing this (Minah 1997; Fridell Anter 2000; Pernão 2011).
The colour of an object can have different modes of appearance
(Katz 1935), that partly depend on the refraction and reflection
of radiation. Recently, some research has been presented that
investigate such as the volume colours of glass or liquids, and
the colour of materials with transparent or translucent sur-
faces such as glazed ceramics. In such studies of colours that
do not only belong to the surface of objects, the three dimen-
sional interaction between light and colour is investigated on
the detailed level. The AIC conference 2008 included a trans-
disciplinary session called Aspects of materiality, and also at
the AIC conference 2011 several contributions analysed the
relationship between colour perception, surface structure and
mode of appearance. See also Caivano et al. 2004 and Svedmyr
2002.