Experiments in Touching Color, Jim Campbell, 1998-1999Experiments in Touching Color consists of rear-projection video screen mounted horizontally on a pedestal inside of a small dark room. The video screen shows a photograph, which the viewer then touches to produce a sound related to the image. The entire screen fades to a solid color based on the shade of the pixel being touched by the viewer's fingers. The sound fades up when the image fades out.
This project brings up a number of issues of the multi-sensory interactivity of New Media art. The photographs themselves are pieces that would be displayed in a gallery and viewed on a solely visual level. The influx of new technology allows for those photographs to participate in an artistic experience that involves senses of touch and sound as well, moving them beyond their traditional assosications as purely visual stimuli. Because the experiment plays with more than one sense, it brings the photo "to life" in a way that actively engages the viewer in its narrative. The project is also interested in how it combines and overlaps the results of using various senses - touch now produces visual and audible effects in an unexpected way. The title of the project seems to convey this conflation of the senses. Color is generally viewed as an idea that is not tangible - we can recognize and describe it but we cannot hold it, while Experiments in Touching Color attempts to overcome this boundary between sight and touch.
Jim Campbell's project, like the previous few works I have examined, does require the viewer's partipation to become active and function in its capacity as a work of art. The work simply does not exist as the artist intended it without the viewer there to engage with it. However, this project does not react as much to the viewer's sensibilities as the previous few have. The same visual reactions and sound associations with be produced regardless of who the viewer is or what specific actions they take. Experiements in Touching Color is very much an experiential artwork, but it functions more as a lecture from artist to viewer rather than a dialouge between the two.
This project brings up a number of issues of the multi-sensory interactivity of New Media art. The photographs themselves are pieces that would be displayed in a gallery and viewed on a solely visual level. The influx of new technology allows for those photographs to participate in an artistic experience that involves senses of touch and sound as well, moving them beyond their traditional assosications as purely visual stimuli. Because the experiment plays with more than one sense, it brings the photo "to life" in a way that actively engages the viewer in its narrative. The project is also interested in how it combines and overlaps the results of using various senses - touch now produces visual and audible effects in an unexpected way. The title of the project seems to convey this conflation of the senses. Color is generally viewed as an idea that is not tangible - we can recognize and describe it but we cannot hold it, while Experiments in Touching Color attempts to overcome this boundary between sight and touch.
Jim Campbell's project, like the previous few works I have examined, does require the viewer's partipation to become active and function in its capacity as a work of art. The work simply does not exist as the artist intended it without the viewer there to engage with it. However, this project does not react as much to the viewer's sensibilities as the previous few have. The same visual reactions and sound associations with be produced regardless of who the viewer is or what specific actions they take. Experiements in Touching Color is very much an experiential artwork, but it functions more as a lecture from artist to viewer rather than a dialouge between the two.
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