Ramblin'

I find it very interesting that in this class we have been advised to think about the way in which colour is used not only photography but on a broader level. While reading the first chapter of Chromophobia, I couldn’t help but think of the whiteness he was describing in relation to whiteness inside of contemporary gallery spaces. I took a course in the summer called Museums, Galleries, and Alternative Spaces, and many of our discussions and readings surrounded the idea of the gallery as a ‘white cube’, as spaces that eliminate any distractions so as to force the viewer to think about art and only art. While thinking about white on a more extensive level as we are in the class, white in itself does make us think about colour. One of the most interesting things that I have read so far is that we need colour to be added or paired with white for it to be so white, and that this idea of ‘whiteness’ would not be possible without a comparison to colour. I find it extrememly fascinating to think about the way that we see colour as individuals and that each of us sees colour in our own way. I find it a little bit strange to read about colour as being primitive, not serious, and superficial and as a secondary quality of experience, and find myself wanting to defend colour. I’m not sure why I feel this way because I find that the information in Chromophobia seems very legit and properly informative, it just gives me an uneasy feeling to read about colour as a general topic in relation to things that are negative. The whiteness that Batchelor speaks of is expressed as repellant, open for contamination, and termed ‘pure’ however when colour is spoken of it is this idea of delusion and confusion, as this other that is of lesser value than the white. Colour not only is read about in this text as hallucination and reminissent of dream/drug induced states but also as a disguise of a disguise.  For whichever of the cases that it is being described in, colour has to be tamed and controlled. Colour in all cases so far, these descriptions of colour seem to have negative connotations attached so them that make me feel somewhat tongue-tied.

As for other discussion and other readings that relate to colour in a different way than Batchelor, I think it is very interesting as well that for most of history black and white is seen in a higher value artistically than colour in regards to photography, while black and white is not natural to our vision as humans. Even though in many cases, colour seems to have attached to it the idea that it is added afterward, it is strange to me to think about colour as an additive in terms of photography. If colour photography came before black and white, the conversations that we have currently surrounding colour in this artistic medium would not exist on the same level at all. Since we see with our eyes in colour, it should seem to me normal to be able critique colour photographs on a level that didn’t involve an explanation as to why colour was used over black and white. In this same sense, we would be talking about black and white photography as subtractive of colour. However because black and white was initially there, colour photography hovers in this strange, tense and uneasy place.

Lastly, I’ll end this with a quote from Batchelor that I found online that I think fits very well with the position that colour holds in the contemporary world.

Colour belongs to the arts and the sciences, both to high culture and popular culture, both to theory and to story telling. Colour is truly fluid: it spills over subjects and seeps between disciplines as no one area can claim a privileged or proprietorial relationship with the subject.