Gabriele Gambaro

Colour reflects the “fluid” nature of the image: both can be considered as a factual, objective evidence of the external world as well as a subjective and sometimes deceptive re-representation of it. The section entitled “Colour. Photography, Image, Reality” collects essays that widely investigate the power of colour to unfold new sensibilities and practices linked the fruition, the creation and the use of images, across very different media: from literature to social media. The authors develop some core themes, such as the aesthetics of colors, the relevance of intermediality to comprehend specific experiences, and the epistemological and political implications of color technology. The reflections on images encounter the philosophical debate on colour, offering the opportunity to examine every pattern of recognition (that can be ours or of others, human or non-human) and contributing to the discussion on the contingent and questioning relationship between image and reality.

James Turrell’s installation Sight Unseen can provide useful elements concerning the philosophical discourse on colors. The artwork shows how the physical nature of the light allows the environmental diffusion of colors. Meant as character of light itself, the color organizes and disposes the perception of the space explored by spectators. I assume an ecological aesthetic perspective to understand the perceptual phenomena that affect the senses of the spectators’ living body and broaden the current physicalist and representationalist models emerged within theories of color.