7-in-7
For the past two weeks’ 7-in-7 project, I chose - after deliberation - to explore colours, in the context of New York City. Since colours are primarily experienced visually, I limited myself to colours in a visual context; even though correlations can be drawn between colours and other senses. These limitations of scope - sensory, contextual, spatial - allowed me to delve more deeply into my specific concept.
My first prototype was just trying to observe the city through the lenses of different colours. I made four wooden frames with different coloured transparent plastic sheet in them, and took them around the city - to two spots specifically: Madison Square Park, and the corner of Central Park at 59th Street and 5th Avenue - and observed how the city looked through each of those colours - and through combinations - at different times of the day.
A collection of images of New York City taken through different coloured frames at different locations and different times | Source: author
Reflection
I feel like the frames worked better - for a more realistic approach - during the day, and for a more fantastical approach, during the night. I feel like one of my main takeaways from this project was about the process of it. I planned the project the night before, and when I built the prototype in the morning I felt like I had a solid foundation. The frames, however, were pulled apart by the wind when I actually tried to use them, so I had to get some tape and troubleshoot in the middle of the park where I was sitting. Rebuilding the frames in the environment I was trying to use them in did help, as I was able to test them as I fixed them, leading to a stronger, more effective outcome.
Reflecting on the frames also got me thinking about the lenses through which we view and experience our lives, the city, the world. The frames are something of a physical manifestation of this - looking through the pink frame makes everything seem pink(er), but makes the existing pink seem duller. The enhancing/dulling of colours also made me think of the colours of the city - New York is very yellow and not very green; the green frame is brightest and most striking. This leads me to my next project - mapping the actual colours of the city.
On the second and third days, I wanted to map out the colours of the city, very literally - on day two, I went back to my two locations and recorded the colours of the built form over a couple of blocks. The process of this took the colours through a series of translations - my observations of the colours, translating them into a sketch, and finally translating the sketch into code. My initial reason for wanting to build this in code was to make it interactive, but that didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted.
The first sketch, from south of Madison Square Park:
The second sketch, the southeast corner of Central Park at 59th Street and 5th Avenue:
While doing my research for this project, I came across something called the ‘Statue of Liberty green’, i.e., the green of the Statue of Liberty, which is a colour that I was surprised to find occurs very frequently in the city. Although it doesn’t cover entire buildings, like beiges or browns or reds, it makes its presence known across detailing, especially building capitals and window frames - sometimes because of copper oxidation, the same reason the Statue is green, sometimes because of deliberate choices by architects and designers and New Yorkers to recreate the green that is synonymous with the Statue of Liberty, which in turn is synonymous in this country with freedom, and with New York.
Reflection
Through a series of translations, I feel like both sketches portray the differences in the environment of the city. The first sketch, near Madison Square Park, is in a much more social area - college students, young parents, young office goers. The colours, the built form, and the activity all reflects that. The second area, at the southeast corner of Central Park, is a much more affluent location - the Plaza hotel, a series of large showrooms, huge towering skyscrapers. The colours in the area are more controlled, more polished, and less varied.
I think this project could be expanded to represent and analyse the image of the city formed by the colours allowed to exist on different blocks. The two areas I covered illustrate an interesting juxtaposition formed by class, purpose, history, and clientele.
On the third day, I continued with the theme of mapping the colours of the city - this time, recording what people are wearing. I chose the same two locations again, so I could draw comparisons based on my earlier observations as well. The sketches below are a result of recording every colour worn by a passerby in the span of 15 minutes, reduced proportionately so as to not overcrowd the screen. I chose to use sections because I feel like they represent well other characteristics of the place - and portray the overall personality of the area.
The first sketch, from west of Madison Square Park:
The second sketch, the southeast corner of Central Park at 59th Street and 5th Avenue:
Reflection
As with the previous sketch, this representational sketch went through a series of translations as it made its way onto the screen. I feel like there are correlations to be drawn to the kind of clothes people wear and the kinds of areas - the first sketch has a lot more black, populated by permanent, working New Yorkers, while the second sketch is populated more with people out shopping or tourists - hence more colourful. The contrast of black clothing in a more colourful area and colourful clothing in a polished, beige area is striking.
General feedback on this project also makes me think it can be expanded to cover detailed colours in different times of day, different times of the year, and different seasons, with implications for the fashion industry.
Navigating the city over the past couple of months, I've noticed how many of the city's signage and wayfinding - even if they don't rely solely on it - are heavily colour coded for ease of understanding. This got me wondering how people who don't experience colour in the same way I do would navigate the same signage and the same streets.
For day four, I looked up the most common type of colourblindness - deuteranomaly, a specific type of red-green colourblindness. I collected the most common signs of wayfinding in the site and put them through a simulator to view how people with deuteranomaly would view the same signs.
Green, red, and blue street signs in New York, with full colour vision and deuteranomaly | Source listed at end; edited by author.
Pedestrian crossing signs in New York, with full colour vision and deuteranomaly | Source listed at end; edited by author.
Subway signs in New York, with full colour vision and deuteranomaly | Source listed at end; edited by author.
Reflection
The difference in perception of the subway signs in particular - the colours of which are used to group and identify trains, even if each train has an alphanumeric code too - is especially striking. Even though most people - including me - in New York use numbers and letters to identify trains, the trains and their directions are automatically categorised by their corresponding colour in my head - especially when there are multiple trains with the same colour notation. It’s interesting how colour affects memory and classification and how that is not possible with the subway system of New York for people with deuteranomoly, or other forms of colourblindness. I think this project, specifically, could be expanded to analyse different accessibility considerations of NYC's navigation system, and to figure out how it can be made more inclusive and navigable.
The following two prototypes are about representing different colours of the city in different ways. On the fifth day, I referred to the sketches I made on day 2, using the colours I mapped in the first location (near Madison Square Park) for this prototype. This model is supposed to represent the visual experience of being in the city. The prototype is not to scale, but I did want to reflect with the little figurine in the center the height and breadth of being in the middle of the city.
Source: author
The colours I chose to represent were artificial; man-made; so I used artificial elements to represent them too. The colours of the buildings and umbrellas and street furniture translated into wire and markers and plastic.
Reflection
While I don’t feel like this represents exactly the experience of colours in the city - I probably need to adjust the proportions of the colours - I do think it projects a feeling of being overwhelmed, in the middle of the bustling city; especially with the out of scale figurine in the center. This is kind of how I felt when I first moved here three months ago - tiny, in the middle of this huge, towering landscape, that bombarded me with sensory inputs from all sides.
Continuing the theme of representing colours, on day six I tried to represent natural colours with natural materials. I feel like this prototype is even more abstract than the last one, but it does create a flowery form. I used clay to create a structure , and wrapped different coloured yarn around it to represent the colours I observed walking around Central Park for a couple hours.
Collection of plant material I collected from somewhere in Central Park while wandering around | Source: author
Full process of making this here | Source: author
I used the closest I could come to completely natural materials in a day - clay, and yarn (with a little wire inside the clay to provide support). I aimed to create an organic sort of form with the clay.
Reflection
I was surprised to find more than greens, yellows, and reds in the park - there are a number of lavender and white flowers and plants in the city, which in the days since I’ve been noticing outside of the park too. Something I also realised in the discussion post-presentation in class was how the processes of days five and six reflected the projects themselves: I had a very clear idea in mind for what to do for the day five project, and systematically executed it step-by-step until the structure was complete. On day six, I had very little idea of what I wanted to build other than the materiality, and I went through several iterations of building organic forms until I got to this - an organic process in itself.
Feedback on this prototype also made me realise it has more potential for interaction than I assumed. I feel like it could be expanded to create a tactile form or installation.
My last prototype was about going through how we use colours in daily colloquial language in phrases, as metaphors, to represent something or convey a feeling. I considered many phrases, and I chose to focus on the expression ‘paint the town red’, because it related to space and a city, and tried to convert it from a metaphorical turn of phrase to a literal experience.
My initial idea was to make a Google Chrome extension that would turn buildings red as you go through Google Street View - which I tried to create a prototype of for about four hours - but it was a little out of my area of expertise and definitely not something I could figure out in a day. I ended up creating a simulation video of this hypothetical extension.
Screen recording of Google Street View with red filter on the sides | Source: Google Street View; edited by author
Reflection
Even though my initial idea didn’t work out, I did learn how to create and execute a Chrome extension with this project, which was fun. I don’t know if there’s any actual use or audience for this but I considered taking some time and figuring it out properly, because the whole concept and process of it is fascinating to me.
Related links
Sources for navigation signs: red, green, and blue street signs, pedestrian crossing signal, and subway graphic.
Statue of Liberty green in NYC, by the New Yorker and the BBC.
Data visualisation by Jill Hubley. She has a number of data recordings and visualisations based in New York City.
Color Factory, an ‘interactive color museum’ filled with manufactured experiences of colour.
