James Turrell.
Turrell is essentially concerned with light in its pure form, almost in the scientific sense: the electromagnetic flux unsullied by the presence of anything else, the temporality of it and the texture of it. The artist wants us to know light, not as a reflection of something else, but in and of itself; he wants us to see, touch and understand light intimately. Turrell explained his interest in the tactility of light in one of his interviews: “In working with light, what is really important to me is to create an experience of wordless thought, to make the quality and sensation of light itself something really quite tactile. It has a quality seemingly intangible, yet it is physically felt. Often people reach out and try to touch it.” (Turrell quoted in “Interview with James Turrell,” in Occluded Front, James Turrell, exh. cat., ed., Julia Brown, Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art and The Lapis Press, 1985, p.43. ) https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/boundless-contemporary-art-hk0508/lot.242.html
The present work on offer, Magnetron, is exemplary of this understanding. The work consists of a small aperture in the shape of an old television screen. As in Turrell’s aperture works, there is only a shape cut through the wall, no glass over the opening. The light comes from an actual 12-inch CRT television, out of view within the wall and tuned to a specific channel. The openings are the size and shape of a standard television screen, and the light in the small sensing spaces beyond is created by a television placed on the floor inside the space, just below the aperture. On each floor the television is tuned to a different channel, and the viewer soon discovers that each network broadcasts its own unique range of colors.
Few of us have considered or seen the light emanating from a TV screen in its pure, isolated form. Turrell’s Magnetron offers us the rare opportunity to experience something that we are all so familiar with, yet know so little of. The body of works, to which Magnetron belongs, represents a shift toward more intimist and even domestic projects on Turrell's part. It is also one of most brilliant uses of the television as a medium for a work of art.
Unlike other work by James Turrell There is something instantly familiar here, a piece of recognisable iconography that is now a part of daily lives. I think that’s why I decided to latch onto this one more than his other works.
The photographs are not the main part of illusion of the work but an outcome of it, it has not made to be viewed in this way, it is a part of documentation, but I feel as if that add to the charm of it. Some of the photographs are hazy and blurry which adds to the dream like nostalgic effect it gives off. The way the camera picks up the contrast between the cold blue light and the warm browns of the floor and the reds of chairs.
The television is never perfectly centred, it always drifts off to the side, it makes you wonder if sitting down would give you a better view. It plays on that element of nostalgia even more with the idea of the imperfect living room, with all the chairs in there facing towards one object, the TV.
Beanie (2002), Magnetron series. https://jamesturrell.com/work/beanie/
Hi test (1996), Magnetron series. https://jamesturrell.com/work/hitest/
Turrell’s interest in the light of televisions stemmed from a childhood realization that he could often identify the show that a neighbor was watching from a television outside, by observing the particular pattern of flickering color and light cast by the television on the window blinds. The ability of light to convey information: light’s color comes, Turrell argues from juxtaposition. Like the impressionists, Turrell is interested in the way that placing two colours next to one another can change the perception of both.
Often in Turrell's work is stated as not having a message added onto it that the work is often more of what you perceive it to be than what it actually is. That the work often helps you find a message within yourself rather than the pieces having a message to go along with them.
“I have an art that has no image, it has no object, and even little a place of focus or one place to look. what do you have left? It’s the idea of seeing yourself see, understanding how you perceive.”-James Turrell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVoMJHSNyI0&ab_channel=GuggenheimMuseum
Turrell's other works are more grandiose with entire rooms constructed for the viewer to step into. He floods the entire room with colour. They change perception. He has created many different styles of these rooms that create walls made of light, seen in his Wedgeworks that use projectors that creates the illusion of barriers, or his shallow space constructions that challenge the viewers perception of the depth of a room. His work was so successful in playing with perception that multiple visitors during Turrell’s show at the Whitney Museum became dizzied by his work, resulting in a viewer breaking their arm. Louise, charges that a show of light works by the artist James Turrell created ''an illusion,'' whereby Mrs. Holman ''became disoriented and confused.'' She was ''violently precipitated to the floor'' of the museum, according to the legal papers, thereby sustaining ''severe and permanent personal injuries.''
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/04/arts/whitney-museum-sued-over-1980-light-show.html Another series of works that relies on perception is Turrell's Ganzfelds. A German word ganzfeld meaning “whole field” as in the whole field of perception. The ganzfeld effect which the work is inspired by is an effect in which the brain looks for missing visual signals. These installations are rooms that the visitors are immersed in a room that does not reveal its light source or dimensions. Other effects using light are used to make the room appear without contours. This is done to create a kind of deprivation tank for the viewer they lose their place in the room and become disorientated. Reminiscent of dreamlike experiences. light is used to create a reaction that is already within the viewer. even though the light does not have a message of its own, the way it is used creates a reaction from us.
It seems that today light always has a message it's trying to send to you. Apart from natural light which exists on its own, which we gather our own message from for biological and psychological reasons e.g. the warmth of fire or the sunrise. Artificial light is crafted to have a message put onto it, from when we wake up in the morning to before we go to bed at night looking at the light from a screen is an integral part of our day. We use it as a tool for ourself, that we choose to look at on our phone and often through illuminated advertising on the side of bus stops or on giant screens on skyscrapers that often we don’t have a choice at looking at. I think that’s why I was attached James Turrell's work and most importantly the magnetron series is because it created the idea of message-less light. Usually, screens are filled with information that light gives to us but with Turrell's work that light helps us see a message that is already within us it helps us see the way we look at things and the way light creates emotions within us.
Here are some illustrations I have made.
Here are some illustrations I have created based on the style of James Turrell. With his work its very much based on your own perception, but with these I wanted to add a bit of anxiety to it. To do this I also took a little inspiration from some optical illusion pictures. Something that intentionally plays with your perception. false Pieces of a structure that can only be seen when looking at the whole structure, but when separated from the rest of the image disappear.
I wanted it to have something solid like the two walls at the side and have the impossible aspect be the oval in the middle. The floor and the ceiling also give this effect as you can see them attach to the walls at the corners of the illustration but slowly detach into empty space as you look closer to the centre.
The thing I like most about these illustrations is the dreamlike essence I was able to capture with it. Using different textures and adding noise, making the image fuzzy and blurry.
Similar to Turrell's work I also wanted an overbearing sharp colour scheme a bright yellow which leads to a sharp orange and then finally a deeper red. While Turrell sticks to one colour I wanted it mine to get harsher towards the centre, as if the area gets hotter and hotter as you journey into it. Like superheated metal. It looks pretty, but you know it would hurt if you touched it.
With this piece and my other illustrations, the rooms are inspired by Turrell's installations and ganzfelds with colour pouring from the edges and corners of walls, And the door is inspired by his magnetron series, something more recognisable in a strange environment to add juxtaposition.
Continuing with using the door as a metaphor for the theme of escapism I wanted it to be alluring to the viewer, Some more sharp blues and greens which refresh the viewer protecting them from the contrasting harsher and deeper reds, and finally harsh yellow frame to the door to give it the effect of it glowing. I also made the door and the walkway leading the viewer to it to be the only rigid part of the structure, all the other walls bend, (as if you're looking at the structure with a fish eye lens) but this one doesn’t. something recognisable you can attach to.
How much does colour effect us?
In other articles documenting similar process such as painting prison cells pink to calm cellmates, the result had been minimal, almost having no effect at all. However, colour can still influence you but its more that the colour sends a message to you about something rather than drastically Changing your mood.
Colour is better used as a communication tool. For example, in art therapy colour is often used to help communicate emotions, by associating colour to them. Marketing and advertising are also well known for utilizing colour psychology to help communicate what you are buying, fast food usually uses yellows and reds, meanwhile something made to be healthy uses green. Light's power can also have more influence than its colour. Most people are more comfortable with the dull warm light of a lamp rather than a harsh white street light.
Similar to what James Turrell’s work communicates, the light itself carries no inherit meaning rather we put a message onto it. The light within his artwork helps us perceive what we think about the impact of colour as much as it does about space and depth, "its the idea of understanding how you perceive".
Here are some photographs I have taken.
Here are some photographs I took of a tunnel that sits under a roundabout in Stockport. Recently all the graffiti was covered up in a thick coat of yellow paint. Usually yellow has connotations with warmth, but this shade and hue of it can lead to feelings of anxiousness and irritability. As well as those multiple harsh bright lights are used.
Colour has different meanings we can interpret from it. I believe this shade of yellow was purposeful, it brings about a negative perception of the area. It’s a harsh yellow reminiscent of caution signs and cartoonish hazard suits. I think that the main message it's trying to communicate is that you shouldn’t really stick around. Which although it is apt. For the area it's in, (a tunnel they don’t want people loitering in and causing trouble) it still isn't a pleasant area to pass through.
Here are some more illustrations I have made.
Here are some more illustrations in a similar style to the previous ones. Here I wanted to recreate an area like the tunnels in the photographs above, removing some of the elements of its harsh design. But keeping it just as sinister.
In horror movies there is always that sense of dread when looking around a corner, wondering what could be on the other side. But here I wanted it to loop around forever, as the space turns in on itself as you venture further.
Here I inverted the toxic yellow of the tunnel into a just as sickening bright cyan. All the dirt of the area is gone, but his area is too clean, the lights too bright, there is nothing you can attach yourself to, no human element.
I wanted to push the blurriness of this illustration, making it harder to view what you're looking at, as if the light is binding you making it harder to see the area. I feel this also un intentionally gives the effect that the walls are made of bright coloured felt, but it adds to the fever dream aesthetic.
Although I may have gone too overboard with this effect as it may be too hard to see what I am trying to illustrate.
How it's made.
These illustrations were all made using digital software such as photoshop. This allowed me to make quick edits to the illustrations and go back and forth between different ideas. Such as colour and different room shape ideas.
I did struggle a bit at first to find a way to replicate Turrell's style, all of the illustrations were created on a flat 2D canvas with no 3D software to help me. So, I not only had to create a room that looks three dimensional with perspective, but then play on that perspective and mess with it.
I started with conventional box shaped rooms with warped walls sitting in a 3d space, initial sketches look like someone practising drawing a box on a piece of paper, and the idea felt boring. So, I then moved to having the perspective be inside the room.
Here are some work in progress screenshots at varying stages, when I was making the illustrations.
This is what the initial view of what the first illustration looks like without any of the blur or pixilated fuzzy effect added to it. And with a less appealing shade of yellow.
This was made using different tools to figure out the perspective of the room, help block in different shapes and keep the room symmetrical, there was also a version without the oval in the middle, but I decided to keep it. A layer on top of that was then used to shade it with different gradients.
From here i would then blur the image.
This is what the tunnel illustrations looks like without the pixilated noise and just the blur effect added to it. The pixelated effect is Which is what gives it the low quality, dreamlike quality.
From here I would then overlay a colour on top and adjust.
Here are some zoomed in parts of my illustrations to see that pixelated effect.
