Can I see how you are?

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This work is about communication with color. We wear it, we connect it to emotions. We link it to the senses, but color is much more than this. It is a language that is seen and taught by our brain because we develop it in our childhood. We are born color blind.

Furthermore, evolution also does something with our sense of color, objects that have existed for a long time and are created by nature, for example, a banana. Are included in our system so that by evolution we always label this banana as the same color yellow. Even when we shine blue light on the banana, the whole room will glow blue except the banana that stays yellow. This phenomenon is called color correction in happens in our brains.

Our origins also determine which colors we see. In Europe we make a distinction between 11 color categories, but there are only 5 color categories for the Hibma (African strain), green for them is a much more extensive color and we see yellow much better.

Color is determined by; language, memories and emotion. And all this creates in your brain the color that you perceive at that moment. Color has always played an important role in our existence. But color tells us more about us than we realize.

In this work I am going to experiment with the spectators. By asking the viewer to paint their face with colors that they prefer, I try to read how his / her personality is based on the face that is painted. By letting the colors on the face speak for the person in our first acquaintance via camera image.

Because the effect of color is so in the subconscious, I want to experiment with this experiment, what happens when we are aware of the effect and whether we can understand it. The experiment is part of the exhibition 24/7, people are determined who paints their faces in front of the mirror in the chair. You can do this during your museum visit.

The people who participate in this experiment receive their personal lecture via an email. By participating in this experiment, the work between the viewer and me arises.

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SAMPLE READING

Dear Person,

Your personal reading:

You have a strong need to seek support from others, but may consider independence as a better form of life. You are open and sensitive to sensory impressions. You are for harmony and order and would like to mediate; insanity and hardness are strange. This is precisely because of the stresses that sometimes make you unaware the unconscious.

Your dependence on moods bothers yourself, and often you regret wrong actions that occur. Due to thinking about yourself too much, your workload is tempered. By the way, you are often slow.

You make out of your printed voices outwardly, are usually happy and even unconcerned, what you have always done is a smile and is an entertaining person. You make demands on life and can also maintain a certain well-being under modest circumstances. With sense of tact, you are a good help for many.

In you you unite thinking, home and longing for distant stretches. If you feel comfortable, be careful. You have a strong sense of responsibility, your aversion from some people is almost physical, and you only expose to few people.

Often, only one accident, a disease, or a shocking event leads to these colors. You like to love it and you’re excited to live up to it, you can even force it. You can hardly force yourself, and often you want more than you can. Nevertheless, you understand the art of concealing your weaknesses. You respond to contravention: you act nflink while you are in the week, be patient if you are impatient.

Your goals are clear and your feelings are also strong. You desire performance and commitment, and so you set certain requirements for your life. Your thinking is well developed. You are chased less by imagination and doubt.

Hester van Tongerlo

1/1 Print / Person reading / “Can I see how you are?” / 2017