Spectra

Artists: Angus Stevens & Frances Ng
Country: Scotland & Australia

Spêc’tra explores the way space is perceived by challenging and confounding our perception of light with the use of continuing and repeated colour phasing. As a result, every person will affect and be affected by the installation in a different way.

The work is made from a framed aluminium cube, covered in a stretched translucent sheet of Barrisol PVC. It is internally lit by LEDs, controlled through a digital interface.

Spectra interprets our ‘trichromatic’ colour vision, which is made possible through the three ‘cones’ in the retina of the human eye. Each of these responds to a different wavelength of light and, by combining them, ‘create’ colour. The three input sensors in front of Spectra represent the red, green and blue cones. When each individual sensor is activated, that correlating shade of red, green and blue will incrementally add or subtract to create ‘all possible colours’ inside Spectra, challenging our perception of colour.

The average human eye can perceive over 10 million colours. How many can you see within Spectra?