‘Perception of color’ is an interactive (collectively processed) lecture or lecture series that I
have created in my four-years research project ‘Reflecting light’ (2021-2025), part of which
was teaching students of the KASK theatre and arts school in Ghent.

I usually use a beamer with a simple sound system and 4 fresnels on a grand stand,
operated from a simple 4-channel mixer for live experiments. It can take different shapes
but so far the total running time of minimum 4 hours was needed for the frame my slides
outline.
The workshop is useful for people in the visual domain, may them be lighting designers,
technicians, visual artists, choreographers, directors, installation artists, students, etc. , but
it can be interesting to anyone who tend to think about what is it they are looking at when
they are looking at something. (People with non-normative perception are warmly welcome)
I relate to the lecture from my empirical engagement with color use from visual arts and
staged arts, and this is where the experiments are coming from.
The philosophical backbone is Arthur Schopenhauer’s book ‘On vision and color’ that has
been reflecting upon Goethe’s magnum opus on color, and simplifies the vision of color as
a result of one’s preconceptions about what is being seen, the perceptive organ and its act
of perception, and the object being observed.
Some very graspable exercises to test theory directly by the spectator are coming from the
late Josef Albers’ book Interaction of color.

(Vincent van Gogh- Wheat field with crows)

Throughout the lecture one can understand culturally and in terms of self-development, the
language and thoughts elaborated upon color and how that can contribute to methods of
looking. One can experience the vulnerability of one’s own visual apparatus and the

potential in being in touch with that vulnerability.
One can appreciate paintings and textile arts nested in different cultural heritages, and
how they create an impression on their viewer from an analytical viewpoint.
The goal of the workshop is to give participants a toolbox in asking themselves essential
questions from a visual point of view and inform their practice of looking.