The eye listens. Research on James Turrell
A visual research titled «The eye listens»: light music and visual perceptions by James Turrell — was issued in 6th SWS International Scientific Conference on Arts and Humanities 2019, Volume 6.
Irina Sachno and Alexandra Persheeva focused the scientific reflections on the study of a unique optical space created in light installations by the American artist James Turrell.
Despite the large number of reviews on Turrell’s art projects and numerous author’s interviews, it should be recognized that fundamental scientific articles and monographs have not yet been written on the problem of Turrell’s theoretical developments in the field of sensory synesthesia and light perception, and the phenomenon of the artist’s light performance remains out of the field. Although it is impossible to fill all the research gaps, but the study of the immersive environment and the nature of light in Turrell’s conceptual projects requires, in our opinion, an appeal to the experience of the psychology of perception, gestalt philosophy and previous light art.
James Turrell’s Roden Crater. Photo by: Steve Jurvetson (flickr.com)
The visual experience of creating lighting effects has always attracted Turrell and contemporary American artists. The new gaze work was explored by Californian artists who experimented with light and perception in the late 1960s and early 70s. XX century. In his light installations, he established an unconventional relationship between space and its boundaries, image and image, perspective and depth. Light illusions and special optical effects structured the new visuality and affirmed the optical emptiness as a tabula rasa.
Turrell’s fascination with the psychology of perception, which he studied at the Claremont Graduate School in Claremont in California, also played an important role. The artist explores the phenomena of perception and a special visual experience to create optical illusions that allowed the audience to become participants in a light performance. Mark Rothko, his concept of color field painting, had a great influence on the artist’s experiments. Freeing color from a fixed form, Rothko sought to influence the inner state of mind of the viewer. The boundless space of paintings and the pulsation of color are the dominants that can influence a person — «turn the eyes with pupils into the soul».
James Turrell’s light installation. Photo by: Andreas Tjeldflaat (wikipedia.org)
