EAC’16. Museum of the University of Alicante (Spain).
Single-channel HD video installation, 10’57”, color, sound, dimensions variable.
Research on time perception suggest that colors can modify the estimation about how much time has elapsed depending on the different levels of arousal that it is associated with every hue. In that sense, an extensive body of research supports the idea, that blue colors are able to create relaxed states in subjects while warm colors like red, reveal higher psychological and behavioral activity.
Based in that premise, this project proposes the reinterpretation of one of the most popular experiments conducted in the area of color perception and published in the essay “The effects of exposure to red and blue light on physiological indices and time estimation” (John A. Caldwell and Gary E. Jones, 1984). The main objective of the experiment was to study the effects in human beings when they were exposed to different sequences of blue and red lights and determine how these influence in the estimations of time elapsed. Sixty subjects were asked to calculate the time elapsed after they were exposed to several series of blue and subsequently red lights which always had the same duration. These different chromatic series were displaying images classified by the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) (a standardized set of over one thousand images created for the induction of emotions in the context of experimental investigations) within the category “Pleasant Low Arousal Slides”. Therefore, it is considered that observation of images within this rank does not increase arousal levels in subjects and does not affect the value of the elapsed time.
Maybe then the question could be, how can we appreciate the emotional value of an image in an objective way? The literature about time perception has concluded that the results for the estimation of time can be in many cases inconsistent and contradictory. This is based in the complexity to find stimuli with an universal value and in the different cognitive understanding of every person. In the end, like in every sphere related with perception and art, our subjectivity seems to be the last responsible of every emotional appreciation and interpretation.