Color is imagined as a space. We see colors as distributed throughout a cube with black on one corner and white
on the opposite corner. Red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow each have a corner. The rest of the
colors-more than 16 million of them-are distributed as a gradient cloud in between. colorSpace is a machine for
navigating through this color cube; it is a machine inside the machine of the metaphor of a color space, which
is, in turn, inside the machine of our imagination. What we see is the pixel-eye-view from a path through a
color cube.
This work is one of my earliest, a browser art piece from 2001. It was originally accomplished using frames for
the color cells. This
version is rewritten for the contemporary browser (in 2024).
Click on the animation to view the color transition represented as paths in the 3D color space. (Pan and zoom to
explore the space.)
Notes on Settings
Transformations
bezierInterpolation: path is a bezier curve
linearInterpolation: path uses linear interpolation
linearBezier: alternate cells use linear and bezier
offsetBezier: all cells have the same start and end colors, paths are different beziers
linearVbezier: all cells have the same start and end colors, alternate cells use linear and bezier paths
rotate90: rotate hue 90° — revolve color around axis from black to white fractionally between cells
rotate180: rotate hue 180°
rotate360: rotate hue 360°
fadeToBlack: interpolate between color and black fractionally between cells
grey: alternate cells are a grey with the same luminance value as the color
inverse: alternate cells are the opposite of the color
Order
default: cells render in order across each row and down
random: cells render in random order
spiralin: cells are reordered in a spiral pattern clockwise from top left
spiralout: cells are reordered in a spiral pattern counterclockwise from center