Light and Color

Part 1: Exhibition

1. Read this article in our class library about the work of Mavis Pusey.
2. Read Alt Text as Poetry.
3. Attend the Mavis Pusey Restless exhibition at the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona. Museum Hours (Thursday 11 am–8 pm and Friday–Sunday 11 am–6 pm)
4. Choose one of the art works in the exhibition and write an alt text description of the work.

Optional but Highly Encouraged!

At either sunrise or sunset between now and our next class session attend the lighting program at James Turrell’s Dividing the Light at Pomona College Skyspace.

James Turell. Dividing the Light. 2007.

Reflect on your experience of the relationship between the LED color lights and the color of the sky. This work is a form of new media art! The lights that are part of the work had to be programmed to match with the time of day and to change colors as the sky changes.

Exercise: Write a poetic set of instructions for James Turrell’s Dividing the Light. How would you describe the colors? What is the progression of the piece? Be as specific as possible. Next class we’ll be talking about how we can change values within our code while our program is running. Consider what values are changing with the lights to give different results.

Part 2: Composition

1. Design a system on paper for generating abstract compositions. Make sure you can implement you system using p5.js. For example, you could have a grid of squares and choose the color based a coin toss. Be inventive! We don’t how how to make these systems in code just yet, but we do know how to make shapes and create colors. Use your knowledge of how shapes and colors are created within p5.js to guide your system.
2. Considering accessibility, use the describe() function (Reference) in your p5.js sketch to create a screen reader-accessible description of your system. Make sure to use the describe() function within setup(). Notice that the text of your describe() function needs to be between ' ' marks. Consider the words you are using to describe your art work and use Alt Text as Poetry for reference.

Feel free to experiment with:

• Alpha
• ellipse()(Reference)
• quad() (Reference)
• triangle()(Reference).
• blendMode()(Reference)

Submit

See Class Canvas for submission details, follow instructions on Canvas.

To get a p5 share link: Navigate to File > Share > Share Sketch As View-Only > Copy Share Link