Squirrel monkey performing a trichromatic colour discrimination test following gene therapy. Image courtesy of the Neitz laboratory.
A Mantis Shrimp (Stomatopod) has between 12 and 16 types of photoreceptors cells (compared to 3 types in the human eye). They are capable of “spectral tuning” (ie. they can tune their colour vision to adapt to their environment).
THE ANIMAL COLOUR DEBATE
Environment
250cm x 160cm x 300cm
School of Looking
2020
O7 OCT
29 NOV
2 0 2 0
Most mammals are dichromats, seeing two colours - blue and yellow - a simpler colour space than our own trichromatic vision, with its rich landscape of primary and secondary hues. But exactly what colours any animal can see will always be unknown unless we can find some way to ask them directly…
The floor of The Animal Colour Debate is a variation of Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s snake illusion, created with his kind permission.
SPECTRAL TUNING
Interactive installation
Programme on iMac
School of Looking
2020
A computer screen’s red, green and blue channels are comparable to the L, M and S cones that capture colour in the eye, though the signal passing through the optic nerve appeared to be more complex, working with oppositions of blue/yellow, red/green and black/white. Spectral Tuning rewires the red, green and blue channels of a camera to explore this sort of oppositional colour matrix.