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 'Loose Talk'
By Benjamin Benedict
A Trick Of The Light
We have four-colour vision. Baboons and chimps have three-colour vision, and other smaller monkeys generally have two-colour vision. But birds have five- colour vision. Birds see ultraviolet. What would our paintings, what would our buildings look like if we also saw ultra violet?
What you see depends on how strong the light that lights it is and the direction that light is coming from. I know an artist, a brush and pallet man who paints under neon light but likes to show his finished work, light by a slowly varying rheostat, to add dynamism and life to the work. Outside objects and structures are extra dynamic, because of the constantly changing light and its changing direction. I have always thought that when architects make models of their proposed buildings, their lighting should take account of the varying positions of the sun in relation to their structures and it’s altering intensity as the day wears on.
It is because of these factors to say nothing of moonlight, rain and even snow that makes sculpture so much more rewarding when it is outside. Objects can take on other appearances in a certain light and lights themselves can become something that they are not. Yesterday evening, I was convinced that a sea buoy was a swimmers head, and at night I have often been fooled by the light behind a round window or a by a single street lamp, which I have momentarily taken to be the moon.
There is one such round window in the building opposite where I live, and what is mystifying is that for a split second, it still continues to fool me. Something inside me says, ‘ It’s The Moon!’ and even as I look up the voice of reason is already saying, ‘Of course it’s not, dick brain, it’s the window of the house next door!’ There are other windows in that building, but not near that one, and they are all rectangular. A rectangular window, similarly light from behind has never caused me to think that it is anything but what it is. I am a city boy. I don’t spend much time looking at the night sky and when I go out at night I am surrounded by lights, both static and moving which also produce no such illusions. Perhaps this Moon illusion is a throwback to a time when a single round light above you at night could be only one thing. I can think of no other explanation.
Back then, once inside the flickering fires would give life to the things around you and outside was a constant metamorphosis. Today, our homes and offices, shops and restaurants have bleached out all that mystery. So we go to darkened halls to see movies and to strobe light clubs, instead. But one way or another the need is deep inside us, even if it is just a trick of the light.
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