Chromograms

The media employed by the artist Victoria Coeln are light, color, space, and time — but also photographic paper, architecture, and, not least, the human body itself, which, as a biological system, continually reinterprets the offered artworks through its interaction with them.

Her works function not only — as in all processes of reception — through their acceptance as works of art, which only become “art” through reception in the first place, but in a particularly unique way through the circular, self-referential elements of their creation and perception:

Because the act of seeing color and light is itself established as both subject and content of the works, they in turn derive their legitimacy from the cognitive-psychological processes of perception experienced by the viewers.

The production of Chromotopes and Chromograms is preceded by intricate and complex research processes in Coeln’s light studio: She experiments with color spaces, using projectors as chromotopic light sources. Color mixing, glass transparency, projection distance, light refraction, and paper properties are all tested; these elements serve both the Chromograms and the light interventions, in which viewers become co-actors.

Victoria Coeln’s Chromograms make use of the physical properties of light on multiple levels: First, light becomes visible as matter. Then, colors become perceptible through the cognitive-psychological construction processes of the human organism. The Chromograms themselves serve as media for the “formation” of perception, by already presupposing certain distinctions—for example, the selection of a particular color spectrum, which is ultimately made available to us as viewers.

From an evolutionary perspective, human color perception began with the ability to distinguish light-dark contrasts and simple color values. Only over the course of evolution did we gradually develop the capacity to perceive the richness of colors as we do today.¹

Victoria Coeln’s Chromograms and Chromotopes refer to acts of distinction. These distinctions can be observed throughout her works and always relate to both the production and reception processes. This self-referentiality ultimately focuses on the very act of making distinctions: for example, at the edge of the Chromograms, at the end of the paper, at the boundaries of the “carrier media” onto which the photographs are mounted. When it comes to the borders between solid materials, distinctions (paper/not paper) are relatively easy to make. Matters become more complex when we consider the light-space created by the works. Where does the bluish shimmer of color begin, and where does the reflection of color in the ambient light end?

As viewers, we are compelled to delve ever deeper, only to find that, in the end, we ourselves must draw the distinction—between the emission and remission of light, or color.

Katharina Gsöllpointner