To Harbour Light and Color.  Å Favne lyset og fargen.

                                                                                In between

Painting on the left. Size 15x15 cm measured with a distance of 20 cm  reflect 452 Lux. White printer paper. Size 15x15 cm measured at a distance of 20 cm  reflect 720 Lux. Painting on the right. Size 15x15 cm with 20 cm distance  reflect 664 Lux. View from my window.

Time-lap. When we with the camera can see something other than the eye sees, is the camera more objective than the eye? To see the same colour saturation in different colours, we can with black and white function see how similar the colour saturation is.

I mørket er alle katter grå. When the camera can see something other than the eye sees, is the camera more objective than the eye? To see the same colour saturation in different colours challenges our senses, we can with black and white function in the camera see how similar the colour saturation is.

The main aim of the Harbour Light project is to research and experiment with how new technology and communication address the concept in the space of all Dimensions in a playful and intuitive way, with temporal expression and an unlimited use of many tools. The main aims with the projects are to present, examine and experience, not only how we can design the space and time around us, but also how the design by nature influence us.

I will present, discuss and exemplify how we use and experience the nature of light and colour in the atmosphere, bring it into design and art, as a material for better understand local nature and diversity and relationships between localities. How it can be reflected and influence our own design art processes.

With our temporal experiments, we want to encourage reconsideration and sustainable perception. 

- Light and Site.

This project is about refraction and reflection of light through atmosphere at the Site. 

1. In Sir Isaac Newton’s famous colour project, he split white light with a prism into the colours of the spectrum. He assumed assumption that white light is composed of seven colours, and he successfully published the results of these experiments, in a paper to the Royal Society in 1672, which he called “Celebrated phenomenon of colours” and later 1704 in his book Optics. His results still form a basis for today colour education. But now we know that two complementary colours can also provide white light, and I think it`s better to divide colours in infinite numbers and let the context and the contend give priority to colour. We now know that the colour range varies in time, atmosphere light and location. In a natural context, no colour is the primary colour or all colours and colour relation, can be chosen colours. Newton was sitting in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire and publish his statement in books which nature are fixed concept and became a Global standard. The globalization of today communication is influenced of internet communication in as opposed to the real time, as opposed to the print media.

The colour gamut, in general for the world, is affected by the average of 0,48 per cent of moisture in the atmosphere. This is the overall percentage including the outermost layer of the atmosphere, but it can also be 75 per cent closer to the earth’s surface. (NMI, Norwegian Metrological Institute). This moisture (humidity) and the angle of sunbeams cause the colour to be different depending on where you are in the world. I have worked in the wintertime in Spitsbergen (Norway, 78’ north) this is an artic environment. In 2013 I was working with my research at the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute (China) 29’ north, which has a sub-tropical climate.

Subproject 1.< The Dark Light , The Light of Color and Color gives Colour >.

With his painting, the Danish artist Rud Ingemann Pedersen challenges how is the light in the dark. When is there colour and when is it the light of the colour? Eske K Mathiesen writes that Pedersen chose his palette for his paintings. The brown newly plowed field out in the wind and rain, out in the Nordic light. Chose the deep hues, especially the greens.

Rud Ingemand painting is <slow picture> where the relationship between the colours holds back. This minimalist between colour in motif and colour in the surroundings has strong tensions. I see this as surface colour that is reflected and is part of the light in the colours, when Colour gives Colour. In the Nordic countries we have the long shadows, the light in the shadow is mixed with the surface colours which describe an amorph form, a bridge between the object and the physical surrounding.
The dark light, how do I mix them, keep the darkness and light in the darkness as support for the concept?

I will test this as a painting myself, when the colours are separated by the denominations and we read out the motif from the light in the colours.

The artistic research is relevant, to develop concept for colour charts for surface outdoors in Nordic winter light and north of the Arctic Circle.

Figure 2. The same natural phenomenon also occurs in a drop of water and was the basis for BA student in the In-Between course 2014. Photo. Per Erik Larsen’s Floating Shadows and Dancing Lights installation. I have experienced between the diverse structures of nature is that there are no static boundaries, only dynamic thresholds. System of knowledge.

With interpretation and reinterpretation, to paint the light of darkness, an examination of the light in the dark. What do we see in the subject and what do we see when we paint in the light at noon?

In the painting, in the evening light, it became more difficult to distinguish the little amount of light in the blue color and in the green color, and in when meeting the colors flowed together.

After the evening darkness sunk, the distinction between light in the subject became light that divided the subject in front and the sky above. In the sky, the light hung on the horizon and the darkness in the subject grew darker, as if backlighted.

With the attempts to paint the Light of the Dark, I experienced those two colors, that were close to each other in color saturation, spatiality in the painting was formulated with the light of the color and less than with the color of the color. The light of the color was emphasized in the idea and materialized as the painting. The proximity between the color fields in the painting was a natural consequence of the weak light of the subject outside. The painting was to begin with more abstractly and when the eye calibrates the subject emerges more. The light of the color was tested and emphasized in idea and transformed into the painting. The proximity between the color fields in the painting was a natural consequence of the weak light in the subject outside.

In advance, I made two sketches and the experience from the sketching process led to a conceptual simplification of the motif. In the process of painting, with a focus on the light of the dark, there was an influence of the recorded observations and simplification process.

The next day in broad daylight I recognized what I wanted to paint, what was my ambition and what was the result after the problem of distinguishing dark blue and dark green colors?

Subproject 2 . < Skagen light. To Illuminate the intangible.> Bringing Light and Light Color project from artistic research to artist practice. Planned project for summer 2021.  Painting and object as documentation and memorized documentation. Since I was a little boy and my dad gave me my first oil painting set, I have been painting the atmosphere over the horizon. Now it is much more difficult, but still possible.  Why it's harder as an adult than as a child to paint the sky. At first, I saw the sky as one expression, after 8 years old I became more and more preoccupied with what it should look like and now sky is always better than a artificial sky.

The instrumental measurement of light and color intensity on Skagen becomes part of the sketch material for my artwork. The painting will be a combination of methods, from the research project on Skagen, to my own sense of the light and my own ambitions. It will be an examination of what influences me as an artist: what I sense and see and also the color pigments as the basis for further artistic discourse. - Why Skagen? Elements. The way the horizon sits very low on the sea makes the atmosphere more visible. The active meeting between the ocean currents outside Skagen creates frequent changes in the atmosphere. The rapid changes in the atmosphere, in light and shadow conditions, provide the opportunity to read surfaces and atmosphere. In a short time, we can see large differences in light and light color, which is a good opportunity for comparison. The large, sweeping landscapes cause a natural abstraction to take place which makes us see details more generally. The horizontal surface colors that affect the light colors in the atmosphere are also more generally mixed in the atmosphere.

Subproject 3. < Looking for Connection > . Concept and project proposal for KADK Lightlab. To Embrace the light is a sub-project to establish a real-time, visual, online transmission between the "World Clock" in Copenhagen City Hall and the Light Laboratory at the Royal Academy Copenhagen. The world clock shows mechanical (physical) information that is relevant to users of the Light Laboratory at the Academy. The clock shows the time in hours, minutes and seconds, lunar phases, leap years, moving holidays, middle time, true sun time, the height position of the sun and the sun position between sunrise and sunset , winter and summer solstice, autumn and spring equinox. The clock has its own drive that adjusts every New Year. Some future projects in the Light Laboratory may also be relevant culture, to be presented together with the World Clock.

https://cphmuseum.kk.dk/artikel/jens-olsens-verdensur

https://kglakademi.dk/vaerksted/lyslaboratorium

Associate Professor Charles Michalsen
University of Bergen - Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design.

- Based on fragment from paper published Cumulus conference Mumbai November 2015 toghter with professor Ashley Booth and BA student Per Erik Larsen. The project is continued at the Royal Academi Copenhagen 2021 and from 2021 too 2024 at UiB.  

To harbour the light

This project investigates how we use and experience atmosphere, the nature of light and colour into design and art, and how it influences our own art and design processes. With local atmospheric light and colour differences, as one starting point and immersive experience as an another, I will argue that the experiments with and findings of the refraction of light and colour and local culture reflections can help us to better understand nature. The local and global difference and relationships.

I will research how site and time specific light can bring new awareness to our own local identity and artistic practice. The aim is to develop a more sophisticated understanding of light and colour in nature and human colour culture to enable professional performing activities that can have an improved reference to site specific conditions. Because of the rapid communication other future partners and researchers quickly respond to the local result or compare global data and can continuously contribute and define the values of this research.

- Introduction to the main project , structured for continuous art oriented design.  

- Summery fall 2020.

The artistic research concept was published as a Paper at the Cumulus Mumbai conference, and my concept in this Paper was used in the new faculty building in the KMD Light-lab .

We are actively pursuing the opportunity to implement this research, showing that both nature and different devices can be an integral part of the art and design process. We seek help and collaboration to find methods, information and solutions on how to correctly measure and simulate light intensity and color intensity from anywhere in the world in the KMD Light-lab and other Light-labs.

We want to heighten our senses through experience. Through our experiments in the KMG Lightlab, we see the variations between color and light energies in the physical world. We see that the nature of light and color are both communication tools and designing by itself.  This difference and diversity can be a source of artistic activity.

Form of Light and Color is a complicated question.

                                                                  From Idea to Indication. Illuminating the Non Representable.

            Thoughts as inspiration. When a book is closed, the concept is not available. When we open the book, an idea is illuminated.

It`s not repurposing a stone. It is extension, which is different. Extension means moving it forward in time to a different context.  This is just so beautiful. Sense it.  Charles Michalsen

Photography Bjarte Bjørkum - Editing Ivo Bjørkum

System of knowledge .

-       I see Transposition as one of many different transformation processes. Oftentimes, transposition is a method of transformation that emphasizes concept, but in this case, transposition is about emotion. When I chose this flat stone among a thousand other flat stones, I used emotion and intuition as my guide. The film you saw in the beginning with Title <from Idea to Indication> deals with Transposition and Illustration in many Dimensions. When I stepped from the floor onto the stone entitled <a Stone to rest on. For thoughts> I Perceived it as a Transposition and change of Dimension - as an essential change.

-       But as a question about intuition: how much intuition is needed for a Transposition to be formed into ideas, thoughts , spoken words and visuality?

-       The stone is to rest on and it is for thinking. It gets its form from gravity. It illuminates the Non-representable and the immaterial.

-       An other When the stone lay in the mountain, it was in the dark. When we open a book , the light comes in, and the idea becomes visible and accessible. The transposition of the stone      is      the same kind of idea.

- How can this project be understand as Artistic research?

This project can be understood as Artistic research through the constant reflection that is inherit to artistic design practice. The main goal of the project is to research and experiment with how to formulate and focus on processing light- light-color and space linked with time and location. Communicate diversity by internet, to simulate in a Lighlab.   The project examines not only how we can design the space and time that surrounds us, but also how nature can “design” us. The aim is to better understand how to include design elements from nature.

From technical challenges, to artistic expression and user participation, these variations show the strength and possibilities of the project’s concept.

- Orientation and areas for research results.

The goal is to collaborate with other researchers around the world to develop a more sophisticated understanding of color culture, with a better citations of a site's specific color and light circumstances. Because of the contemporary simultaneous or the appearance of distance by rapid communication behavior the other researchers can easily respond to the result, can continuously affect, and define the values of this research.

With information from other locations in the world about light color and light intensity, we can simulate this information in the KMD Lyslab.

- Timeline.

-How can we learn the art of design from nature?

-How can we experience and use the light and color chart derived from nature and the atmosphere and bring this knowledge into design and art?

-How can we understand the nature of light and color, measure it locally and simulate it in a Light Lab?

-How can we cooperate and compare data from colleagues across the world and simulate the results in KMD Light Lab and be aware of diversities?  

-If research results respond to color culture variation, how can we recognize and communicate this? 

The project management, preparation, some testing, and method development took place in the KMD Lightlab University of Bergen and at the Royal Academy Denmark in 2021.

- Sustainability - improvements and new competence.

- Identify relationships between local nature and culture.

- See color cultural differences as something natural for everyone.

- Build up a research Light Laboratory for exchange and simulation.

- With observations over time could document and develop data on changes in atmosphere.

- The elastic room. How can the Arts include more of the outside conditions in, and the inside conditions include more outside   nature?

Standard as definition. On 2 April at 01:00 PM 1960 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight measured light along the same latitude and determined with an average what a LUX is. 

In this example, the 1 Lux standard was tested, and the result proved a nuanced Lux along the same latitude. 

Almere Netherland - 2 April 01.00 PM. Sun altitude was 44 ` - 68900 Lux. 

Bergen Norway      - 2 April 01.00 PM. Sun altitude was 42 `   - 64300 Lux.

To get the most objective measurements possible, we measured by the sea line in Bergen and Almere, the Netherlands, both places at the same latitude. The result is Light intensity, the Lux is almost the same. Measurement in Bergen was performed by Bjarte Bjørkum, in Almeere it was done by me, Charles Michalsen. 

The lux values are over 60,000 lux and for the senses it is a very bright light that we have trouble looking at for long periods of time. Remember a workstation light is recommended to be around 400 Lux. 

What Dimension of your Form?

The form process builds a bridge between idea and result, a good idea needs good material. I refer to physical form as 3D form and then it is -3D, which is the curved surface and creates an inside, volume and +3D solid and the surface of the material. Dark is added to the surface color and the mirroring expands the spatiality of the surface. This installation made in 2023 emphasizes light and color in many Dimensions. 

The In-between light and sight projects show great diversity, from technical challenges, artistic expression to user participation; I believe these variations show the strength and possibilities of the project concept. In the Light and Site = To Harbor Light - Å Favne lys project we see how technological development has made it possible to understand the nature and culture of lights and colors at almost anytime and anywhere on earth. In the artistic research project, through the building of the Light- lab, we are actively pursuing the opportunity to implement this research as part of our educational programming , showing that both nature and devices  can be an integral part of the design process. We seek help and collaboration to find information and solutions on how to correctly simulate light and color from anywhere in the world in a light-lab. We aim to better understand diversity in nature and culture. 

Instead of just analyzing and abstracting, we also want to heighten our senses through experience. Through our experiments, we see the variations of color and light energy in the physical world, and that the nature of light and color can be both communication tools and designing by itselves.

It is possible to trigger sensations through interactive activities that encourage disorientation, reorientation, and sustainable appreciation.

The nature of light and color is different, different places?

Vilde Takle, second year master in design at KMD, UiB, carried out fieldwork for my research whilst sailing with the tall ship Statsråd Lehmkuhl, she sailed across Pacific Ocean. 

South of, and north of the equator, she measured light intensity and light color at a total of 15 different positions.

When the measurements were made out on the sea, which is relatively flat, and the making measurements in 14 other places out at sea, a cloudless sky, and the same sun height, gave an assumption about the light colors. Air humidity was measured at the same time to ensure approximately the same atmospheric conditions.

In the animation made by Vilde Takle, we can see the colors change little. In the blue color field, there are only insignificant changes.

Do you want to see the colors in my brain?

Clifton Taylor in his book Color & Light, writes about research at Sydney University which shows that the brain perceives colors quite similarly for all people in different parts of the world.

Perception is a selection, where the composition and analysis, it is how we interpret and decipher results in various color cultures.

Standard what does it mean for us?

Light intensity is measured in Lux, but what is 1(one) Lux? 

On 2 April 1960 at 13.00 the light intensity was methodically measured along the same latitude across Europe and the average became the definition of what 1 Lux is. 

In Norway the light reality we live in is 1/3 in winter darkness, 1/3 in Nordic summer light and about 1/3 in that light, the same light as the rest of Europe. What does it mean to have a standard and is it a necessary practice it or can we be more elastic in spatial understanding and art practice?

Author and former professor of sociology Else Øyen, who according to the Store Norske Leksikon, is one of the prominent figures in Norwegian social research in the latter half of the 1990s. On the morning of 2 December 2022, we had a breakfast conversation about the standard and my research entitled <To Harbor light and color. Å Favne lys og farge >.

How can we understand the meaning and value of the standard and the European standard that defines what 1 (one) LUX is?

During the conversation I made some notes and afterwards I have interpreted them and tested how it looks under the categorizations True Reality (more man-made) and Current Reality (more inclusive of nature).

Standards are an academic issue that is also a political academic issue. When we sense, how do we identify values and how do we scale values up and who is affected by them?

About True Reality and Current Reality 

-   Prestige and Economy, a symbiosis. The show must go on. Being an expert 
in different areas of design is also a description of an economy. The combination with experts who use the standard of succeeding in getting associated with big economy.

-   All fixed standards such as fashion is economically viable, associated with an understanding 
of inside-design and outside-design.

-   It is usually those who use pre-agreed standards who lead education.

-   The work with design, when you fight for a lux standard in design, 
more often leads to acceptance and new jobs in new places.

- About reality

-   Sometimes the design is unique because it is location-oriented and include expertise 
and local experience. Developing a unique design does not have to be wild, extreme or 
10% riskier than what the engineers calculate is possible. 

-   Color circle is man-made - spectral shows light and color include nature. 

-   Context and time perspective. Who will take over the design and what does it mean? 
This design issue is more about living with design than designing.

-   When it comes to using LUX as standard, it does not affect what we see.

-   With a natural, local, and site-oriented understanding of light, we can use instruments such as spectrometers.

-   Surface color is more than just a surface problem.

-   When one thinks location-oriented, there will be more random variables and an openness that better includes artistic research (development work).

-   When it comes to LUX as standard, it affects what we opt out of, what we don't see. Because it was technically difficult to measure light intensity and light color, it has largely been about surface color to deal with the colored surface.

-   With the natural, local, and local light differences that include how we experience light 
and color, we can live a better life with color.

Elastic design thinking. Design reflection as part of artistic development is design that is different and partly without standards.

-   Free research. Artistic development work is critical use of standards. 
With open standards, the art of design can be adapted to more interests.

-   Sustainability. An example is when it is more location-oriented and less standard.

-   Method and political power. All standardization can exclude elastic design thinking. 
When custom designed, quite a few more interests are made political.

-   Human made design. Elastic standards, have different interest groups and multiple values.

-   Design for empathy. Standard and empathy. When the Other feels the design gives a sense of belonging and will return for that reason.

-   Design with sympathy. When the design shows understanding for the Other who can provide a better life.

Can we let natural light and color make up a greater proportion of our ideas and practices?

With a more elastic standard in the processes for designing rooms could they be more sustainable use and locally oriented?

Figure 1. The motives on these two plates illustrate how the same colours are seen differently, in two different places at the same date and same time of the day.

                                  Tittle <The road to mount Sinai>. Less than 2D.

                                                   About the light of darkness.

Oil paint and gold leaf. Size 15x18 above cm and under 40x40 cm .I use black color that removes 3 Dimensionality. Miss of light effect in black color disappears depth of painting and canvas with blind frame.

2 . While working with my research focus about light, colour and location I experienced colour as a global and local phenomenon and compared the perception and reality of colour between Svalbard

Norway and Jingdezhen China. My research showed how colour in various geographical locations could differ and therefore affect my design. 

My experiments included over-glazed painting on porcelain, I painted an Asian woman seen from behind, I made two versions one in Svalbard light and one in Jingdezhen light (figure 1). The colours varied enormously. In arctic winter conditions, I experienced a density of colours, whereas in subtropical conditions I saw a width in the colour palette. I compared Jingdezhen’s colour spectrum with one from Svalbard which I received from the University of Tromsø Department for Aurora Research (figure 2). Svalbard’s colour spectrum is rather different from Jingdezhen’s. In Svalbard, the sunbeams enter the atmosphere at a lower angle, but there is colour and light even when the sun is low on - or below the horizon because the sunbeams are reflected down by the atmosphere and from particles of moisture ( figure 4). This happens when the sunbeam angle is less than 30 degrees (the same natural atmosphere phenomenon also occurs in a drop of water and in ice (frozen water).

Figure 4. System of knowlegde.