An experiment of colour psychology through the power of montage.
Ras
Collaborators: Medha Agarwal, Amuda Vasant, Priyanka S and Rahul Rahanu
Software Tools: Premier Pro, After Effects, Illustrator
Skills: Experimentation, Dance, Story telling
Watch the film here
Overview
This film is an experiment in colour psychology. We associate, colours with certain emotions. Red with love or anger, yellow with happiness and enthusiasm, blue with calm and sometimes disgust. But what if we reverse them. Could a blue heart denote love? Or could yellow flags instigate anger? Would the exchange of the colours and their commonly associated connotations, effect our perception or do we feel the same?
This was made as part of an international collaboration with Central Saint Martins, called Transnational Exchange. The collaboration was done remotely by sharing of footage amongst team members on a shared topic. The concept our group chose was identifying, demonstrating and challenging colours and their importance in human life.
Introduction to the colaboration
As part of the Transnational Exchange, students from Srishti School of Art Design and Technology in India, were teamed up with students from Central Saint Martins in the UK. My group had four members and we began by sharing our ideas on what we wanted to do as part of this project. Through communications over video calls during the Covid pandemic, we realised that all of us wanted to work on abstract and experimental pieces. We also discovered a shared interest in exploring colours in different ways. We pooled all these ideas, backed with research on a shared virtual board.
Method of Collaboration
Based on this, we came up with sub topics that we wanted to deal with through our art, be it a film, painting, animation or performance.
As part of remote collaboration, we shot our footage, recorded sound and made art pieces individually. We then put them up on a drive that was accessible to all group members. We were free to use this shared library to create our final work. I used an art piece by my group member, Rahul as part of this film.
Classical dance forms have established steps, emotions and themes. For example, Sringar ras has a subsection of a girl waiting for her lover. To test the effect of changing the colour association with emotions, I used blue instead of red in the art direction.
Similarly, I used yellow, usually considered a happy colour to potray Raudra, or furry.
For Shanta ras or the feeling of calm, I used bright red.
Classical dance forms have established steps, emotions and themes. For example, Sringar ras has a subsection of a girl waiting for her lover. To test the effect of changing the colour association with emotions, I used blue instead of red in the art direction.
Experiment Idea
For this video art exercise, I wanted to use the power of montage, as demonstrated in the Kuleshov effect, to rewire the brains of the viewer to accept an unconventional colour association. I chose to use classical dance forms to portray three of the Navrasas (Nav= nine, Rasa= emotions). Keeping established conventions the same in form, body and symbols, I used art direction to introduce colours that portray the opposite emotions.