On Light and the Aesthetics of Color: Lumia Kinetic Art

Modern technology has allowed a change in the conception as well as in the use of light in pictorial art. In contrast to traditional modes of static light reflection, the images in the Lumia genre of kinetic art are back-projected onto a translucent screen, change color and may be in motion. The psychophysics underlying the medium and the aesthetics appropriate to it have been studied but little. The author first reviews the physical bases and technological advances that have made Lumia kinetic art possible. Secondly, he initiates a consideration of the aesthetics of color as perceived on a screen of Lumia by examining, in a series of empirical investigations, the hedonics of such color. These results are then analyzed in the context of an aesthetical doctrine known as ‘aesthetics from below’.