The Colour Out of Space
Author: Marine de Dardel
Published on NECSUS, 15 May 2025.
DOI: https://necsus-ejms.org/the-colour-out-of-space/
“The Colour out of Space” reflects the transmutation of the image through the combined use of computational tools and poetic fiction, superimposing abstract visuals with evocative text. Scripted with the p5.js web editor,1 shaded forms slowly emerge, morph, and fade as each point value is mapped across the HSB spectrum. The formless figures move between scientific realism and artistic abstraction, the macrocosmic and the microscopic, the vivid and the livid. Somewhat ironically, it is a machinic syntax that simulates an organic process of (de)generation of meaning. The resulting visual play, the sensuality of protean shapes resembling morbid conditions, refer to the incendiary aura surrounding the history of cinema: the unmistakeable image of the burning film.