Artist Emmanuelle Moureaux has used over 100,000 paper cut-outs of numbers to create an astounding installation entitled ‘Colour Of Time’. Designed to visualize the passing and flow of time it is a stunning kaleidoscope of colours.
The installation formed part of the opening of the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art & Design in Toyama, Japan. It formed part of an exhibition entitled ‘Art and Design, dialogue with materials’ which was held to introduce different characteristics and attractiveness of materials such as wood, metal and new forefront materials, shaped into various forms by artists and designers, with Emmanuelle’s showing the beauty and possibility of paper as a material.
With the sensory element ‘colour’, and the mathematical element ‘time’ the installation ‘Colour Of Time’ superimposes these two elements, to visualise and make one feel the flow of time.
From the sunrise at 06:30, the color transitions through a total of 799 minutes, passing 18:11 astronomical twilight to 19:49, when the color disappears into blackness. This flow of time is perceived through the transitional journey through 100 shades of colors.
The space was composed by total of approximately 120,000 numeral figures from ‘0’ to ‘9’, and a symbol ‘:’, regularly aligned in three dimensional grids. Although these figures seem like a dense volume, it expresses the flow of time in every minute.
The installation is composed of 100 layers, and in each layer the time flows from left to right, then into the depth of the installation. The top front layer starts from sunrise at 06:30 with pale colours, then their colours gradually become darker as time flows. At the end, the installation is completed by the time of darkness, 19:49, in a colour that is first time for Emmanuelle’s works to use in her installations – black.
As part of the exhibition a tunnel has been created so one of the paths leads straight through the middle of one installation. Through the tunnel, the sky is tinted with a beautiful gradation changing from pale to deep colours, flowing from time to time. The installation makes one feel the subtle changes in atmosphere through the whole body, by travelling the colourful flow of time.
Take a look at more of the pictures from the installation below, and click here for Emmanuelle Moureaux’s website.
