Multimodal Approach to Color Analysis: Heuristic Potential

A great body of research in “color studies” inevitably works with color phenomena from semiotic positions, concentrating on various semantic systems of color and concept of it being valuable knots of people`s notions and world visions. Without arguing against the effectiveness of such approach to some studies, we critically review color semiotics and its transitive automatic perception of color phenomena, and discover oppressing effects of color semantics on individuals in socio-political dimension. Consequently, we propose an alternative multimodal approach to color analysis and color perception, that advocates for more complex and three-dimensional view of the phenomena, as a specific substance, which materializes in the process of co-existing with human, while generating its own unique affects. Taking the main concept from non-representational theory, and also borrowing some theoretical grounds from psychophysiology and phenomenology, we outline the theoretical framework of multimodal approach to color, and use a number of multimedia cases (sci-fi movie, immersive art-installations and performative writing) to demonstrate its practical heuristic potential to the “Color studies” research field.