Research Focus Group Talk: Color: Additions, Subtractions, Signals

In this presentation, Ricardo Cedeño Montaña will describe some of the particular principles, mechanisms, and techniques by which color film functioned in its formative years and the coding schemes for (re)producing, storing, and transmitting color information in electronic and digital media. Using a media archaeological approach to technical media, Cedeño Montaña will show that color in technical media is anything but stable and such instability implies different contexts of sensory data processing and storage. This presentation is divided into three parts: In the first part, Cedeño Montaña will briefly discuss some aspects of the history of color science, and in the following two sections he will concentrate the analysis first on film media formats and second on the (re)production of color in electronic television and on digital screens for mobile devices.

Dr. Ricardo Cedeño Montaña is professor, media archaeologist of technical images, and multimedia artist. His artworks have been exhibited in Colombia, Argentina, and Germany. His recent research work focuses on the media archaeology of computer graphics and digital color. He is the author of Portable Moving Images (Degruyter 2017). As associate professor at the Faculty of Communications and Philology at the University of Antioquia, Colombia, he promotes algorithmic thinking for digital creation and experimental approaches to technical media analysis. He has worked as a professor of archaeology and media history, industrial design, and digital art at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Hochschule Bremerhaven, Universidad de los Andes and Universidad de Caldas. He holds a Ph.D. in History and Theory of Culture (2017, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Germany) and an M.A. in Digital Media (2009, Hochschule Bremerhaven, Germany). In Colombia, he studied Multimedia Creation (2003, Universidad de los Andes) and Industrial Design (1999, Universidad Nacional de Colombia).

Sponsored by the IHC’s Theories of Media and Techniques in the Wake of Postcolonial and Environmental Studies Research Focus Group, Department of Film & Media Studies, Department of Germanic & Slavic Studies, Carsey Wolf Center, Transcription Center, Department of Spanish & Portuguese, and Comparative Literature Program

Image credit: Ricardo Cedeño Montaña