By Sarah Schorr, Gabriel Pereira, and Carlos Oliveira

Transparent. Translucent. Opaque. Reflective. What is the color of Water?

In this installation, water is a reflecting pool for both the human and computational understanding of color. Like water, these perceptions are always transforming.

The web and physical installation The Color of Water: Algorithmic Sea explores the sociotechnical perception of color, especially how it is actualized through computer systems and their algorithms. The sea of colors shown in the installation is composed of a multitude of user generated colors. These colors undulate between the user and computer algorithmic processes.

In 1814, Abraham Gottlob Werner created color charts with the ambition of making a color standard through naming corresponding minerals. The Color of Water (2019-2020), a photographic body of work by artist Sarah Schorr, expands Werner’s charts to include the feminist, embodied, and situational dimensions of color by amending the charts to include metallic reflective colors. The Color of Water: Algorithmic Sea extends this inquiry, marking a collaboration between Sarah Schorr, Gabriel Pereira, and Carlos de Oliveira.

Through this installation and a digital essay, we do not provide a definite answer to the question of what is the color of water for a human or a computer. Instead, we seek to reflect the inherent qualities of "partial," "change", and “bias” through the critical collecting, analyzing, and displaying of a sea of colors. This installation invites you and the algorithm to see color as a flow, as opposed to a fixed variable.

Add your color to the sea here

Read an article about our process in the journal, Digital Review, here