sense of colour

here are the beginnings of my critical/creative writing essay---the twelve of us are each writing on different "sites" of montreal (i.e. the chinese grocery store, the racetrack, the sidewalk...) which will be compiled like 12 mosaic tiles and published at the end of the semester. anyhow, here is what i have so far...it isn't so good, i know, but i haven't been able to think so clearly because of the cloudy feeling of my stomach...i hope tomorrow goes better since i have to send it to my classmates tomorrow evening:

“In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is--as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art. In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize that color deceives continually. Practical exercises demonstrate through color deception (illusion) the relativity and instability of color. And experience teaches that in visual perception there is a discrepancy between physical fact and psychic effect…This way of searching will lead from a visual realization of the interaction between color and color to an awareness of the interdependence of color with form and placement; with quantity (which measures amount, respectively extension and/or number, including recurrence); with quality (intensity of light and/or hue); and with pronouncement (by separating or connecting boundaries).” -from Interaction of Color written by Josef Albers, 1963

There is a moment in walking, when time stops. It slows down in fact and the tips of the fingers, the taste buds of the tongue, begin to have silent dialogues with the nostrils and eyes. It is in these quiet conversations that our body detaches from the sidewalk it is walking on and engages with the objects around us. The same conversation that detaches our body from that specific place is simultaneously recorded entirely through our body. The following is a dictation of five dialogues of sense overheard on the portion of Boulevard Saint Laurent between Rue Sherbrooke and Rue Rachel:

Situation eavesdrop one: There are 13 on the sidewalk east and another 15 of our brothers on the west. You pass us everyday with little regard. Our skin tastes of metallic, chipping paint. Perhaps you can taste the rust on our square hinges where the men come to unscrew us. We can still hear the ringing in our ears from their visits. The sirens are so loud, but it is all made better when we can feel the coolness of the liquid pressure inside flowing out. When the men visit, it always smells of smoky soot, fire and ash. I wonder if you smell the visits from the dogs on our corrugated shell.

Situation eavesdrop two: Side by side we are set, one atop the other. Pardon the stench of fresh oil-based paint. Someone came along just recently and decided to hide our innate kiln fired clayness. Now, our pores cannot breathe and the raindrops slide down our faces like they do on your slick poncho. Can you feel the softness of the mud from which we once came? Lick the new shiny paint. It is glossy against your tongue where we used to be dull and rough. We know we live in a world where face lifts and nose-jobs are now the norm, but this new resemblance we have been given sounds and feels so plastic. You cannot even see the way our shoulders are linked one to the other anymore because of the prosthetic. We do not taste like the tomato skin we now wear, and do not like the suffocation one bit.

Situation eavesdrop three: Stop! I command all of you. I have the ultimate power, in my circular eye you look back at me with waiting.

Situation eavesdrop four:

Situation eavesdrop five:

Situation eavesdrop one + two + three + four & five = a 3 letter word which smells, tastes, feels, looks and sounds like R E D .