Friday, October 10, 2008

Random: Test your Color IQ

A while back I put a bunch of contemporary art blogs and magazines on my bloglines ---- where they promptly piled up by huge amounts and I never get around to checking them. Every once in a while, though, I try to clear out some of the backlog.

I can't really tell still why the reviewers find certain new works really interesting and others pretentious and derivative, but I'm getting more familiar with what they look for and how they connect up allusions (intended and unintended). I've seen a bunch of stuff that I like, but haven't really memorized any names yet beyond the ultra-famous Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. I can see why they're excoriated in the art world, though. (They're more like performance artists, commenting on the shallowness and commercialization of high-finance art, than actual content-producing artists --- that is, the critics are more interested in the way Hirst just auctioned off his stuff directly to the public without any gallery or dealer intervention than they are in his mass-produced color spin or butterfly paintings or even his animals in formaldehyde. But this allows him to have his commentary on commercialism cake and eat it too.)

Anyway, last night I caught up on one of the many blogs --- Art Fag City --- oh, and ended up having a weird dream about global art markets (is there nothing I can read before bed?) --- and he posted a Hue test, which was fun to take: Test Your Color IQ. You have to put all the colors in the correct gradation. I didn't get a great score, but I'm going to try again later when my eyes aren't feeling so tired and out of focus and see if the score changes. Here's a screenshot of my color distinctions, with the flat parts being correct and the bars marking mistakes:


So, I don't distinguish greens as well as reds. Interesting, eh? The purple bars could also be that I have the attention span of a gnat and was getting bored and having trouble making my eyes focus on the screen. But now I feel like I need to have someone with a good color eye look at my wardrobe and home decorating patterns ... ooh ... no, no that sounds like a terrible idea. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

65 for me. almost perfect at the red end and crap on a stick at the blue/purple end. But I also have the attention span of a gnat.

kermitthefrog said...

Wow, I am unexpectedly and perhaps meaninglessly good at this. (I scored 7.) Hey, if you want to fly me out to Cali, I'll look at your home decorating patterns for free!

LumpenProf said...

I scored 23. I like tests I can do well on. Does this mean that color perception doesn't drop off with age the way hearing does?

Sisyphus said...

Well, Lumpenprof, it means you aren't colorblind. But my eye dr said something about how the color of your iris literally fades with age (we're talking 50, 60s or so) and the sharpness of distinguishing colors fades as well, and that avoiding sun glare can slow it down. Great --- another aging-related thing to worry about!

Sisyphus said...

Ok, second try I got a 79, and I could definitely feel myself thinking, "damm, this is boring" about two-thirds of the way through the process, but what's interesting is that the mistakes are still lumped around the green spectrum.

I want to hear back from someone with partial colorblindness about this test.

Neal said...

Perfect score baby! I rock! (Even took a screenshot for the record because I'm a huge dweeb who likes to brag about whatever I can).

Given that I have the attention span of, say, a small fly, I was a bit surprised, but I guess I'm just that awesome!

k8 said...

I'm absolutely shocked I scored 15. I am not good at visual art-like things, let alone matching colors. It must be a fluke.

Horace said...

I also scored a zero on this, which probably explains why when I try to explain the difference between "Cayenne" and "paprika," my friend Sue says, "looks orange to me."