Magellan's Log: Skintones Introduction

S K I N T O N E S

Untypically vague, science says the human eye can distinguish "several million" colors. Think, then of how many multiples of millions of pathways must exist in the mind which somehow attach meaning to each of those colors.

Surely one of the most complex color inputs which we encounter many times every day is that which comes from human skin. First, you have the infinite qualities of skin itself. Then, you have the infinite meanings which we attach to those various qualities.

To take just one example: Skin flushed by an excess of blood beneath it can mean embarrassment, anger, shock, sexual arousal, excess heat, and so on.

Color, texture, tension, age: We read all these skin signals without thinking.

What if we could somehow isolate some of those signals, and reconfigure them, reshape them, so that there were taken out of the expected context? How would we react?

Following, you will see 17 skin images which have been manipulated to remove familiar context. What your eye sees, what your mind interprets from these images thus will come from past experience, NOT from the factual content of the images. There are NO genitals depicted here. But, as a product of a society which uses clothes both to decorate, to conceal, and to imply and tease, you may be surprised at the connections your mind conjures up.

Click here to start a slide show of the images,
with also a music midi file in the background.

Back to Magellan's Log 48

Magellan's Log front page

Send this page to a friend.