The True Colors of “False” Color: Representing Data Chromatically in NASA Films

Harris, C. E.

The True Colors of “False” Color: Representing Data Chromatically in NASA Films

License

Citation

Harris, C. The True Colors of “False” Color: Representing Data Chromatically in NASA Films. 2021. url: http://www.raco.cat/index.php/Comparativecinema/article/view/386893

This citation was generated automatically.

Abstract

This paper investigates the multifaceted uses of color — not (only) to aesthetic ends, but as a tool for translating data into narrative — in a corpus of recent NASA films. Often called ‘false’ color or accused of manipulation, these uses of digital color stray from photorealism but nonetheless have a direct, measurable relationship with physical reality: they use data to render visible that which lies outside the spectrum of visible light. The focus of this paper is on the truth status of these digital films and on the practices used to produce them. It situates them, as a corpus, within and in response to film studies historiographies of color centered around spectacle and the dichotomy of fantasy versus reality, addressing how color can deploy the powers of the false to reveal otherwise invisible truths through art and artifice.