555 nanometers

Artists:
Animal Spirits: Sue Theron (Australia) / Sam Gillespie (Australia) / James Na (Australia) / Paul Hutchison (New Zealand)

Collaborators:
Liam Mulligan (Australia) / Wynolan Pacheco (Philippines) / Bow Jaruwangsanti (Australia) / Nicola Tarazi (Palestinian Territory)

555 nanometers suspends a canopy of shimmering green light above an historic laneway in The Rocks. A ‘creature’ of its surroundings, this restful green space responds to sound, light – and the weather.

It is accompanied by an acoustic landscape using cicada calls as the starting point to create an absorptive environment.

Of all the colours in the visible spectrum, the colour green – specifically at spectrum 555 nanaometers – is the colour that the human eye is most sensitive to and the most relaxed by. This means it is the easiest colour to look at. Our eyes are, in effect, at their most relaxed when viewing this bright yellow-green hue, the colour of sunlight shining through translucent leaves.

We perceive colour through three kinds of photoreceptors (or cones) in the eye: L, which responds to light of long wavelengths, M, which responds to medium wavelengths and S, short-wavelength light. We see different colours depending on how much each type of cone is stimulated. The human eye is most sensitive to green light (555nm) because green stimulates two of the three kinds of cones almost equally (L and M). It's almost as if we evolved as a species under a canopy of leaves.

The aim is to bring you an installation which is evocative of summer, a relaxing space inspired by nature, abstracted to the structure of the city environment.

Country represented by installation: Australia