1 00:00:07,672 --> 00:00:12,581 [James Turrell: "Second Meeting"] 2 00:00:18,690 --> 00:00:21,092 You don't normally look at light, 3 00:00:21,092 --> 00:00:24,627 we're generally looking at something light reveals. 4 00:00:28,366 --> 00:00:32,435 For me, it was important that people come to value light-- 5 00:00:36,773 --> 00:00:43,212 to value light as we value gold, silver, paintings, objects. 6 00:00:44,914 --> 00:00:50,086 It's not something that you form with the hands like wax or clay. 7 00:00:50,086 --> 00:00:53,423 You don't carve it away like with wood or stone. 8 00:00:53,423 --> 00:00:56,393 You don't assemble it like welding it. 9 00:00:57,327 --> 00:01:00,529 And it's kind of learning your craft-- 10 00:01:00,529 --> 00:01:03,699 it took a while for me to learn to work with light 11 00:01:03,699 --> 00:01:09,007 so that you really felt its physical presence and came to value it. 12 00:01:22,986 --> 00:01:27,257 I started making these kinds of spaces first in my studio, 13 00:01:27,257 --> 00:01:35,231 but the idea began to evolve so that I actually was making these spaces outside-- 14 00:01:35,599 --> 00:01:39,204 that you actually entered to then look out from, 15 00:01:39,204 --> 00:01:45,209 as opposed to gain outlook or even insight on how we perceive sky. 16 00:01:45,243 --> 00:01:51,248 This is a space where I want to bring the space of the sky down to the top of the space you're in, 17 00:01:51,248 --> 00:01:55,284 so that you really feel to be at the bottom of the ocean of air, 18 00:01:55,652 --> 00:02:05,195 and you really then experience this quality that can happen at the change of day to night and night to day. 19 00:02:05,261 --> 00:02:08,931 But doing this right at the cusp of change was very important. 20 00:02:27,082 --> 00:02:29,563 [WOMAN] I mean, it looks pretty dark in here... 21 00:02:29,563 --> 00:02:30,855 [TURRELL] Light out there... 22 00:02:30,855 --> 00:02:34,925 [WOMAN] And you go outside, and you're out there for maybe 30 seconds looking at the sky, 23 00:02:34,925 --> 00:02:39,096 you come back in, and you see more blue than you did when you left. 24 00:02:39,096 --> 00:02:40,396 [TURRELL] Yes. 25 00:02:40,396 --> 00:02:44,000 [WOMAN] Your eye has just adjusted again. It's amazing... 26 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:47,370 [MAN] Or if you would do this, it gets blue again. Look. 27 00:02:47,370 --> 00:02:50,113 [WOMAN] That's a trick someone... [LAUGHS] 28 00:02:50,729 --> 00:02:55,044 [TURRELL] So what about color? How is it formed? 29 00:02:55,044 --> 00:03:01,218 Basically, we feel, when we look at the sky, that we receive this blue, this color. 30 00:03:02,063 --> 00:03:06,646 This light, lighting the space in relationship to the sky outside, 31 00:03:06,646 --> 00:03:10,294 would definitely intensify, greatly, the blue. 32 00:03:10,861 --> 00:03:21,279 There are a number of painters who've really intensified color by the surround or the context of a shape or area. 33 00:03:22,146 --> 00:03:31,314 You could be not only looking at a painting or a work of art, but you're actually looking at yourself perceiving. 34 00:03:33,250 --> 00:03:42,362 This world that we have around us is not a world that we receive, but more a world that we create and make. 35 00:03:42,896 --> 00:03:48,479 Now, this seems a bit of a surprise because we really feel--and we are very much attached to the fact-- 36 00:03:48,479 --> 00:03:52,769 that we are receiving these perceptions as opposed to creating them. 37 00:03:52,802 --> 00:03:57,207 But we do create the reality in which we live.