Making Sense of Color

Google presents Making Sense of Color for Fuorisalone following its previous exhibitions A Space For Being in 2019 and Shaped by Water in 2023. In a multispace installation at Garage 21, Via Archimede, 26, 20129 Milano Italy, Making Sense of Color is a journey from the ethereal to the material that shines a light on the sensorial qualities of color. Co-created by Google’s Vice President of Hardware Design, Ivy Ross, and her design team in collaboration with the arts + research lab, Chromasonic, Making Sense of Color will be on view at Garage 21 in Milano, Italy, April 15 through 21, 2024.

This year for Salone del Mobile Milano, through Making Sense of Color, Google strives to show how color, which is elemental to sensing the world, is a powerful aspect of Google’s latest hardware design. Upon being welcomed into the exhibit, guests enter Chromasonic’s vibrant light and sound installation composed of repeating translucent scrims that create a series of open rooms and interstitial spaces. In this multi-layered experiential environment, each of the 21 spaces, or nodes, is activated by a single source of light and spatialized sound. As guests freely wander through and around the nodes, moment by moment, using Chromasonic Refrequencing which translates sound frequencies to light and light frequencies to sound, light is made audible and sound visible. This unique phenomenon gives rise to a depth of immersion that makes each person acutely aware of the connection between their body’s subtle movements and the movement of other people within the installation. A harmonizing of the mind and body connection through light and sound. From there, the exhibit experience shifts from the ethereal to the material as guests move onto a series of spaces, each dedicated to a particular color inspired and informed by a specific sensation. Step by step, sense by sense, a journey culminating in a feast for the eyes that shows how color comes to life through the design of Google’s hardware portfolio that will be on display. Making Sense of Color continues the conversation on thoughtful design by showing how color transforms our experience with the world around us.


Courtesy of Johannes Girardoni

About Ivy Ross
Ivy Ross is the Vice President of Design, UX, and Research for Hardware Products at Google, which was officially formed in 2016. Since 2017, she and her team have launched a family of consumer hardware products ranging from smartphones to smart speakers, earning over 250 different design awards. This portfolio of devices established a design aesthetic for technology that is tactile, bold, emotional, and undeniably Google. Ross has held executive positions with several companies including Calvin Klein, Swatch, Coach, Mattel, Bausch & Lomb, and Gap. A renowned designer, her innovative metalwork in jewelry is in the permanent collections of 12 international museums. Ross has received the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Women in Design Award, and the Diamond International
Award for her creative designs. She is also a Luminary Scholar at the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University. Ross has been a contributing author to numerous books including The Change Champion’s Field Guide and Best Practices in Leadership Development and Organizational Change. She was the keynote speaker at Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women Summit, and has been cited by Fast Company and Businessweek as one of the new faces of leadership. Most recently, Ivy co-authored with Susan Magsamen, the New York Times best selling book: Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us. Ross’s passion is human potential and relationships. She believes in the combination of art and science to make magic happen and bring great ideas and brands to life.

About Chromasonic
Chromasonic is an innovative arts and research lab that creates sites for immersive light and sound experiences to foster wellbeing. In Chromasonic’s synesthetic environments, participants see sound and hear color to inspire expanded states of awareness and connection. The melding of sensory modalities blurs boundaries between physical and perceived realities, suspending participants in a radical state of presence. Chromasonic is conducting neuroscientific research to illuminate the emotional, cognitive, physiological, and neurological effects of Chromasonic Refrequencing on participants. Chromasonic believes in the potential of the arts as a catalyst to harmonize mind and body and is building a network of temporary and permanent sites to support a sensory practice for wellbeing. Chromasonic’s first permanent site open to the public is “Satellite One” in Venice, California.
Chromasonic was formed in 2019 by multi-media and installation artists Johannes Girardoni and Harriet Girardoni, with sound artists and composers Orpheo McCord and Joel Shearer.