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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Arts This Synaesthesia

Posted by Charles Mudede on Thu, May 28, 2009 at 10:29 AM

The news report:

We are all capable of "hearing" shapes and sizes and perhaps even "tasting" sounds, according to researchers.

This blending of sensory experiences, or synaesthesia, they say, influences our perception and helps us make sense of a jumble of simultaneous sensations.

Oxford University scientists found that people associate lower-pitched sounds with larger and more rounded shapes.

One of the team is now working with chef Heston Blumenthal to incorporate words into a new dining experience.

Synaesthesia itself is a rare and unusual condition thought to affect less than 1% of the population.

It can takes many different forms - some people may "see sounds", in that certain sounds trigger them to see particular colours. Others might experience colours while reading those words in simple black text.

The poem:

Correspondences

Nature is a temple in which living pillars
Sometimes give voice to confused words;
Man passes there through forests of symbols
Which look at him with understanding eyes.

Like prolonged echoes mingling in the distance
In a deep and tenebrous unity,
Vast as the dark of night and as the light of day,
Perfumes, sounds, and colors correspond.

There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children,
Sweet as oboes, green as meadows
— And others are corrupt, and rich, triumphant,

With power to expand into infinity,
Like amber and incense, musk, benzoin,
That sing the ecstasy of the soul and senses.

Comments (10) RSS

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I'm surprised you didn't go the Nabokov route, Charles.

A good book on the subject just came out called Wednesday is Indigo Blue. It's not often you read a book and find a description of yourself in it when you least expected it.

Posted by Chris B

on May 28, 2009 at 10:35 AM

Another good book is Born on Blue Day, the autobiography of Daniel Tammet. He is a highly functioning autistic (Aspergers) who has synaesthesia, too. He is able to control his synaesthasia in such a way that he created a visual landscape in his head that represents pi (3.1415926...) out to the 100,000th digit. Each series of numbers represents a shape and color. He puts them altogether.....and ta - da!

Posted by Jake on May 28, 2009 at 10:44 AM

I spoke with someone once who had perfect pitch. He associated the pitches with different colors. F would be red, G would be orange, something of that sort. I'm not sure if they were random colors or if they pitches moved sequentially across the color spectrum.

Posted by Jenny P on May 28, 2009 at 11:01 AM

Speaking of sound and shapes, here's two things:
Cymatics
And the other thing.

Posted by treacle on May 28, 2009 at 11:04 AM

And then there's the Ruben's Tube.

Posted by treacle on May 28, 2009 at 11:07 AM

It kind of reminds me of the different wavelengths of light. Some visible, but most must be seen with a spectrometer.

Posted by Vince on May 28, 2009 at 11:12 AM

Temporary synaesthesia is often caused by LSD.

Posted by facet on May 28, 2009 at 11:12 AM

If you smoke enough high-quality pot you can experience it, too.

And this is nothing to do with pot, but when I was little I associated numbers with colours: 1 = white, 2 = yellow, 3 = orange, 4 = pale blue, etc.

I also thought that 3 was mean, 4 wimpy, 5 smug, etc. Which is maybe just typical little-kid creativity, although I don't think it's a surprise that I respond really well to art and poetry (and can't do math to save my life).

Posted by Irena on May 28, 2009 at 11:23 AM

@8 'thc brings out the lsd in you' :-)

or, once you have the experience and ability to modulate and re-program, you can get there any way you like!

neural reprogramming is BAD kids, stay away!!!

Posted by danger! on May 28, 2009 at 11:31 AM

There is a workshop starting in June by the fantastic poet Melanie Noel on just this subject. I think there may be a few slots left.
From the press release:

"If I had some paints handy, I would mix burnt sienna and sepia for you as to match the color of a ‘ch’ sound . . . and you would appreciate my radiant ‘s’ if I could pour into your cupped hands some of those luminous sapphires . . . "

from The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov

This is a poetry workshop for artists interested in the medium of poetry. Though it is primarily a reading and writing class, it’s open to everyone – artistic or otherwise – seeking a way to reframe and investigate their imaginations. We’ll read and consider the five senses, as well as the elusive sixth, through the work of George Oppen, Claire Denis, essential oils, Arthur Rimbaud, Rebecca Solnit, Janet Cardiff, early silent films, Kazuo Ohno, Dylan Thomas, Samuel Beckett, Thelonious Monk, Ono No Komachi, and many others. We will find ways of listening with our eyes and seeing and tasting with our ears, with antennae for the ways our work might extend past a single dimension.
FELT: SYNESTHESIA & POETRY
A Five-Week Imagination Workshop
Tuesdays, June 2nd – June 30th, 2009
5-7 pm
Canoe Social Club at Theatre Off Jackson

Sliding Scale $150-175
*

Instructor Melanie Noel is a poet and currently completing her MFA in Poetry at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poems have appeared in Fine Madness, Filter and on the audio magazine Weird Deer. She has written poems for the installations Partsong and Collocation, and as a live score for What Remains Unseen, an experimental documentary by James Merle Thomas. She was a co-curator for the dance, music and poetry series APOSTROPHE with Gust Burns and Beth Graczyk. Felt, an intermedia sound installation with Gust Burns, will open in June at Seattle’s Jack Straw New Media Gallery.

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Posted by emmaz on May 28, 2009 at 12:08 PM