Synesthesia
The topic on Synesthesia intrigued me last night. I was wondering if I could expand beyond “seeing noises” or rather a series of synesthesia conditions for my project. I have always wondered how a circle taste like? Why do I use a certain color more often than others? Is it because I relate colors to food? Like Orange -> Orange? Or it reminds me of the sun. It makes me feel happier and liver. How are my sense organized? Do they worked in a way that I thought they worked?
Objective:
- What is the significance of Synaesthesia in people’s lives?
- Does synesthesia have a function? Of what use is it? What are its benefits? We know that our five senses all have functions in our perception; hearing, for instance, is responsible for detecting relevant sound patterns in our sur- roundings. We also know that a loss of hearing can create danger. But what is the function of synesthesia in the perception of our environment? Similarly, does a lack of synesthesia cause harm?
And I thought I would like to explore deeper. Why Synesthesia is important because according to scientific evidences, everyone has a bit of synesthesia especially in creative people. And that’s how I discover my brain works, how I think and interpret my languages as a designer.
What is synesthesia? It is not an audiovisual performance, a literary technique, an artistic trend, or a metaphor. It is, perhaps, our hidden sense–a way to think visually; a key to our own sensitivity.
In addition to looking for an answer to the basic question of “what is syn- esthesia?” I was guided by a second question: “What is the significance of Synesthesia in people’s daily lives?” In other words, is their synesthesia useful? Do synesthetes benefit from perceiving synesthetically, or does synesthesia only bring them confusion or harm? My explorations led me along many unexplored paths and brought me into contact with many different people, including synesthetes, children, educators, neurologists, psychologists, philosophers, artists, poets, dandies, and drug users. In the end, their hints brought me to an unexpected but well-known source: the hidden sense.
Firstly, we need to look at the possible types of Synesthesia. It is important to note that synesthesia is not one singular condition. The word synesthesia is used to describe a number of different conditions (involving different or separate areas of the brain), ranging from smelling sounds, in which two basic senses come into play, to something as abstract as perceiving sexes with graphemes. Synesthesia of any kind involves a consciously perceived external stimulus which immediately and involuntarily causes a feedback loop in the brain, which in turn creates a secondary (or tertiary, etc.) perception of the stimulus, whether the secondary perception be formerly associated or whether it be arbitrary-but-situational.
I will be working on three combinations of Synaesthesia mainly. I was thinking of the idea of “questioning” such as ” Can the shape of your glass enhance the taste of wine”
Sight-> Sound: Musical typographical notation. A Video perception of seeing sounds in shapes and perhaps “feeling” sounds
Sight->Taste : 20 people to blindfold and eat a type a food and mould a shape to explore the relationship if taste does affects shapes
Touch->Sound: Tactile Visualization in publication
As mentioned, synesthesia comes in a many varieties. When a person thinks of mixed senses, what generally comes to mind is the mixing of sight and sound, taste and touch, or maybe smell and sound. If only the five senses — sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch — were considered to be “mixable” synesthetically, there would theoretically be 20 different forms of synesthesia, as follows:
| n = 25 |
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sight