Synesthesia and Art

Synesthesia in art is a very interesting concept and one that I have never really considered. I think as viewers it has become so easy for us to disregard the separateness of sound and image, instead we view them as one complete thing. Synesthetes, however, may find that certain sounds and images evoke something different than usual; numbers may have a color, and colors may have a sound. Scientifically speaking, synesthesia is defined as “the elicitation of perceptual experiences in the absence of the normal sensory stimulation.” The artistic field attempts to highlight this condition by causing the viewer to simultaneously perceive two or more stimuli as one gestalt experience (also fitting into the category of synesthetic art are films made by synesthetes). There are many conditions of synesthesia (grapheme—color synesthesia, spatial sequence synesthesia, sound—color synesthesia, number form synesthesia, and many more), each producing some different effect. Subjects of synesthesia would hardly call themselves “victims.” Rather, they view their condition as a blessing. Synesthesia has been largely explored in art for its audible possibilities. Through color organs, musical paintings, and visual music artists have attempted to capture and convey this sense of synesthesia to both synesthete audiences and non-synesthete audiences. I think the continued practice in this area of art has real potential to add an interesting dimension. While filmmakers have been working at this idea of synesthetic art for a while, I think there is still plenty of room for progress. While the audible component of synesthesia is the one most often explored in art, there are plenty of others to play with. Many synesthetes describe experiences such as: numbers having personalities, years having three dimensional form, days having height, words having taste, and many more. All of these seem very interesting and should, therefore, be further explored in art.