7 minute read
The phenomenon of synaesthesia
SAFIYA TIOTTO-SMITH (UPPER SIXTH)
In the 5th Century BC, Plato argued that the human senses were deceptive and made us prone to belief in the illusory, and were thus the incorrect way to gain a true understanding of the world. As brilliant as Plato was, in the contemporary world it feels more sensible to recognise that the senses are very much omnipresent, and that trusting them can achieve great things in the realms of art. There is an underrated phenomenon that has existed for years and years, touching only a select few people and undoubtably changing their experience of human life and the world around them. This phenomenon is called synaesthesia.
Synaesthesia is a neurological condition that enables a person to experience one sense through another, often described as a ‘cross-wiring’ of the brain. In Ancient Greek, ‘syn’ means union and ‘aesthesis’ means sensation, so the terms come together to mean the union of the senses, or ‘to perceive together’. This abnormal intertwining and tangling of sensations is immediate and uncontrollable for the synaesthete. One of the most common instantiations is seeing letters, numbers, or sounds as colours. One might also: see or hear a word and taste food, hear sounds and see shapes or patterns, hear sounds after smelling a certain scent, hear sounds and taste food, feel an object with one’s hands and hear a sound, or feel a touch when seeing someone else being touched (known as mirror touch).
Though abnormal and uncommon,
synaesthesia isn’t a disease or disorder, but is often incorrectly perceived as
one. Some people, however, do struggle with it; children claim it can hinder their reading, or prove difficult when they see colours that other people cannot relate to. However, most synaesthetes interpret their condition as a ‘sixth sense’, not a drawback, and I feel it can be recognised
as a creative and aesthetically stimulating gift.
Synaesthetic art: the subjectivity of style For synaesthetes, colours are predominantly experienced in the mind, enhancing their standard sensory experiences of the world with this additional component that cannot be derived from experience.
However, many have come to embrace living so intimately with colour by projecting what they experience into physical forms in the real world. No artist produces the same type of piece, nor experiences colour in the same way, but this is the beauty of it all.
Melissa McCracken is an artist from Missouri with chromesthesia, the ability to hear music and see colours. McCracken summarises her condition in the following words:
The subjectivity of the senses that Plato tried to warn us about is in fact something beautiful that encourages individuality and uniqueness.
“Basically, my brain is crosswired. I experience the ‘wrong' sensation to certain stimuli. Each letter and number is coloured and the days of the year circle around my body as if they had a set point in space. But the most wonderful ‘brain malfunction' of all is seeing the music I hear. It flows in a mixture of hues, textures, and movements, shifting as if it were a vital and intentional element of each song.
Melissa McCracken The concept of every song and genre generating wholly different sensations in the mind is incredibly intriguing, as if her
synaesthetic soul is being poured out onto the canvas to capture a moment
in time. Synaesthesia therefore behaves as a creative catalyst that threedimensionalises the experience of art and music as individual fields, uniting them to form a unique fusion of sound and vision. By sharing her experience through the medium of paint, it also allows other people – both synaesthetic and nonsynaesthetic people – to engage with her ideas and put themselves in her sensory shoes.
Here are some of McCracken’s paintings, which were created through her sensory experiences when listening to different songs. What is fascinating about hearing these songs whilst viewing the art is that not all of the works, perhaps none, will make sense to you.
Scan the QR codes to hear the songs which influenced the paintings.
This is how McCracken describes her personal experience of sounds and styles:
“Expressive music such as funk is a lot more colourful, with all the different instruments, melodies, and rhythms creating a highly saturated effect. Guitars are generally golden and angled, and piano is more marbled and jerky because of the chords.
Melissa McCracken
Though McCracken is able to justify some of the connections between the music she hears and the art she creates, she has expressed that there are still some connections that she struggles to understand, which “proves the subjectivity of sense experience as well as aesthetic experience.”
Not all synaesthetic art is limited to a canvas of smoothly blended colours and/or sporadic smudges and splatters of paint. Some artists and their brains tend to translate sound into more distinct shapes and patterns. A particularly unique and interactive example of this style can be seen in the works of Reyes Padilla, an artist from New Mexico with a passion for jazz music. In 2018, Padilla participated in Eras of Jazz: The Visual, a site-specific installation that transforms the room into a visual experience of jazz. As expressed by the Mesa Arts Centre, “by painting what he sees, Padilla captures what seems like a natural dance between two worlds.” The shapes and patterns flow across the room as a live score of music, veering off in different directions and exploring different shapes. Not only does this represent the personal journey that jazz takes the artist on, but it also immerses the viewer by providing a visual trail and three-dimensional experience for people to engage with.
As we have established, for many people, colour is much more than a wave of light, or a ‘thing’ to look at – it is an experience. For a synaesthete, colour can be lifechanging. With there being such a close link between sound, music and art, it is no surprise that this ‘sixth sense’ can also touch musicians in an impactful and creative way. American guitarist, singer and songwriter Jimi Hendrix excited his audiences in the 1960s with his outrageous electric guitar playing skills and his experimental sound, and Hendrix has his synaesthetic experience of colour to thank for his innovation. Hendrix admitted that he could not read sheet music, instead learning from a young age to play by ear and use words or colours to communicate and express his ideas. Hendrix thought that “some feelings make you think of different colours,” and that “jealousy is purple – ‘I’m purple with rage’ or purple with anger.” Not everyone would agree with Hendrix’s associations, but this is simply because we are not him. A lack of relatability does not detract from the creativity and uniqueness of the works that these ideas have fuelled, proving that the subjectivity of human experience is something fascinating, not frustrating.
The spiritual, synaesthetic experience of art Another realm of synaesthetic art places less focus on the visualisation of pre-existent external musical sources, but rather on letting the art itself create the music. It is about the musical characteristics of colours themselves. It is as if one hears what they paint, like composing a score of music. For the famous Russian artist and synaesthete Wassily Kandinsky, this fusion of art and music was the key to his work.
Though a cellist and pianist in his lifetime, it can definitively be said that Kandinsky’s main musical instrument was his paintbrush. He could hear colours and shapes like many other synaesthetic artists but had a more spiritual perception of the artistic process. Kandinsky himself asserted that colours have musical and spiritual properties, and, more accessibly, aural qualities: no one would associate yellow with low notes nor deep blue with high notes. Subjectively, he heard yellow as trumpets, red as violins, and blue as a heavenly organ, each colour representing a different note that creates “vibrations in the soul.” His unique geometric style can also be attributed to music, with his lines and points forming an artistic equivalent to rhythm.
One of Kandinsky’s most resonant and well-known teachings is to “approach colour as a window into the human soul.” Artist or not, synaesthesia or no synaesthesia, there is something to be taken from this poetic phrase by everyone.
Colour is all around us, not just in the
arts but in everyday life. Being human is being an active engager with the world we live in: seeing, touching, tasting, feeling. We often forget how special subjectivity can be – your own personal lens for seeing the world. Aesthetic experiences shouldn’t always be about relatability; they should be about connecting with yourself, finding what you love. For McCracken, Padilla, and Kandinsky, synaesthesia led them to art and music. If these aren’t your thing, tap into your senses and find what speaks to your soul, what gives you purpose. In the wise words of Kandinsky, by contributing to and creating things:
