10. SYNESTHESIA

An interactive Installation

Synesthetic Research and Design Lab Location: Philadelphia, PA

Synesthesia is the pilot to a series of interactive installations directed by Severino Alfonso and Loukia Tsafoulia at the Synesthetic Research and Design Lab. This project is a living organism producing dynamic, unexpected, and sensorial experiences, never static nor predetermined. The community is the maker of the installation that comes to life only through their participation. Synesthesia has been exhibited in 2021 at the HotBed Gallery, Philadelphia, USA; the European Cultural Center as part of the 17th Venice Biennial in Venice, Italy; and at the Municipal Theater of Piraeus in Athens, Greece in 2022. It was exhibited in the great hall of Trajan’s Market in Rome as part of the 2,775 years from the foundation of Rome celebration in April 2022. As an internationally traveling installation, the project engages different audiences, communities, contexts and cultures with a special focus on individuals with diverse perceptual modes. The installation’s interactive interfaces and live streaming features expand human agency through the use of sensors, actuators, realtime response, and a human-machine participatory constitution.Performance and participation are sought not only as an experience but as a way of research and a way to create knowledge and awareness, independence and inclusion; as a process and a response to social and experiential considerations.