A&O - Synesthesia

8/13/2019 A&O - Synesthesia

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02/12/13 A&O - synesthesia

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SYNESTHESIA NOTES

Diary note ...Reminiscence ... "So they are going to replace MOMA. ! In the oldMuseum of Modern Artthere was aLUMIA in the basement ... I visited each of the

few hundreds days I visited MOMA (studying in the cafe or garden led to many happy

encounters) in the 1960's visiting Thomas Wilfred's work ... his light sculptures

projected on a screen in a light-sheltered tent. Some computer media players have

a version of it ... transforming sound into synchronized colored clouds ... But Wilfred

devised the "clavilux" that transformed strokes on a keyboard into project ions of

light. The psychedelic light shows that accompanied a few favorite musical groups

tapped into a deep reservoir of cognitive creativity: the sensory vocabulary of most

disciplines find alternative ways of communicating the experience pathetically

inadequate: tasters of wine, tea, coffee ... sniffers of colognes ... we have all had

experiences that cannot be adequately embraced by any one sensory domain ...there is no vocabulary sufficient, but sometimes more holistic sensory

representation - converging senses - feel closer.

|About LUMIA| Thomas Wilfred|LUMIA site (retasked for "Starball" in 2012)

Find out about the novel, rebours...

explore the performance theories of gesamtkunstwerk

SYNESTHESIA

"Synesthesia [also synaesthesia] is an involuntary joining in

which the real information of one sense is accompanied by a

perception in another sense. In addition to being involuntary,

this additional perception is regarded by the synesthete as

real, often outside the body, instead of imagined in the mind's

eye. It also has some other interesting features that clearly

separate it from artistic fancy or purple prose. Its reality and

vividness are what make synesthesia so interesting in its

violation of conventional perception. Synesthesia is also

second sensorial opinion
http://www.photonlightguitars.com/aboutlumia.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wilfredhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesamtkunstwerkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%80_rebourshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wilfredhttp://www.photonlightguitars.com/aboutlumia.html


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fascinating because logically it should not be a product of the

human brain, where the evolutionary trend has been for

increasing separation of function anatomically." (R. Cytowic,"Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses" quoted at

http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/ ... Dr.Richard Cytowicalso

wrote:

"Some people say they "see red" when angry, or they talk

about "sharp" cheese, "cool" jazz, or "loud" ties. But do you see

pink triangles on hearing music, or feel yourself on a prickly

bed of nails when eating cherry pie? Do ordinary words,

names, and voices have specific colors, peculiar shapes--even

distinctive flavors?

If this sounds perfectly normal, then you may be one of a

handful of individuals with synesthesia, the cross-wiring of thesenses that is experienced in the first-person not as

imagination, but as an external and involuntary sensation.

Neurologically, synesthesia involves only the left hemisphere,

and relies on limbic structures for its expression. While we

usually regard the cortex as the home of sensory perception,

there is, during the multisensory synesthetic experience, a

counter-intuitive collapse of cortical metabolism, without

effecting subjects' higher intelligence or normal behavior.

The implications of synesthesia lead to a multiplex model of

brain organization that rejects the hierarchical supremacy of

neocortex and the usual emphasis on objectivity. This multiplex

model stresses limbic regulation, subjective experience, and

non-verbal knowledge."

OVERVIEW of SYNESTHESIA by Ramachandran & Brang

an account on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=DvwTSEwVBfc

Fred Callopy's project described in Leonardoand visit his site:

"Rhythmic Light"

Large Quirky Collection of Synesthesia Resources

[more]
http://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/e972592203c877ef8525676b005ded2d/bcdac8cc4f31b0da85256cef0005fad5?OpenDocumenthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvwTSEwVBfchttp://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Synesthesiahttp://wearcam.org/synesthesia/cytowic.htmlhttp://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/


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A Psyche

Symposium on Synesthesia

Managing Editor: Stephen Jackson

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From the abstract of Richard Cytowic's article:

Synesthesia (Greek, syn= together + aisthesis= perception)

is the involuntary physical experience of a cross-modal

association. That is, the stimulation of one sensory modality

reliably causes a perception in one or more different senses.

Its phenomenology clearly distinguishes it from metaphor,

literary tropes, sound symbolism, and deliberate artisticcontrivances that sometimes employ the term "synesthesia" to

describe their multisensory joinings. An unexpected

demographic and cognitive constellation co-occurs with

synesthesia: females and non-right-handers predominate, the

trait is familial, and memory is superior while math and spatial

navigation suffer. Synesthesia appears to be a left-hemisphere

function that is not cortical in the conventional sense. The

hippocampus is critical for its experience. Five clinical featurescomprise its diagnosis. Synesthesia is "abnormal" only in being

statistically rare. It is, in fact, a normal brain process that is

prematurely displayed to consciousness in a minority of

individuals.

Is There a Normal Phase of Synaesthesia in Development?

Simon Baron-Cohen

Synesthesia: Phenomenology and NeuropsychologyRichard E. Cytowic

Synesthesia - A Real Phenomenon? Or Real Phenomena?
http://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-26-dacosta.htmlhttp://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-10-cytowic.htmlhttp://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-27-baron_cohen.html


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Luciano da F. Costa

Synesthesia and Method

Kevin B. Korb

A Synesthesia Experiment: Consciousness of Neural Activity

James Schirillo

Synaesthesia and Synaesthetic Metaphors

Sean Day

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WORKS of ART (such as the Lumia, noted above and below)arguably orchestrate

multiple sensory modalities to be integrated in a more complete

aesthetic experience:

Compare such ambitions as manifest in

gesamtkunstwerk

and in how music works with cinema: Music can take controlof the image; it can also suggest a world separate from

the image, or expose the image as a lie.excellent points made about Eisensteins view (he worked with

Prokofiev).

Orson Wells also an example (Bernard Herrmanns music as

Rosebud burns in Citizen Kane).

Stanley Kubrick (Well meet again in Dr Strangelove).

Most of essay, Sound and Vision by Alex Ross in The New Yorker June

27, 2005, was on recent Sound Projections at Lincoln Center and Philip

Glass ensembles work for Godfrey Reggio/ Philip Glass collaborations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesamtkunstwerkhttp://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-32-day.htmlhttp://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-14-schirillo.htmlhttp://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-24-korb.html


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Koyaanisqatsi (1982; Hopi for life out of balance), Powaqqatsi

(2002, life in transformation), and Naqoyqatsi (2008, life as war).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=tp5gxR7D_tw

MODERN INCARNATIONS: DIGITAL LUMIA

[George Stadnik's] "Digital Lumia owes its very existence to pureinspiration from seeing the work of the 20th Century Lumia artist,Thomas Wilfred. Mr. Wilfred's compositions were performed inconcerts and exhibited as light sculptures throughout the UnitedStates and Europe. They were always silent -- visual music. Mr.

Wilfred intended that participants interpret the imagerysynaesthetically - what the eye saw in the composition, triggeredthe mind to create the complementary or contrasting sound, flavor,texture or feeling. There was no narrative, as such, althoughWilfred's pieces could evoke fantastic landscapes, futuristic cities,elegant gardens or the most primitive, primal moments. [Stadnik's]work builds on that tradition and brings it into a contemporarycultural context to inspire and stimulate each participant to discoverand create their own visions, stories and emotions within." -GeorgeStadnik; from a catalog for an exhibition of his Digital Lumia work, based on that of

Thomas Wilfred. Visit his website, The Art of Lumia.

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A&O - Synesthesia

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