The Shape of Poetry: A Typographic Exploration of Poetry and Synesthesia

The Shape of Poetry is a thesis which explores the relationships of synesthesia, typography and poetry. Synesthesia is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. This phenomenon is common in poetry as a rhetorical device. In graphic design, we uses typography and other visual elements to make cross-sensory metaphors as well. The similarity among these three provides a new field of research possibilities. The goal of the thesis is to visualize poetry by exploring typographic variations and implementing synesthesia findings. The final result is a campaign to promote William Shakespeare’s sonnets, in both print and digital applications. Overall the findings of this thesis aim at giving designers another angle when designing for multi-media platforms, and inspire those who have the similar interests in the relationship of sensory perception and design

A Social Semiotic Theory of Synesthesia? - A Discussion Paper

After a brief survey of ideas about synesthesia in philosophy, science and the arts, this paper explores the common qualities of the parameters of colour, graphic shape (including typography), timbre and texture, hypothesizes a number of points of correspondence and argues for their semiotic importance in the contemporary multimodal communication of identity

Sensing synesthesia

Sensing Synesthesia is an exhibition of experiments, carried out through the medium of graphic design as an attempt to generate a synesthesiac experience by visualizing sound. Since many elements within the realms of sound and sight are relative, creating a genuine synesthesiac experience for a viewing audience proved challenging. To address this problem, I created visual elements that corresponded with personal convictions, emotions and proclamations and presented them in a way congruent to the sounds being heard. Through these experiments, I discovered the personal growth of myself: the sharpened skills as a graphic designer, initiated interest in hand-rendered type as well as graffiti art as a style. Furthermore, I aimed that the interrelated, impactful relationship between sight and sound we all encounter on a daily basis generates a deeper experience despite our level of awareness

Sense and Spirit

My art practice is based on the study of sensory perception. How can the representation of synesthesia function in an art context, specifically painting? Further to this, what is the role of sensory perception in relation to Chinese cosmology and cosmic consciousness in my artwork? I explore synesthesia, Chinese qi, cosmic consciousness to approach and understand my painting practice, and the potential for artists to visualize ineffable aspects of perceptual experience. My work is influenced by both Eastern and Western painters, including Cai Guoqiang, Qiu Shihua, Timothy B. Layden, Pia Fries, and Elizabeth Neel. The large-scale paintings produced in this thesis make significant use of layering and marks that look like they were accidentally created; however, the paintings are composed intentionally using synesthetic experience and an abstract vocabulary. I am trying to approach a state of reconciliation between control and non- control and apply it into the gestures and marks of painting. I experiment with gestural and abstract painting approaches to develop a perceptual space of emptiness. I am inspired by both the concept of qi, which literally means “breath “and is the soul of Chinese landscape painting, and Richard M. Bucke’s definition of cosmic consciousness, which he connects to ‘intuitive logic’ and a highest level of mind. My desire is to explore a topography of spirituality that I associate with consciousness in order to reveal where sensorial experience can lead

Seeing Beyond the Visual: Sensory Perception and Synesthesia in Contemporary Installation Art

In this paper, I utilize scientific theories surrounding the neurological condition synesthesia to identify how multisensory installation art can challenge our understanding of the singularity of the senses. This exploration will form the basis of my theory of “synthetic synesthesia,” a term derived from my observation of synesthetic components in installation artworks that possess elements of multisensoriality, embodiment and immersion. This theory is applied to my analysis of select pieces by Marla Hlady and Peter De Cupere whose works involve sensory combinations, such as vision/hearing/touch (Hlady), and vision/olfactory (De Cupere). The works of both of my case studies reconsider how the participant interacts with an artwork by creating installations which augment the traditional visual art experience

Studio as Collage: Familiar and Strange

In this visual essay, I present an artistic inquiry I created as I examine the studio as a space to dwell, a space to daydream and a prompt for the imagination. I draw from previous research about artist studios and a visual archive created of objects within the studio as I re-imagine the studio as a collage; it is a place filled with odd juxtapositions of images, artworks, ideas and space that may produce new connections and imaginings. Through presenting the studio as both subject and process, I encourage readers to embrace the strangeness within familiar places

Interactive musical visualization based on emotional and color theory

Influenced by synesthesia, the creators of such ‘visual musics’ as abstract art, color organs, abstract film, and most recently visualizers, have attempted to illustrate correspondences between the senses. This thesis attempts to develop a framework for music visualization founded on emotional analogues between visual art and music. The framework implements audio signal spectrum analysis, mood modeling, and color theory to produce pertinent data for use in visualizations. The research is manifest as a computer program that creates a simple visualizer. Built in Max/MSP/Jitter, a programming environment especially for musical and multimedia processing, it analyzes data and produces images in real-time. The program employs spectrum analysis to extract musical data such as loudness, brightness, and note attacks from the audio signals of AIFF song files. These musical features are used to calculate the Energy and Stress of the song, which determine the general mood of the music. The mood can fall into one of the four general categories of Exuberance, Contentment, Depression, and Anxious/Frantic. This method of automatic mood classification resulted in an eighty-five percent accuracy rate. Applying color expression theory yields a color palette that reflects the musical mood. The color palette and the musical features are then supplied to four different animation schemes to produce visuals. The visualizer generates shapes and forms in a three-dimensional environment and animates them in response to the real-time musical data. The visualizer allows user input to actively direct the creation of a variety of different visualizations. This personalization of the synesthetic effects of the visualizer invites the viewer to actively consider his or her own unique associations and facilitates understanding of the phenomenon of synesthesia and sensory fusion

Metaphor and Senses

The book deals with the synesthetic metaphors in Synamet – a semantically and grammatically annotated corpus. The texts included in the corpus are excerpted from blogs devoted to, among others, perfume, wine, beer, music, art, massage and wellness. The thesis presents a Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and frame-based analysis of synesthetic metaphors in Polish. Using data from the corpus, the book provides ample empirical support for embodiment in metaphor and internal logic of mappings between frames. The study proposes new models of verbal synesthesia in the corpus and calls into question a universality of hierarchy of senses. This book should be of interest to researchers working within cognitive linguistics, in particular metaphor theory, frame semantics, corpus linguistics, and sensory science