Synesthesia and Cymatics

Synesthesia means to use multiple senses to create a piece of art. The concept reminds me of the idea that a song or a band can remind you of a person, whether it be for a good or bad reason. Only with this the music can be associated with colours. I don’t think I am lucky enough to have experienced this collaboration of the senses, but the idea that Carol Steen could close her eyes during acupuncture and see a vision is quite a ‘far out’ thought to me. It must be a pretty exciting thing to experience. The most impressive example on the Wikipedia page to me was Ana Salz. She painted something which matched up to the music she listened to. It’s so hard to believe that by just looking at a painting, someone can be reminded of a song. If I hear a song, it can remind me of a film, a specific time in my life or, as I mentioned before, a person, however I don’t think I could be reminded of a song just by looking at a painting. Although I wish that was the case!

I guess that colours are often associated with emotions, for example red could be a symbol of passion or romance. Therefore, that concept could be discussed further and if you were listening to a love song, you may see the colour red. This could also apply to yellow with happiness or blue with sadness. For example, when I see the colour yellow, I am forced to associate it with summer, sunshine and happy times which I could then further associate with Reading Festival in England which I attended last summer.

Cymatics is the process of visualising sound. That’s a pretty cool thing to be able to do if you think about it. The fact that scientists are now trying to depict what dolphins are saying through cymatics when they makes noise is crazy, and feels very advanced, but an exciting thought all the same. The film ‘Passage’ which we watched last week contained cymatics, in that that images moved and contracted as the sound changed frequency or pitch. This is a random thought, but talking about cymatics reminds me of the part in the film ‘A Walk to Remember’, when Landon says, “love is like the wind, I can’t see it but I can feel it.” That quote has always stuck with me for some reason, but it’s interesting that now with cymatics it could be possible to be able to actually see the wind and therefore that whole quote could now be meaningless. But I’m a romantic so I’m going to stick with it for now...