Synaesthesia
Wassily Kandinsky: The painter of sound and vision
'The idea of music appears everywhere in Kandinsky's paintings. He believed shades resonated with each other to produce visual chords and had an influence on the soul.'
He wrote enthusiastically of how "a certain Dresden doctor tells how one of his patients, whom he describes as 'spiritually, unusually highly developed', invariably found that a certain sauce had a 'blue' taste".
Grapheme Colour- Numbers and Letters are associated with colour.
Chromesthesia- Sounds are associated with colour.
Number form- A mental map of numbers that can randomly appear.
Personification- A rare form where letters, numbers and objects are associated with a specific personality or gender.
After moving away from our initial idea about the sex shop, we began to focus all of our attention on Synaesthesia as our subject for 'People and Place'. Whilst still brainstorming for the Sex shop we had put up a post on Facebook asking people whether they had Synaesthsia and we managed to get some solid responses from about three willing people. This was our main incentive to drop the sex shop idea as we had a much stronger direction with Synaesthesia. Leah, in our group, also has it so we'd already seen a few pieces of her beautiful work to get us inspired. We also decided from the get go that we wanted to create a mixed media piece, incorporating animation into the final cut. So what better topic to do so than Synaesthesia? The prospect of all the exciting visuals we could come up with inspired us even more.
Examples of Leah Martin's Work:
Linking it to the brief:
It works with the theme as it is a personal condition that can come in different forms. Therefore, it would be a point of view documentary. It also affects your perception of your surroundings, therefore fitting with 'place'. And as it is so personal and dependant on what type of Synaesthesia you have, it therefore links to people.
Facebook Post:
We did have someone correct us on our definition which was interesting. We didn't really know what to think of that as she publicly announced our mistake but we took it as a positive, thanked her for her knowledge and altered the definition.
It's on this post that were we're suggested to look into Poppy Porter, who then became one of the main focuses for our Documentary. We were sure to message all people interested and all people recommended to us instantly to make sure that they'd be willing to participate in our film and so we'd have time to make changes if needs be.
Claudia had a talk with Leah to find out more about her experience with Synaesthesia while Kaitlan got to Emailing Poppy Porter, the jeweller who someone had kindly mentioned to us on Facebook.
Leah Interview:
Kaitlan managed to get a hold of Poppy Porter who seemed really keen to help us so, she set a date and time for a Face Time interview just to get to know her.
I held the interview with Poppy and found it extremely interesting. It was only meant to last half an hour but stretched to an hour because there was so much to cover!
Poppy Porter Interview:
We need to think about exactly what it is we want to film from her. She said that we are more than welcome to come down to her studio and we can also use any of her media from her YouTube etc...
She gave me the name of an animator with Synaesthesia because i mentioned how we wanted to
incorporate animation into the documentary:
His instagram tag is 'diggery_synesthesia'. Real name, Josh.
Josh
Animating
Music
Sketching
Use Ro5a for the social experiment.
We did lose contact with Poppy for a while as we couldn't come up with a set idea.
I had said to her that we'd let her know the structure of the day and what day that would be but as our
decision making almost overlapped with shooting week, everything was becoming a little last minute.
We had a tutorial with Anne to cover logistics.
Tutorial:
Would Poppy be willing to play music? Either sound record or video record.
'Fruity Loops' music software- the software she uses.
Male representative- Animator with Synaesthesia, Josh.
Scheduling is important, work out when Poppy could be filmed.
Check availability of rooms and people now.
Really think about the structure of Synaesthesia as it's so beautifully visual and a story.
Play with transitions.
We contacted all our interviewees and we managed to get back to Poppy after Leah rang
her and spoke to her directly. It turned out that none of them would be free on the same day
at the same time so we knew that it would be best to scrap the social experiment idea and
just focus on them each as individuals. We were able to book the studios we wanted for the
Tuesday, Thursday and Friday so that gave us a wide range of days to pass on to our interviewees
in the hope that they would be free at least one of those days.
Josh was available all week and we decided to move away from Megan because, as interesting as she
sounded, she wanted to have her thai chi stick on show in a public place and we didn't have the
permission for that. It was too late to try and get it at this point and we decided that we had a good
amount of subjects for the project anyway and they all complimented each other nicely.
The plan was to have Josh come down to Farnham on the Thursday night to be filmed on the Friday 6th.
We were going to film Poppy at her studio in Godalming on the Thursday morning and Fi at Uni
that afternoon.
We also thought we could film Leah back at her house on the Monday 2nd.
It was all turning into a bit of a rush due to being set on the social experiment idea but we got there in the end and started to plan for shooting week.
He wrote enthusiastically of how "a certain Dresden doctor tells how one of his patients, whom he describes as 'spiritually, unusually highly developed', invariably found that a certain sauce had a 'blue' taste".
There's so much depth and colour in all of Kandinsky's paintings because it's what he's experiencing right in that moment. It's not a replica of any other image, it's not trying to be anything other than what it is. It's simply a collection of strokes, texture and colour base on the sounds that Kandinsky can see. It's a different experience for every synestheet but from the research i've done, a lot of people associate the colour blue with a sad song/sound or deeper colours with deep, grungy bass lines. Lighter colours therefore represent the lighter more fragile sounds. Kandinsky's paintings are a journey and he is definitely what got me more inspired to carry through with this idea of Synaesthesia. There's so much we don't know and even though there have been listed five main types of Synaesthesia, there are still so many different variations to be uncovered.
5 main types:
Chromesthesia- Sounds are associated with colour.
Number form- A mental map of numbers that can randomly appear.
Personification- A rare form where letters, numbers and objects are associated with a specific personality or gender.
After moving away from our initial idea about the sex shop, we began to focus all of our attention on Synaesthesia as our subject for 'People and Place'. Whilst still brainstorming for the Sex shop we had put up a post on Facebook asking people whether they had Synaesthsia and we managed to get some solid responses from about three willing people. This was our main incentive to drop the sex shop idea as we had a much stronger direction with Synaesthesia. Leah, in our group, also has it so we'd already seen a few pieces of her beautiful work to get us inspired. We also decided from the get go that we wanted to create a mixed media piece, incorporating animation into the final cut. So what better topic to do so than Synaesthesia? The prospect of all the exciting visuals we could come up with inspired us even more.
Examples of Leah Martin's Work:
Inspired by Lana Del Rey's 'Body Electric'
We were concerned about how we'd link Synaesthesia to both people and place but we soon figured that out.
Linking it to the brief:
It works with the theme as it is a personal condition that can come in different forms. Therefore, it would be a point of view documentary. It also affects your perception of your surroundings, therefore fitting with 'place'. And as it is so personal and dependant on what type of Synaesthesia you have, it therefore links to people.
Facebook Post:
We did have someone correct us on our definition which was interesting. We didn't really know what to think of that as she publicly announced our mistake but we took it as a positive, thanked her for her knowledge and altered the definition.
It's on this post that were we're suggested to look into Poppy Porter, who then became one of the main focuses for our Documentary. We were sure to message all people interested and all people recommended to us instantly to make sure that they'd be willing to participate in our film and so we'd have time to make changes if needs be.
Claudia had a talk with Leah to find out more about her experience with Synaesthesia while Kaitlan got to Emailing Poppy Porter, the jeweller who someone had kindly mentioned to us on Facebook.
Leah Interview:
Chromesthesia
Grapheme- numbers and letters
Movements also - could be a form of revision that helps memory
Spatial sequence- diagonal and in a colored folder
Hard to describe its like describing a dream to someone
When did u first find out?
Junior school- walking to school with mum and brother and her mum spoke about her
brothers synesthesia .
brothers synesthesia .
It was confusing at first. She didn't really realise that she had it as she was too young to
realise what her mum was talking about.
realise what her mum was talking about.
Around 7 years old when she was more conscious about it.
Used it to calm her down, she would focus on the patterns.
Used it to calm her down, she would focus on the patterns.
Using it to her advantage/ creatively during college 2015.
Effects her everyday life more now, especially at an art uni, it helps her come up with ideas.
Begins by meditating. Read book peace in every step, really helped her connect with
Synaesthesia. Prefers melodies when coming up with work.
Quite a spiritual person when she gets into the creative process.
Synaesthesia. Prefers melodies when coming up with work.
Quite a spiritual person when she gets into the creative process.
Smells can trigger really detailed memories that she can recall every time she listened to
a song. Doesn't even know if that's Synesthesia anymore.
a song. Doesn't even know if that's Synesthesia anymore.
I held the interview with Poppy and found it extremely interesting. It was only meant to last half an hour but stretched to an hour because there was so much to cover!
Poppy Porter Interview:
Poppy has Chromesthesia- heard sounds evoke an experience of colour.
What form does it come in?
Something you can pay attention to or not pay attention to.
Nick Cave- ‘15 feet of pure white snow’
Different instruments have different sounds- baseline maybe purple. Happens with eyes open and closed.
Not heavy and overwhelming sensory effect- depends on volume. Incredibly delicate and jewel like.
Depends on the timbre or how it’s played. Music she likes is more vivid.
Abstract flower, flower turns into smoke.
Something quite percussive will have a definite shape.
Symbol splash- sunburst.
Bass drum- red blood cell.
Distorted effects have colours and shapes around the natural sound of the instrument.
Plays bass guitar and sings.
Seeing an abstract colourful animation.
Holds a headspace around your head.
Like it’s infinite- happens in space.
Usually things appear at the bottom.
Timelapses of drawing on YouTube.
At college 2007- graduates.
Dyslexic.
Not a massively intrusive thing.
Don’t really pay attention to it all the time.
Doesn’t block your field of vision.
Didn’t have the confidence to use it at college.
Tried listening and trying to draw what she saw.
Hard because it moves and the colours are really complex.
Peacocks feather- imagine it moving.
Brain never truly satisfied.
Jewelry almost entirely based on guitarist playing.
Slightly chaotic and distorted sound of playing that inspired that process.
Showed me a ring with a crackled edge- liquid and silver lightning look.
Replicates what you see in a distortion on rock guitar.
Things you see- 3D physicality to them- not flat.
Drawing transforms 3D world into 2D.
Commissions- people come in with specific songs and jewelry is created from them.
She is: learning engraving.
Trying to add colour into jewelry.
Airbrush artist as well- she’s trying to combine the two.
She then emailed me after with a plethora of useful links and resources to help us with research,
including another artist with Synaesthesia that we could get in contact with.
including another artist with Synaesthesia that we could get in contact with.
She also offered up the idea of us coming to film in her studio which was only about a 20 minute
drive away so we considered that as a strong option. As we did quite like the idea of filming each
person in their own comfortable spaces so as to make their Synaesthesia seem even more personal
to them. We were, however, still strung up on the social experiment idea and really wanted to try and
make that work.
drive away so we considered that as a strong option. As we did quite like the idea of filming each
person in their own comfortable spaces so as to make their Synaesthesia seem even more personal
to them. We were, however, still strung up on the social experiment idea and really wanted to try and
make that work.
Extracts from Emails after the interview with useful links:
Hi Ellie good to chat here's some useful links :)
Also would it be possible to have some of the footage you might
shoot of me to use on my social media etc? Credit to film makers of course!
shoot of me to use on my social media etc? Credit to film makers of course!
Poppy Porter
https://www.poppyporter.co.uk/how-vivid-synaesthesia-and-muse-live-
briefly-disintegrated-my-conscious-mind/
briefly-disintegrated-my-conscious-mind/
https://www.poppyporter.co.uk/when-i-listen-to-matt-bellamys-swirling-guitar-
playing-my-forged-silver-jewellery-takes-on-its-metaphysical-shape/
playing-my-forged-silver-jewellery-takes-on-its-metaphysical-shape/
https://www.poppyporter.co.uk/four-ways-i-invite-chaos-into-my-creative-process-eliminating-
failure-and-making-my-jewellery-more-authentic-as-a-result/
failure-and-making-my-jewellery-more-authentic-as-a-result/
https://www.poppyporter.co.uk/how-it-took-eleven-years-after-leaving-art-school-to-learn-how-
to-draw-properly/
to-draw-properly/
https://www.poppyporter.co.uk/how-vivid-synaesthesia-and-muse-live-briefly-disintegrated-
my-conscious-mind/
my-conscious-mind/
We need to think about exactly what it is we want to film from her. She said that we are more than welcome to come down to her studio and we can also use any of her media from her YouTube etc...
She gave me the name of an animator with Synaesthesia because i mentioned how we wanted to
incorporate animation into the documentary:
His instagram tag is 'diggery_synesthesia'. Real name, Josh.
Above is a link to one of his animations that was inspired by the composition of Nicholas Veinoglou.
I immediately got in contact with Josh over Instagram as his animations were so beautiful. He responded with so much enthusiasm so again, we set up yet another Face Time. He had also worked with Poppy Porter before so this made the whole dynamic a lot more interesting.
At this point however, we still didn't have a solid idea of what exactly we wanted to shoot. We had an idea to conduct a social experiment and base the rest of the Documentary around that but we knew to do this, we needed everyone we were interviewing to have similar schedules.
Claudia managed to get in touch with a girl, Fi, from UCA who only recently discovered she had Synaesthesia. Claudia and I met her in the Canteen for a brief interview. She also, was very keen to help us and i think she was one of the main reasons we wanted to try and develop the social experiment idea. She told us that she didn't really know anyone else with Synaesthesia, so what better way to do so then conduct a social experiment with several Synaestheetes all in one room. We thought it would be effective to book out a studio and just have these people sit in a room and have a genuine chat about different things they experience. We also thought it'd b interesting to use the projectors to our advantage and possible project images and sounds to see how different people reacted. Although Fi was on Campus, she was a second year actor so had a very busy schedule. Josh lived all the way up in Coventry and Poppy in Godalming. It was a task trying to arrange dates and times for all these people. Josh had also asked in his interview if there was a chance we could pay for his train down. We said yes of course but we wanted to make sure we were certain on the dates as to not mess him around.
Interview with Fi:
Experiences only one variation of synaesthesia 'Chromesthesia’.
Thought everyone else could also see/relate music to colours until this summer,
which is when she found out that she had synaesthesia.
She does not know anyone else with it and is really eager to meet the others we have been
interviewing so they can all speak about their own experiences.
which is when she found out that she had synaesthesia.
She does not know anyone else with it and is really eager to meet the others we have been
interviewing so they can all speak about their own experiences.
She told us that when sounds sound similar they will look similar too.
Fi doesn't use her synesthesia to make specific art however she said if she happens to be
doodling and listening to music her doodles would be influenced by the chromesthesia.
Fi doesn't use her synesthesia to make specific art however she said if she happens to be
doodling and listening to music her doodles would be influenced by the chromesthesia.
Having chromesthesia influenced her music preferences and told us that slow songs are hard
to listen to but she really likes songs that begin a certain way and change half way through
as she enjoys the change in colour and patterns that she sees.
to listen to but she really likes songs that begin a certain way and change half way through
as she enjoys the change in colour and patterns that she sees.
Like anyone else songs affect her mood but I think that having chromesthesia makes her more
sensitive to this change in mood as she told us she doesn't like songs
that appear ‘blue’ as it also makes her feel blue
sensitive to this change in mood as she told us she doesn't like songs
that appear ‘blue’ as it also makes her feel blue
After contacting all of these people we realised that time was running out and we needed a solid idea. We still hadn't come up with a shot list or storyboard as we had too many ideas. We just started making lists of all the things that needed doing and tried to assign different people to making sure they get done:
- Need a storyboard and idea of what we want to film.
-Keep in contact with interviewees!
-Animation can wait, get footage first and brainstorm animations along the way.
-Production pack needs to be done
PRODUCTION FOLDER CHECKLIST:
A Synopsis
B Documentary Treatment and Script
C Story Board/Description of potential scenes.
D Risk Assessments
E Permissions
F Contributor Release Forms
G Schedule
H Call Sheets
Questions- possible ideas
How does it affect your daily life?
What do we want to know?
How often to people experience it?
Is it a positive or negative experience?
We could have a reverse section- people without Synaesthesia?
SOCIAL EXPERIMENT
Projections
-could be how we introduce each person
-project liquid light show
Have people talking to each other- a group interview.
DAY STRUCTURE
We bring them in and have a little introductory chat, telling them about the project and make them feel comfortable.
Start with a group discussion.
Organise separate, individual interviews.
Get voice overs of music responses and animate this.
Get people up painting to music- painting what they see.
Possible Interviewees:
Fi
Chromesthesia
Painting
Talking to people
Megan
Thai Chi
Colours
Science
Movement
numbers
Poppy
Music
Jewellery
Painting
Sketching
- Need a storyboard and idea of what we want to film.
-Keep in contact with interviewees!
-Animation can wait, get footage first and brainstorm animations along the way.
-Production pack needs to be done
PRODUCTION FOLDER CHECKLIST:
A Synopsis
B Documentary Treatment and Script
C Story Board/Description of potential scenes.
D Risk Assessments
E Permissions
F Contributor Release Forms
G Schedule
H Call Sheets
Questions- possible ideas
How does it affect your daily life?
What do we want to know?
How often to people experience it?
Is it a positive or negative experience?
We could have a reverse section- people without Synaesthesia?
SOCIAL EXPERIMENT
Projections
-could be how we introduce each person
-project liquid light show
Have people talking to each other- a group interview.
DAY STRUCTURE
We bring them in and have a little introductory chat, telling them about the project and make them feel comfortable.
Start with a group discussion.
Organise separate, individual interviews.
Get voice overs of music responses and animate this.
Get people up painting to music- painting what they see.
Possible Interviewees:
Fi
Chromesthesia
Painting
Talking to people
Megan
Thai Chi
Colours
Science
Movement
numbers
Poppy
Music
Jewellery
Painting
Sketching
Josh
Animating
Music
Sketching
Use Ro5a for the social experiment.
We did lose contact with Poppy for a while as we couldn't come up with a set idea.
I had said to her that we'd let her know the structure of the day and what day that would be but as our
decision making almost overlapped with shooting week, everything was becoming a little last minute.
We had a tutorial with Anne to cover logistics.
Tutorial:
Would Poppy be willing to play music? Either sound record or video record.
'Fruity Loops' music software- the software she uses.
Male representative- Animator with Synaesthesia, Josh.
Scheduling is important, work out when Poppy could be filmed.
Check availability of rooms and people now.
Really think about the structure of Synaesthesia as it's so beautifully visual and a story.
Play with transitions.
We contacted all our interviewees and we managed to get back to Poppy after Leah rang
her and spoke to her directly. It turned out that none of them would be free on the same day
at the same time so we knew that it would be best to scrap the social experiment idea and
just focus on them each as individuals. We were able to book the studios we wanted for the
Tuesday, Thursday and Friday so that gave us a wide range of days to pass on to our interviewees
in the hope that they would be free at least one of those days.
Josh was available all week and we decided to move away from Megan because, as interesting as she
sounded, she wanted to have her thai chi stick on show in a public place and we didn't have the
permission for that. It was too late to try and get it at this point and we decided that we had a good
amount of subjects for the project anyway and they all complimented each other nicely.
The plan was to have Josh come down to Farnham on the Thursday night to be filmed on the Friday 6th.
We were going to film Poppy at her studio in Godalming on the Thursday morning and Fi at Uni
that afternoon.
We also thought we could film Leah back at her house on the Monday 2nd.
It was all turning into a bit of a rush due to being set on the social experiment idea but we got there in the end and started to plan for shooting week.
Whew what an enormous post - very good, but I can feel the anxiety in your narrative as you rushed to get the filming together in time.
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