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November 10, 2008
Synesthesia and Digital Media
Artist and researcher Mitchel Whitelaw has recently published this interesting article, Synesthesia and Cross-Modality in Contemporary Audiovisuals. Whitelaw explores the connection between the perceptual and neurological phenomenon of synesthesia in relation to recent audio-visual-algorithmic art. This thorough article gives a nice overview of some sound/music visualization projects (one embedded below), while examining the limits of making an analogous connection between synesthesia and these forms of generative art.
In the age of ubiquitous digital media, synesthesia is everywhere. In human, neurological form, it is rare: for perhaps three in a hundred people, a stimulus in one sensory modality automatically induces a sensation in another. Auditory-to-visual synesthesia, or “colored hearing” is much rarer still. Yet now this phenomenon is realised, apparently, inside every digital music player, on VJ screens in every club, in robot lightshows. On these screens sound is transformed into visual pattern and form instantly and automatically; an exotic perceptual phenomenon becomes a technically mediated commonplace.
Magnetosphere revisited (audio by Tosca) from flight404 on Vimeo via the teeming void
Entire article at the teeming void
Posted by jen at November 10, 2008 8:00 PM
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