Synaesthesia – Mapping of Sensory Experiences.

Industrial Design Upper Pool Studio. Semester 2 2006.


Synaesthesia – Mapping of Sensory Experiences.
"Art does not render the visible, rather, it makes visible." - Paul Klee


Darkness, resonant darkness. Inability to see those who pass before or behind you. There’s a terrible smell that is unlike anything I’ve smelt before, where is it coming from? Did someone just touch my arm, blow in my ear or pass by in front of me? How do I get out of here?

Synesthesia 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 synaesthete as real, often outside the body, instead of imagined in the mind's eye. Passing through the darkness of a haunted house, its lack of visual stimulus intensifies other senses. Sound instills either the creation or amplification of movement and touch and the fear of being touched. It’s also common to believe that you can see things within this space that do not exist. It is the combinations of senses that suggest the most logical scenario and have you assume that you see someone pass behind you or run before you.

Upon entering there are of course the initial prejudices and expectations that coincide with any theme ride or attraction however the darkness, I believe, takes over and imbues a sense of insecurity. This insecurity leads to the want to turn back or grasp the person next to us. To feel something familiar or if you like, something we are able to ‘put a face to’.

Unable to grasp onto a single thing that may have been familiar to me on this instance, I was incredibly aware of the narrow hallways within this complex and unsure as to what was ahead. Sounds and at times smells created great apprehension.

‘Breathing Room’ by Patricia Piccinini is an interactive piece of work that encompasses moving images, vibration through panels in the floor and sound. It is a screen-based installation that looks at the idea of panic within contemporary society. The images used are of alien yet somewhat familiar objects. Three large screens show a fragment of a body, a stretch of breathing skin. It is recognizable yet not quite real. We see, hear and feel the rhythm of its breathing. It is huge but almost intimate, both enthralling and claustrophobic. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, the Breathing Room panics and we share that viscerally, through vibrations in the floor. The belief that they are breathing is simply up to the interpretation and recognition of the viewer as no where does it state this is so. Once again the trickery of the visual via other senses is apparent.

Behind the viewer are a number of small TV monitors, and heard before seen is the strange transgenetic animal that scurries from one to next. At first it might be frightening, like the sound of rats in the walls, but gradually it will start to seem almost ordinary. However, the animal never slows down long enough to have a good look at it. “Like the truth in contemporary culture it feels unreal, is strange to look at and moves quickly from one space to the next…. Like the little animal in the breathing room, we live within a space both expanded and contained.... It moves in and out of the light so quickly that it is hard to get a grasp on. Or else we see it as a fragment in so much detail that we cannot see how it fits into the whole. It is no wonder that we feel anxious, stressed, even a little panicked sometimes.”