Chromesthesia and Digitization

I have always had this wonderful image in my mind of colour rising out of the instruments in an orchestra instead of sound. Last semester I found out that some people actually have extra neural connections in their brain which cause them to involuntarily associate sounds with colour. This unique sensory experience is called Chromesthesia, or Sound-Colour Synesthesia. Approximately 1% of the world’s population is lucky enough to have a form of synesthesia, which is a wonderfully interesting neurological phenomenon wherein the stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory pathway. For instance there is Grapheme-Colour Synesthesia where synesthetes, individuals with a form of synesthesia, associate colour with letters and numbers.

I focused my research on Chromesthesia and learnt that colour associations can be triggered by various sounds, tones, pitches, notes and all of these types of sounds can be associated with different colours. The experiences of the colours themselves vary per synesthete, some individuals have wave-like colour associations across their vision, while others may experience more of a colour sensation.

In connection with this week’s blog question, I wanted to share a video I unearthed while researching chromesthesia. The video shows Bryan Wallick, a chromesthetic pianist, playing Rachmaninoff's Musicaux Op. 16 Second Movement.  What makes this video so extraordinary is that Bryan created a program which makes the colour-pitch associations he sees while playing the song available to the audience. Take a look it’s pretty amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0qprhkVhZU&feature=player_embedded

This video connects with the blog question because Bryan's program essentially digitizes the unique sensory experiences of one individual. Just like the books which were designed with forms that resist digitization, the sensory experiences of a chromesthetic individual are quite hard to represent in a digital form; which is one reason I find this video so fascinating! Thus this video is wonderful because it does not represent the digitization of a film, play, or text, but rather the digitization of a single individual’s idiosyncratic cognitive experiences in an accessible online format.

The fact that Bryan chose to represent his chromesthetic experiences in this form illustrates that the senses through which most people perceive the world are not the only ‘true’ way to experience reality. Also the fluidity of the shifting colours seems to underscore that these colours represent Bryan’s constant sensory reality, and highlight the fact that the audience experiences music and life in a completely different manner. Bryan managed to create a tangible representation of an intangible sense, which prompts his audiences to question the validity of their everyday sensory experiences. In conclusion, I wish I had chromesthesia, and the representation of these chromesthetic experiences in a digital form illustrates, quite beautifully, that truth is relative.

Sarah Silvestri