Thursday, December 07, 2017

This gif and synesthesia and multi-sensory perception


Jumping Pylon from Happy Toast
http://happytoast.co.uk
This silent gif from Happy Toast has been doing the rounds for the last couple of days and even made it to the number 1 slot on BBC news yesterday. I'm mesmerised by it. I can feel this gif in my body as if my body is responding to the noise it's making. I can't quite hear it though but it feels like I can hear it. Does that makes sense? Can you hear or feel it too? 

It's a weird feeling, right?

This is an example of synesthesia. That's where your senses get mixed up with each other. It's a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. I do know a couple of people who experience life like this and they're both musicians. LJ Rich, of BBC Click fame, writes about her experiences of synesthesia in some depth. I recommend you read the posts, and listen to her pieces of music based on how she experiences the world.

A couple of years back, LJ kindly headlined a small music festival cum hackathon that I hosted on a farm in Kent. She created a multi-sensory symphony especially for us to help us feel and experience what she experiences when she senses coffee, chocolate, the desert and space. It was a beautiful experience and one of those that only makes sense if you were there.

LJ went on to talk publicly about her synesthesia at Thinking Digital in Manchester last summer. The video of her slot is well worth a look either below or by following this link.



Do you experience synesthesia? If so, how does it manifest itself?

Day 7/25 Blogmas


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