"Eggshell Clangwave Oscillator System Looking Quiet" - An exhibition on Synesthesia

Eggshell Clangwave Oscillator System Looking Quiet

An exhibition on Synesthesia
25th Jan - 5th Feb
By MA Visual Arts
Camberwell College of Arts
University of the Arts, London

Opening on the 25th January, 6pm
Camberwell College of Arts, Wilson Road, SE5 8LU



The neurological condition, synesthesia, challenges conventional views about perception. Those who experience it are able to perceive a richer version of reality, in which certain senses trigger further, otherwise separate, senses. The name synesthesia literally means 'joined sensation', or 'sensation together', as different senses combine, this seemingly irrational coupling will shape the 'Eggshell Clangwave Oscillator System Looking Quiet' exhibition.

A synesthete may perceive letters or numbers as inherently coloured, numbers or dates of the year may be perceived as having a specific location in space or each its own personality, from the mere sight of a motion some synesthetes automatically hear sound. Through language we are used to associating sound with ideas, and the written word is associated with the sound it represents, but for the synesthete further involuntary sensations occur, they experience a deeper connection of the senses.

Graphic design at its richest thrives upon layered associations, the alchemy of a concept becoming form, multiplying the resonance of its meanings, revealing previously unacknowledged connections. A consideration of the highly subjective state of the synesthetic experience encourages an attempt to further these associations, to confuse and contradict the combinations of the senses. For touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing to be interconnected is a defiance of the usual view of reality.The relationship between multi-sensory experiences and creativity could lead to artistic insight - and it is from this departure point that the work of this exhibition is conceived, a new 'joined sensation'.

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 Ourania Mourta
MA Visual Arts: Fine Art
Title: The “Gold” Sense
Size: 1,25x 0,70x 0,45 m
Medium: sculpture from foam, smalt paint
Date: 2010

The “Gold” Sense

by Ourania Mourta

“I see gold , I hear gold , I touch gold , I smell gold , I taste gold - I am feeling gold...I am richhhhhhhh...!!!!”
This is a “fake” perception of “your reality”.

Dedicated regions of the brain are specialized for given functions. Increased cross-talk between regions specialized for different functions may account for the many types of synesthesia. For example, the additive experience of seeing “gold” color when looking at graphemes might be due to cross-activation of the grapheme-recognition area and the color area called V4. One line of thinking is that a failure to prune synapses that are normally formed in great excess during the first few years of life may cause such cross-activation.An alternate possibility is disinhibited feedback, or a reduction in the amount of inhibition along normally existing feedback pathways.

Art has profited from experiments with synesthetic perception and contributed to the public awareness of synesthetic and multi-sensory ways of perceiving.