What follows below are the 3 strands of work I have created during the revival of my personal creative practice during REV.
SynaeScape – a sense of synaesthesia, my book of personal reflections and visual responses to both the subject of synaesthesia and also to the process of researching and designing around it within REV
SynaeScope– a series of photographic explorations expressing heightened sensory awareness and visually alluding to the brain mapping technologies that capture that state.
SynaeSence– a wall installation that attempts to map the synaesthetic mind in an abstract way.
My book is entitled SynaeScape - a sense of synaesthesia, and is a personal account of the ideas and responses I have had to the subject of synaesthesia, through my research and through my visual explorations and expectations. Given the abstract nature of synaesthesia I felt that it was more appropriate not to attempt to pin down or explain the condition in the work I produce but rather flow with that abstraction and subjectivity of experience. So to some degree I have removed the subject matter in a literal sense and tethered it to an autobiographical account of its discovery - in doing so I have moved the attention away from the subject and focused attention on my response to the topic. The book is as much a documentary as it is a document, an intuitive response to the information gathered and I have endeavored to capture my journey of discovery in its pages.
The cover uses thermochromic paper which reacts to the heat of the readers hands by changing colour – from a gloss black to shades of red, green and blue. It reacts immediately and hopefully sets the tone for the rest of the book in its engagement with the viewer and the way in which it underlines the personal nature of the creative work and the condition it describes.
Following is a small selection of sample pages from the book (it can be viewed in full in the movie clip above and I will also bring it with me to the next face to face day on October 15th)
The design of the book utilizes both paper and acetate in its make up and so the notions I have had since the start of the creative process in REV are being carried through – specifically those of layering views, altered perceptions, subjective individual views on the world, and of course engaging the viewer through the design – this I have addressed in the use of the materials, in the paper mechanics of the book and hopefully too in the writing itself. I have used acetate to produce layering and staged delievery of the message. And also to emphasise subjective views – where printed elements across layers of acetate interact with eachother in an expression of how different people can perceive the same information in very different ways or to underline the idea of layers of perception working in unison.
The lift up flaps on this page, for example, read " f sharp; pear; seven" and these refer again to the sensory mingling where the colour yellow that is being revealed underneath can also cross over to these other things - be they the sound of a note, a colour perception of a number or the taste of a particular fruit. These occur in the 'synaesthesia & memory' section of the book where I talk about the way that synaesthetes have extra hooks upon which to hang a memory trigger.
I have used folding and binding to provide alternative views. These are used in different ways throughout the book, but one device for example creates an envelope type effect where the page is folded back on itself and bound into the spine. My intention here is to communicate hidden aspects – whether they relate to memory or concealment of what lies beneath.
Also I have used die cuts which provide peep holes through to other pages in the book, and which also change how we read the visuals as they alter the context by revealing only part of the story, This could be interpreted as alluding to the non synaesthetes reality where we are not getting the richer more intense version of the world, my hope is these communicate too notions of altered views and perceptions.
I have used a couple of my SynaesScope images in the book also and below the image is used to enhance the communication on synaesthesia and its link to metaphorical thinking. The image is used to highlight the change in view from the literal where all can be seen clearly with the acetate set against the white background and then when you turn the acetate page there is a more metaphorical lateral view of it against the black background.
I also played with reflective paper to explore the communicative qualities in mirroring to express the impact of synaesthesia on emotions. I have used acetates extensively in this section too.
Elsewhere in the book, as you can see in the video, I have made use of the ampersand to allude to the richer more intense reality of the synaesthete – there is always more to their perception, everything is more intensified. In the spreads with the gradually increasing point size in the text I intended to communicate the idea of becoming more and more consumed by the volume of the research I was getting into and also it represents the overwhelming nature of the condition for some synaesthetes - like sensory overload. All these devices will combine to, hopefully, engage the viewer both physically in the use of the book and intellectually and visually in decoding the communication as they work through the book.
Click on the images below to enlarge them and read the text written for my book. The text in the introduction itself gives details on the narrative style I used in the book, and why.
My intention with these photographic explorations is to suggest the notion of heightened sensory feedback – the world as perceived by the synaesthete is richer and more intense. All the original images feature reflection, illumination, connectivity – this is their underlying theme. My intention is to convey something of the idea that the familiar scenes we perceive that play out in an ordinary way, have actually the potential for another way of seeing and perceiving – an altered perspective. In synaesthesia there is a crossing over from one sensation to another and also a literal crossing over that occurs from one brain area to another. MRI is one way to show the sensory and higher, or associative, brain areas that cross over and underlie in synaesthesia. The element of the MRI comes into play subtly in the how the images are created and finished. This is primarily done through the colours and abstraction of the shapes which also serve to communicate something of the heightened more intense sensory awareness of the synaesthete. The idea is to allude to the visualising that these brain mapping technologies provide. The intent is to express how what is before us is not always reflected back in the same and expected way to every individual – again looking at altered perceptions in the synaesthestes reality.
The idea for the visual approach to this work stems from the abstract nature of synaesthesia. In it I am not trying to create an image of synaesthesia in this piece, but attempting to express it in more abstract terms. The piece is a map of the mind of sorts - the senses each have an area in the white matter and are populated with colours allocated for each sense. I have assigned red to sight, blue to hearing, green to touch, yellow to smell and orange to taste. The main colour for the sense dominates each pin stack but the other sense colours have also mingled in and crossed over. I have also included 2 areas that are not senses themselves - memory and emotion - but which nonetheless are tied in with our perceptions of the sensory world - in the way a smell can immediaely trigger memory and also the way in which synaesthetes have another ‘hook’ to hang memory from. Both memory and emotion are expressed with a dominance of silver, reflective of that which surrounds them. The final communication layer on this piece is the threading together of the pinstacks across the sensory zones to show the sensory and functional cross wiring of the synaesthetes brain.
See the blog posting on August 24 2011 for more on SynaeSence.
I'm feeling great relief tonight - the book is printed and looking good. There was a bit of a technical hiccup with one section yesterday, which needed to be re printed today, so this project continues to work me to my limit, but I am pleased with how its come together and amazed too at how bulky it seems. I feel justified in my late nights of writing and designing when I hold it in my hands. It's been an absolutely insane couple of months getting it off the ground. I feel utterly shattered but seeing it printed and having done the die cutting and collating tonight I'm feeling pretty pleased with what I have achieved. As is always the case for me there are elements that I am less sure about visually and that I know I could have developed further but that is always part of my experience in design and in this instance I am far more accepting of those elements having surrendered this project to personal voice. It's miles from where I started with the visual development at the beginning of REV and I suppose thats a good thing although I do have some regrets at the amount of time lost in the early stages having spent so much time grappling with After Effects. In any case I am now the proud owner of a 100 page book. Although it won't officially be a book until I get it bound tomorrow... and that will be the moment I can really breath a sigh of relief... hopefully!
I'm photographing it in the college on Monday so that I'll have a better chance of some decent shots of the acetate layers, die cuts and envelope pages and the reflection page too - which I really like. Looking forward to getting it up here on the blog! Finally! And looking forward too to getting some time back with my family.
Hooray! The paper for my book cover arrived today all the way from California. Its thermochromic so it reacts to the heat of your hands as you hold and handle the book. When its not reacting to heat its a lovely dense gloss black. I've set it carefully aside and am hoping that it survives the book finishing process intact! I'm starting to get a bit anxious about the binding now because there are so many elements to the book that I will not be able to see working until its bound - I hope I won't have any disappointments!
I've been into the binders yesterday to run it all by him. Unfortunatley given the cost of this paper and that its not readily replaceable he's not happy to bind it as a full wrap cover as I'd intended - the pressure on the cover as its bound may damage the liquid crystals, so I'll be just applying it to the cover board afterwards but I think this will still work OK... hope so! I'm enjoying its pristine loveliness for now!
This intro is 90% there and I'm concentrating on other sections within the book for now. I will be revisiting this with fresh eyes before printing the final book. The writing for some other chapters is continuing and I 'm finding myself looking again at the structure of the book - what to include/omit/combine etc. I don't want to make too many changes to the structure at this late stage so I'm treading carefully in my efforts of getting the balance right. I have a couple more sections that are nearing completion also and will post on them soon.
Here are the designs for seven spreads in the book, these spreads make up a section on research. As I stated in my previous post I am working on a book that is a personal account of the ideas and responses I have had to the subject of synaesthesia - through my research and through my visual expectations and explorations. Some of the book will be output onto paper and some onto acetate (exploiting the layering effects possible with that material). I am also employing other types of paper mechanics and effects in the make up of the book itself, and in the design and layout, to help communicate some concepts around my personal account of my response to the subject. This section will be a paper section. The writing and designing continues... and is in varying degrees of completion!
What follows here is something I wrote a couple of weeks ago in response to feedback from Shelagh to Voicethread 2 - I decided to post it to my blog because it functions well as an update on what is happening for me within REV over the past month or so. I will post some design layouts too in the next few days as I am getting elements together for the next Voicethread which due this day week.
I had drawn some similar conclusions myself in terms of 'what next and how'. But your suggestions have been great in directing new explorations and for focusing and refining where I am headed with it. Looking into visual mapping further is without doubt something I will give time to as the work continues and I do love a lot of what I am seeing in relation to data visualisation. (Thanks for the flicker and visualcomplexity.comlinks). Having been head down with the research into neuroscience, cymatics, the physics of wave forms etc, for quite a while I am, for now, moving forward in a less visually analytical way. So I'm looking to represent rather than analyse the information I have gathered.Like I had said before - it's a real luxury for me in REV to be free to be subjective so I am embracing that as best I can. Certainly though information architecture is a love of mine within my work, both in Trigger and in AIT, so the prospect of of working on a personal project in an aesthetic and insightful way through developing the SynaSence visualisation is something I look forward to in year 2. And perhaps the expression of that will propel the motion piece forward. (By the way your description of 'informative art' made me smile as I thought - 'isn't that design?' I had a friend who described designers as 'closet artists'..... maybe he was right! ) As for the photographic element of the work, it is progressing ok I think. I am a bit self conscious with them as I am no photographer and I fear producing work that may look very amateurish . However that is the nature of trying new things and I am enjoying the process of image creation. The intent with these images is not to give an artist’s impression of the brain stimulation produced in the synaesthete as seen in a MRI or to present a real scan as an artifact. Really my intention with these images is to suggest the notion of heightened sensory feedback, the world as perceived by the synaesthete is richer, more intense. The 2 phrases that keep coming back to me are descriptions by synaesthetes of the condition, where it is described as being visualised 'as if on a screen in front of them', and also how not being a synaesthete is ' like viewing the world though a thin veil of unawareness' - there is always more - we just can't see it. The images I am working on involve reflections and light, or focus on textural detail with the hope that they convey something of the idea that the familiar scenes we perceive that play out in an ordinary way have actually the potential for this other way of seeing, perceiving. An altered perspective. The element of the MRI comes into play subtly in the how the images are finished. The idea is to allude to the visualising that these brain mapping technologies provide. Again, going forward into year 2, this will be progressed when I am looking deeper at visual mapping - connectivity and activity and also (at your suggestion) the mental mapping that is metaphor. (Thanks for that - I look forward to digging deeper) Finally with regard to the layered transparencies piece I had come to the same conclusion myself and have scaled back from the panels to a smaller scaled piece. I had also had a similar notion to your documentary idea, just not a video documentary. I am working on a personal account of the ideas and responses I have had to the subject of synaesthesia, through my research and through my visual expectations and explorations. It is in the form of a book that utilises both paper and acetate in its make up. And while it may not be fully compete, parts of it certainly will. I had been taken with your suggestion at the last face to face to perhaps use the research to form part of the artifact and not just be the back up of the project. That really appealed to me as I have spent so much time on the research and have enjoyed it so much and the fascination it ignited with each new discovery, that I wanted to capture that journey in some way. So in some respects its a movement away from the topic, in that the focus is my response to the topic, the subject matter has somewhat been removed - and has been tethered to the autobiographical account. I am still working through the structure of it, and the writing for each section. For some sections I have images and typographic treatments, for others an idea of what I want to feature and the rest is loose ended for now....
These are a collection of images I have produced in the past couple of months that are revolving around my theme. Some quite obviously are about notions of connectivity, some convey a more sensory feel. I have enjoyed playing with capturing light and and in many I am focusing on reflections and mirroring - how what is before us is not always reflected back in the same and expected way - altered perceptions. They are a mixed bunch of varied styles at the moment but I just wanted to get them up on to the blog to add a bit of credance to them for myself and to garner any comments from yourselves also. Some, for me, are just functioning as idea 'jump off' points, triggers, some are visual note taking, some have more purpose aesthetically and are making their way toward final pieces - in their current or an altered state as I work on them in photoshop. Those images that I am working on I am doing so also with a nod towards neuro imaging - which I am keen to play around with . The way that MRI and PET scans visualise and measure cerebral activity is something I feel I want to capture with my creative output on synaesthesia as I have spent so much of my research time reading in this area and am intrigued so much by it, but given the complex nature of the subject am struggling to express it so hopefully I will have more success with attempting it through these images once they're complete. In any case they are in progress, most need and a good re-framing, but here they are.....
"Reflection photographs are much more than mirrors of the sky: they are mirrors of the mind."
Marcia Smilack
