Friday, May 20, 2011

Synethesia and Cymatics


I found out some things I did not know about synethesia and cymatics. Cymatics is actually entirely new to me and I think it is great because it is a tangible way to visualize music or sound. Sometimes visualizations are made for music and that is cool, but I think it is very interesting to see the shapes created by the sound by itself. It is very clear how the sand on the metal plate experiment worked but the other visualizations I'm not so thrilled about. The computer generated cymatics images are interesting, but I am not blown away by them because I don't know how they were genereated.


Something I did not know about synethesia was that it was connected to so many different types of senses. I thought it was simply someone who visualizes sound. I did not now about the letter-color connection or the word and meaning connections. I wish I could experience what those people see or feel when they experience music or sound. I have had some moments that remind me of some of the effects of synethesia. For instance whenever someone names a date I visualize a long string of years written in yellow letters, basically a timeline from left to right, the timeline floats in a dark abyss of the subconscious. When an event is attached to a particular date, I jump to that date and visualize the event being connected to my timeline. For years I have accessed my timeline in this way and it helps me keep track of big events. I don't know if my timeline is synethesia, or simply a visualiztion, but it has been with me for a long time without me really meaning to construct it.