Synaesthesia / 2

Inquiries into the nature of Space and Perception are the basis of Art Laboratory Berlin’s second exhibition in the Synaesthesia series. Synaesthesia, the experience of two or more sensory impressions at the same time, is both an artistic paradigm and neurological phenomenon. Two installations by Madi Boyd and Carrie C Firman explore the connection between perception and experience of mind and body from a synaesthetic point of view.

Madi Boyd is a synaesthete from Great Britain, whose artistic work focuses on perception and the brain. In collaboration with neuro-scientists, Dr. Mark Lythgoe and Dr. Beau Lotto, from University College London her work incorporates and combines installation, film and sculpture. Her recent project The Point of Perception explores how much information the human brain needs in order to know what it is looking at. It is an art experience and scientific arena about vision. The installation uses moving image and built environments to confuse depth perception and is designed to act specifically on the human eye and brain to create a space of uncertainty. A newly developed version of the project will be presented at Art Laboratory Berlin with the addition of sound and colour. The idea is to assign musical notes and colours to specific points in the gridded space, in order to explore perception of geometric space and sound.

Madi Boyd: The Point of Perception, 2009-13, photo: Amin Akhtar

Madi Boyd: The Point of Perception, 2009-13

Madi Boyd: The Point of Perception, 2009-13

Madi Boyd: The Point of Perception, 2009-13

Madi Boyd: The Point of Perception, 2009-13, photo: Amin Akhtar

Madi Boyd about her artistic work: “My work combines constructed environments and projected films to create immersive installations investigating the interaction between moving image, space, and the brain. I see the screen as sculpture and light as paint on the canvas of dark space.”

Carrie C Firman is an emerging electronic artist from the US. She is a synaesthete and her work is inspired by studying and experiencing the crossing of senses. She sees synaesthesia not only as a sensory phenomenon, but also a fantastic world interface, responsible for completely unique perceptual experiences. Her current work encourages its participants to reconsider their perception as an entirely unique phenomenon, helping them to come to the realization that even most basic level of perception differs widely between otherwise similar individuals. Firman’s installation Synexperience as well as her interactive digital work My Synesthetic Library invite viewers to share in her own unique perceptual experience of the world.

Carrie C Firman: My Synaesthetic Library, 2009/10

Carrie C Firman: Synexperience, installation view, 2010/11

Carrie C Firman: Synexperience, installation view, 2010/11

Carrie C Firman: Synexperience, installation view, 2010/11

Carrie C Firman: My Synaesthetic Library, 2009/10

Carrie C Firman commented her artistic practice as follows: “The installation on display demonstrates the interactivity of my viewers I often require stepping into it, sounds and images will play, extracted from my own internal Synaesthetic library.”

Synaesthesia – a theoretical introduction (.pdf)

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