Iris: The Blog

Soundscapes 2 ♦ Ubiquity by The Orb on Orblivion

My Green Standard for synesthetic music experiences. Also the song that originally made me realize I was definitely seeing colors when I listened to certain sounds. It’s an old song, and very strange, but for whatever reason, 1:33 through 2:21 is the brightest, craziest, most potent and vivid example of green I’ve ever listened to. A lush and luminescent set of greens ranging from mossy to brilliant sparkly emerald that float, taper, grow, and undulate in front of a crisp, black void. 

I first discovered COLOURlovers when I was looking for a way to easily present color palettes for a web development project, and I have since used it as a way to catalogue people’s colors. One problem: The colors I see for someone are not always the same colors on the screen. The colors from the application always have a gloss, while sometimes someone is a soft matte.

Perry Hall is an architect and an artist. He is also a synesthete who developed an application that turns what you see into what you hear. The app is called Sonified, and is available for both the iPhone and iPad for the price of $1.99.

While Sonified turns images into sound, Hall does the opposite. He doesn’t paint directly what he sees from synesthesia. Instead, he takes inspiration from sound and movement. Hall’s Sound Drawings are created by channelling sound in a vessel with different kinds of paint. The results are filmed. Another form of synesthesia-inspired art is Livepaintings, where Hall creates films of paintings that change over time.

Soundscapes 1 ♦ Concept 16 by Kodomo on Still Life

This song has always given me a deep and rich set of synesthetic visuals, without losing room to breathe in bright, empty space — so, it’s perfect for an orderly arrangement of the moving parts. It’s hard to follow, sometimes, when the ‘light’ sounds wobble around. It’s like the whole song is zooming through the air, while simultaneously having a deep bed of violet and dark tones.

It’s no surprise that this song actually startled me the first time I listened to it. I had to step away from where I was and go listen to it in a dark room, just to see the lightshow.