Synesthesia for the Masses

I recently became more interested in Synesthesia because... I realized how truly awesome it is! I have always been a synesthete; I experience colour synesthesia, or "grapheme". This means that I assign colours to letters and numbers involuntary. Research says this is not conditional (for example, looking at coloured fridge magnets would not cause this). It was not until within the past year or so that I actively began exploring my synesthesia: creating a colour code in which I write sentences in colour that only I can read, using it to create connections between different languages (based on the colour of words), and creating art about it.

My third project attempts to convey the experience of synesthesia to a public audience through a "mind reading machine" I made up that displays synesthetic experiences on a screen while I have conversations. I tried to expand my project to show many sensations (colour, touch, taste, sound, and smell) even though I only experience colour synesthesia, because I thought it would be more interesting.

The real secret behind the "mind reading" machine is a Wiimote hidden inside an oven mitt, bluetoothed to my computer, interpreted by a program called GlovePie into midi events, and then input into a VJ program called Arkaos to launch video/images (the synesthetic experiences) onto a screen. Didn't quite get that? Check out this complete guide that I learned it all from!

Here is a video of my presentation:

Special thanks to Brandon, Joe, and Flickr for helping.

Check out this project on the news: KXAN Story