R1 Response

R1 Blog Response

            I always had these thoughts and visualizations in my head that were hard to explain out loud, but after reading about synesthesia it made a little more sense. Would I say I am a synesthete? I am not sure. Probably not but I do know to solve math problems I typically use words to get to the answer and visualize a timeline in my head. This may be because English and social studies were always my strong subjects, and I am a visual learner, but I related this to the topic of synesthesia.

           

           While watching the Evan Grant: Making Sound Visible through Cymatics video, I immediately pictured water speakers as soon as he described the topic. As the bass gets stronger the water jets up higher in the speaker and the colors change. When the bass is not as strong, the water stays lower and jumps to the beat. The water and color is illustrating the music just as Grant’s examples were illustrating the sounds and frequencies. Another example that comes to mind is the image that would display in the early 2000’s version on Windows Media Player. As the beats accelerates the image’s shape would morph and change color. It was mesmerizing to watch as a child.

          

         Daniel Tammet discusses how each number has a shape to him. This stood out to me of everything he talked about in the video. It is intriguing how different one human’s brain can work compared to another. As I discussed earlier, I visualize a timeline and use words to solve math problems. Tammet sees images instead of any numbers at all. Each visual in his head represents a number to him which is never something I would have thought of nor could I use those images to solve a numerical problem. On the other hand, people like my father (who is a literal genius), can easily solve math problems without putting much thought into it. The associations our brains make is unique and a lot of the time ineffable. This is something to consider when creating juxtapositions in film and other art forms.