Seeing the Future Synaesthetic

I think there are real life rockstars - people who think about and accomplish extraordinary things. One of them is Beau Lotto and I interviewed him on behalf of frog design for a special design mind magazine issue on TED Global (Fall 09 print), which took place in July in the UK. Beau, a neuroscientist and artist (not my labels, which are limiting), has dedicated a portion of his research to virtual synaesthesia. 

Here's a brief excerpt from the article:

Seeing The Future Synaesthetic

Like neuroscientist, Beau Lotto (who I interviewed on behalf of frog for this issue), I don’t research synaesthesia – I prefer to create it artificially. Beau calls this “virtual synaesthesia.” I call it “associational.” While Beau might want to leverage virtual synaesthesia for experimenting with the brain’s adaptability, I want to cultivate and harvest it for designing thinking and problem solving. Why?

 “You can teach people through [synesthetic] experiences to heighten their ability to find new relationships and new associations that haven’t been discovered before. That’s the creativity.” Beau Lotto   

And here is Beau's site: http://www.lottolabs.com

Pecha Kucha Austin

I had seven minutes and 20 slides - that's about 20 seconds a slide - to discuss my favorite topic: Synaesthesia and Design. Always one for audience participation, i had the audience try to guess the sound of urine (see entry below) and also taste a chocolate's heartbeat. I need to post the presentation on Slideshare. i think it will be a nice visual overview.

Neil Harbisson, Artist, Inteprets Colours Through Sound

Neil Harbisson was born with achromatopsia, a rare condition that causes monochromatism - complete colour blindness. In 2004, this young artist was fitted with an EyeBorg, a newly invented machine that changes colours into soundwaves with a different sound representing each hue, ‘like hearing a colour wheel’. A head-mounted digital camera reads the colours and converts them by a computer. The spectrum of colours is represented by a scale of musical notes – light hues are high-pitched, darker colours are lower, more sonorous, giving the wearer a kind of artificial synesthesia. Harbisson wears the Eye-Borg for every waking moment and clearly feels that his life has been enriched. He recently attended a concert and enjoyed the soprano singing shades of yellow, and a pair of socks in a shop window were irresistible because of their chirpiness.

Except pulled from: http://www.blindnessandarts.com/publications/JoannaBrendonThesis.pdf

And from the artist's own site, Press section: http://www.harbisson.com/Neil_Harbisson/Press.html

 "One day, blind people could paint through sound, and perhaps even the deaf could compose music using colour."

The Sweet Sound of...Urine (?)

I gave a seven-minute improvisational talk yesterday at the ASU Design Research Exposed Conference about shifting our perception as designers. I discussed a little about our standard tools of the trade to help us reframe and widen our thinking in the innovation of new products, experiences and interactions (e.g. personas, mind maps, brainstorming and the like). First, I had them envision "A" as a symbol, then as a sound, then as a physical object and finally, I asked people what "A" smelled like. That received a few wrinkled brows. Next, I played a musical clip, and asked them what they believed the music represented. One said "a child playing piano" and another responded, "Is it fractals?" (nice answer). The real answer (as you can guess from the title) is urine.

Urine? Huh?

About eight months ago I contacted Dr. Charles Sweeley, from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Sweeley and his colleagues were visually analyzing urine (each drop contains about 400 unique compounds) to discern anomalies that might indicate different diseases. While helpful, the visual analysis of two different urine samples sometimes looked the same, even if one held disease indicators and the other did not. This led them to express urine in a different way - through music. Why? Because while we can only visually scan one line at a time, we can aurally distinguish between 57 unique instruments and hear each individual instrument as well as the collective song. Dr. Sweeley could hear the anomalies, where visually the eye could not discern the difference. He leveraged another sense entirely to perceive and understand urine in a new and unique way. This musical translation has also been applied to DNA - doctors can aurally scan a DNA strand much faster than they can visually. The ramifications of such sensorial translation extend beyond urine and DNA into other areas - like hearing the heartbeat in the operating room instead of visually monitoring it. Another incredible example of associational synesthetic comprehension. 

Here's more on genetic music, if you're interested.

Scenting the Alphabet

I'd like you think of the letter A. Can you visualize its shape in your mind? I imagine that its a struggle for you not to visualize "A," it is that ingrained in our thinking. Does "A" have a sound? "Short or long?" you might reply. And can you imagine how the shape feels in your hand? If you were blindfolded or visually impaired, would you be able to feel an "A" versus a "B?"  My guess would be yes, most if not all of us can do that as well. Why?

"A" is part of a symbol language, just like math or music. They were constructs created so we all had a way to communicate together, but by no means were they natural. We weren't all born knowing "A."

So, now I ask you, "What does A smell like?"

[silence]

Why doesn't "A" have a smell associated with it, just like a visualization, shape, or sound? There's no reason actually. We just haven't considered it yet. As a matter of fact, as humans we never forget a scent. What would we get from a scent alphabet, even if its unique to each of us, like a grapheme > color synesthete's experience? We would get a deeper and enhanced understanding of this man-made construct. It would aid in memory, in learning, in association, in appreciation. For the visually impaired, "A" which they cannot "see" (but which they can sound and feel) would now have another sensorial element for interpretation and recognition. It would be a deeper way of knowing and being intimate with "A."