Category: Art

On the intriguing association between sounds and colours

smackenz/ / Art, Colour, Crossmodal correspondences, Music, Philosophical Approach, Posts

It seems three main types of crossmodal correspondences between the senses exist: transfer of information, shared associations, and subjective associations (see our blog for the crossmodal correspondences between the senses).

In this blog post, I have invited Researcher Nicola Di Stefano, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy to explain the subjective associations between music and colour. Nicola Di Stefano has contributed numerous publications on both the philosophy and psychology of perception and the aesthetics and psychology of music.

Sounds and colours are two distinct sensory experiences that convey different information about the environment we inhabit. While we typically attribute a colour to every object we perceive, we wouldn’t assert that each object possesses or is inherently associated with a particular sound. Of course, musical instruments produce sounds, and various objects can emit sounds, like hammers, rocks, and sticks, but sound seems to be an ontologically different, namely less foundational, feature of objects compared to colours.

Interestingly, however, intellectuals, researchers, artists, and composers have been long fascinated by the association between those two seemingly radically different sensory experiences. Their idiosyncratic association is evident in sound-colour synaesthesia, one of the most prevalent forms of synaesthesia, a rare neurological phenomenon where stimulation of one sensory (or cognitive) pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in another1. This cross-wiring allows individuals with synaesthesia to experience a unique blending of sensations, such as seeing colours in response to musical notes or chords. Sound-colour synaesthesia has inspired several artworks, including the musical paintings by Kandinsky and Scriabin’s Prometheus, a composition based on the combination of coloured lights and music.

Coloured lights on a board in Scriabin's house

 

Photo retrieved from: Scriabin and the Possible

Psychologists have also explored the mechanisms underlying the consistent association between certain features of sounds and colours in non-synaesthetes. The concept of “crossmodal correspondence” suggests that certain sensory attributes share underlying perceptual or cognitive processes, leading to associations between them2. For instance, studies have revealed that people tend to associate high-pitched sounds with light or bright colours, while low-pitched sounds are often linked to dark colours3. These associations may arise from shared perceptual features, such as the frequency or intensity of auditory and visual stimuli.

One of the most intuitive ways to explain sound-colour correspondences is psychophysical, suggesting that both sounds and colours are vibratory phenomena. However, the sensory systems that process the two signals are quite different, making it challenging to establish a link between sounds and colours based solely on alleged psychophysical similarity. Additionally, an important distinction lies in the octave similarity in music, where sounds at different frequencies (integer multiples of the same fundamental frequency) share the same pitch class (e.g., “D”), whereas in the domain of colour, there is no equivalent octave repetition.

Furthermore, philosophers grapple with the metaphysical implications of the interplay between music and colour. Music, often described as the “language of the emotions” elicits powerful affective responses in listeners, shaping their emotional landscapes4-5. Similarly, colour possesses symbolic and emotional resonance, evoking mood and atmosphere in visual art and design. The intentional combination of music and colour in multimedia art forms, such as film and digital media, underscores the transformative potential of blending sensory modalities to create immersive experiences.

Whether through the lens of synaesthesia, crossmodal correspondence, or aesthetic inquiry, the convergence of music and colour illuminates the intricate interplay between sensory perception, cognition, and emotion. By unravelling the mysteries of this symbiotic relationship, researchers, artists, and practitioners aim to gain deeper insights into the nature of human experience and the profound ways in which art shapes our understanding of the world.

See our blog for Activities; especially 25-27.

Some suggestions for further listening and watching:

Artists use synesthesia to expand their creative limits

Elements of Music

Introduction to Color

Is Your Red The Same as My Red?

Light Organ (Clavière a lumiére) – Scriabin op 65 no 2

Seeing Sound: How Synesthesia Can Change Our Thinking

Seeing song through the ears of a synesthete

Synesthesia & creating your own score

 

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1Ramachandran, V. S., & Hubbard, E. M. (2001). Synaesthesia–a window into perception, thought and language. Journal of consciousness studies, 8(12), 3-34.

2Spence, C. (2011). Crossmodal correspondences: A tutorial review. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 73(4), 971-995.

3Spence, C., & Di Stefano, N. (2022). Coloured hearing, colour music, colour organs, and the search for perceptually meaningful correspondences between colour and sound. i-Perception, 13(3), https://doi.org/10.1177/20416695221092802

4Cooke, D. (1959). The language of music. London: OUP.

5Juslin, P. N., & Sloboda, J. (2011). Handbook of music and emotion: Theory, research, applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

A Feel for Art

tgraven/ / Art, Haptic touch, Posts, Uncategorised

There is more to touching art than merely using the hands and fingers to recognise depictions of landscapes and victorious kings on horses; ornate chairs and tables with carved and inlaid decorations; geometric shapes and stylised forms of flowers; figurative and abstract fruits and animals. (See our blog on Vision, haptic touch, and hearing.)

In this blog post, I have invited Professor Georgina Kleege, University of California, Berkeley to write about touching art: why she likes to do it, how she does it, and why she thinks others would get something out of the experience. Georgina Kleege has published numerous books and papers, and been awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award twice. She is an art lover and is well known for advocating for more tactile opportunities for all museum visitors, including those who are fully sighted.

As a blind person, I enjoy the incredible privilege of touch access to art works at museums around the world who offer such opportunities. Over the years I have accumulated many observations and insights that inspire me to dispel common myths and misconceptions about touch perception, specifically in an artistic context. For one thing, I find that the notion of sensory translation or substitution can be misleading. People seem to want to make an analogy between the two eyes of the sighted and the two hands of the blind, as if simply laying a hand on the art object will summon a detailed image to the blind person’s mind’s eye. There’s a mistaken impression that the point of touching the art object is merely to determine what it’s representing visually—what it looks like to people who can see. This implies that sighted people don’t need to touch the art because they can see it, when in fact, determining what the art object might be depicting is not always, I’d say rarely, the most interesting thing about the experience.

When touch is merely an exercise to identify a shape, one uses a minimum of the tactile apparatus available. One traces the outline of the object in a manner analogous to the way the visual system separates the object from its background. One uses mainly the fingertips which also deliver some information about the surface texture and temperature. They can also discover fine details in carving, or the seams, joints and welds that hold the thing together, and even signs of past damage and repairs which may not be available to the eyes alone. But to grasp the objects three dimensionality one must grasp: wrap one’s fingers and palms around volumes, drape the whole hand around contours. The action of the hands and the skin of the palms delivers more information. The movement of the hands inspires other movement, of the whole arm, of the spine, as one reaches, stretches, bends and extends to take in the form in its entirety. There’s no point sticking to one place—the vantage point for sighted people. One is better off moving around doing what I have come to call dancing with the sculpture, circumnavigating the object while maintaining light contact with one hand. This action can convey a sense of composition, of symmetry and dynamism. These techniques work equally well whether the sculpture is figurative or abstract.

I used to avoid referencing my emotional response to touching art. English, like other languages, conflates touch sensation with the emotions. We find a work of art touching and it makes us feel happy or sad. This conflation is problematic for blind people who rely more on touch than our sighted peers because touch is often considered to be a lesser way of knowing the world, more animalistic or infantile. Babies rely on touch before their visual perception fully develops. But now I lean into this connection. I actively scan my emotions for a response to what I’m touching. Touch can be intuitional; the sculpture tells me how to touch it. It reveals aspects of itself sequentially, as I experiment with different methods and repeat or reject actions according to what feels most generative. It is an accretive process requiring attention, sensitivity sometimes even playfulness. And the emotions this touching summons in me may have something to do with what the artist hoped to convey. If nothing else, my hands and body replicate the artist’s own gestures and movements which in turn may link me to the ideas and emotions that went into the sculpture’s creation.

Recently, I’ve been advocating for more tactile opportunities for all museum visitors, including sighted people who are typically excluded from this form of access. For now, conservation and crowd management concerns make it unlikely that everyone will be allowed to get their hands on art. So instead, I endeavor to describe my experiences, as here, in the hope that sighted art lovers can profit, if only vicariously. (See also Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii.)

See our blog for Activities; especially 19-21.

Some suggestions for further listening, reading, and watching:

A Conversation about Blindness and Art

Art Beyond Sight

Best Things To Touch As A Blind Person

Do Touch The Artwork At Prado’s Exhibit For the Blind

Some Touching Thoughts and wishful Thinking

The Gravity, The Levity: Let Us Speak of Tactile Encounters

Touch and See

Worst Things To Touch As A Blind Person