I don't "experience" any of that. I can "observe" it, but I certainly don't
"feel" it.
Is it just me?
I can't "feel" a color, or perspective, or texture. But I can see it if it
exists in a piece of artwork. The only "feeling" I've ever obtained from
artwork is one of "awe." But that is a process of observing how far (down) the
new ideas or convincing realism drops my jaw.
How does one "feel" a color? a line? a gradation? And what does it feel like?
(physically)
Associations with said elements don't count. Or is that what you're talking
about?
--
'It's a trifle if twenty millions or so die.' - Lenin on the 1921 Soviet
famine, reported in is Obituary in The Times
Thank you for responding. But... that's... amazing.
You are saying that a person can *actually*, *physically* F-e-e-e-e-L (as in
taste, smell, or hear) DOTS (for example)?!?
That's disgusting. I mean, is it a mental disorder or something? People can't
go around 'smelling' lines! Or 'tasting' shapes! Or 'hearing' dimensions!
That's crazy! (information overload)
Do a lot of people have synaesthesia? Do they keep it a secret? Cause no one
ever told me about it.
<sigh>
What the heck is God DOing?!?
I don't like that.
--
The happiest people on earth are those few fortunates who seem to be in a
state of mild, stable hypomania. - David Horrobin 'The Madness of Adam and
Eve' (How schizophrenia shaped humanity)
Synaesthesia: prevalence and familiality.
Baron-Cohen S, Burt L, Smith-Laittan F, Harrison J, Bolton P.
Department of Environmental Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK.
Synaesthesia is a condition in which a mixing of the senses occurs; for
example, sounds trigger the experience of colour. Previous reports suggest
this may be familial, but no systematic studies exist. In addition, there
are no reliable prevalence or sex-ratio figures for the condition, which is
essential for establishing if the reported sex ratio (female bias) is
reliable, and if this implicates a sex-linked genetic mechanism. Two
independent population studies were conducted in the city of Cambridge,
England (studies 1 and 2 here), as necessary background to the family
genetic study of synaesthesia (study 3). Studies 1 and 2 arrived at an
almost identical prevalence rate for synaesthesia: approximately 1 case in
2000. The sex ratio found was 6:1 (female:male). A third of cases also
reported familial aggregation. In study 3 six families were examined, and
first-degree relatives were tested for genuineness of the condition. All six
families were indeed multiplex for synaesthesia. Alternative modes of
inheritance are discussed.
> Synaesthesia. Some people have it naturally, some can experience it through
> psychotropic drugs. Usually synaesthesia is used to mean mixing sound and
> colour, but any senses can mix. You could say that yellow smells musty,
> tastes of apples and feels like velvet whilst sounding like a gong. Of
> course, you can say that without any synaesthesia, but, if you have it then
> you might experience one or more of these confusions. Different people with
> synaesthesia (with, or without, drugs) report different connections, so
> there is no objective linkage between various senses. You could say that
> James Joyce' famous 'the snotgreen sea, the scrotum tightning sea' is
> encouraging a synaesthetic image.
It's funny, but whenever I see someone fall down, especially a child
falling bare-kneed on a concrete sidewalk, I get this really
uncomfortable sensation on the inside of my arms, centered about the
elbow joint. Korsybski (General Semantic), after showing that the
nervous system is finite, went on to argue that the pathway from
perception to the nervous system to the brain to semantics to action can
be reversed - the original cropping up in the brain. He offered the
hallucination as the extreme example, where the body experiences the
hallucination with it's sensory equipment as if it were real.
Speaking of perception, I wanted to mention something a while back when
you cited Huxley's "Doors of Perception." Several years ago I was
living in Santa Barbara (CA) and a friend came by and took me to another
friend's house in Isla Vista, just north of the UCSB campus. It was the
home, right on the cliff looking out to the Pacific, of one of those
endless graduate students in an obscure math department (sort of like
the guy who murdered his professor with a hammer at Stanford because the
prof. held him back from his PhD for 5 years or so.) Anyway, somebody
there boasted that the house we were in was where Aldous Huxley lived
when he did his drug experiments and wrote "Doors of Perception." I was
impressed. But about five minutes after that I was even more impressed.
The door opened and this hippy walks in, and shouts "Hey, look what I
have?" It was a large shopping bag filled with green peyote buttons,
which he passed around to everyone. It was quite a trip. My friend and
I ended up on the beach watching the Red Tide (phosphor), and at one
point we saw a bright orange light about a mile down the beach, out on a
point. As we watche, it was coming closer and closer, until a very
dedicated jogger jogged by, all aglow with energy.
Erik
I also had an exciting evening watching phosphorescence in the sea - it was
in Dublin bay at around three in the morning, the water was apparently quite
cold, it being February - but that only took Guinness and Bushmills to
achieve!
> It sounds fun. I was fascinated by another altering of perception a few
> years back. My mother had a lens in her eye changed and said that she
> couldn't believe the vibrancy of the colours in the world, it was like being
> a child again - apparently our lenses to cloud over and our colour vision is
> considerably less brilliant as we grow older.
Jesus, I'm embarrassed. A few years back I had this terrific argument
in a political ng about air pollution in California. I attested to the
fact that the old clarity (40s & 50s) is forever gone, and at some point
another poster who was at least as old as I was confirmed my statement
by his own experience. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, eh?
> I also had an exciting evening watching phosphorescence in the sea - it was
> in Dublin bay at around three in the morning, the water was apparently quite
> cold, it being February - but that only took Guinness and Bushmills to
> achieve!
It's a beautiful sight, fish kills and all. Bushmills. I had forgotten
about it. Did you ever see the British classic "Tight Little Island?"
1949, Alexander Mackendrick directing. It must have been Bushmills on
that shipwreck. That was the first whiskey I ever tasted, at about age
9 or 10. My dad and cousin got tired of my questions, and poured me a
glass and ordered me to take a large gulp. I've never been the same.
Erik
No, I don't think I have seen that film. Unless it was the one based on
Compton Mackenzie's novel 'Whisky Galore' - that was Scotch.
> No, I don't think I have seen that film. Unless it was the one based on
> Compton Mackenzie's novel 'Whisky Galore' - that was Scotch.
Yes, that's the one. Did I say "British?" Great flick - that newer
one, "Waking Ned Devine" (Irish, heheheh) reminded me a lot of "Tight
Little Island."
Erik
Your pencil - brush etc. - dances over the surface - there is a physical
feeling that runs through the arm - the mind judges if the effect of
describing the form through this dance is satisfactory.
All feeling resides in the body. The seeing eye moves over form translating
it through memory associations into physical feeling. The process is a
highly developed form of empathy and thus completely subjective.
When you say that you can't feel line there is a possibility that your sense
of empathy is underdeveloped - judging from some of your comments this is a
reasonable conclusion. It is interesting that you even ask such a question
as it shows the possibility of an awareness that may allow you to advance
into a group to which you currently have no access. The statistic is one in
ten thousand but who knows you may be lucky - but right now you are such an
ass.
--
take care: Keith
The eye should not be lead where there is nothing to see.
Robert Henri - The Art Spirit
"Flying_Naked_People" <http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl> wrote in message
news:vj10ejo...@corp.supernews.com...
My purpose for asking the question was to expose the lunacy behind b.s.'ers
like you. The day I taste "halftones" in my mouth is the day I shoot myself.
> The statistic is one in
> ten thousand but who knows you may be lucky - but right now you are such an
> ass.
Thank goodness. If *you* had called me intelligent, I would have been
insulted!
It is said that the Decamaron has all the plots ever used and ever
necessary.
> If you have ever danced - not just following pre-set step sequence - but
> allowing your whole body to enter the dance. You feel your body moving in
> harmony - you control it - you add body movements of your own - there is a
> non intellectual freedom that is pure muscular feeling.
>
I don't really wish to disagree with you, but, I do. All of what you
describe is, obviously, mental. It is not 'pure muscular feeling', but a
mental experience that you think is like that.
That means that it is possible to have both the immediacy of feeling that
you describe, and an intellectual experience at the same time. Then you
really do have an experience and a half.
Just pretending that you are a horse doesn't hack it - if you'll excuse the
pun.
If you wish to argue pretentious bullshit about only being able to
understand once you are part of the elect - then blow your brains out, if
there are any left.
>>If you have ever danced - not just following pre-set step sequence - but
>>allowing your whole body to enter the dance. You feel your body moving in
>>harmony - you control it - you add body movements of your own - there is a
>>non intellectual freedom that is pure muscular feeling.
>>
>
> I don't really wish to disagree with you, but, I do. All of what you
> describe is, obviously, mental. It is not 'pure muscular feeling', but a
> mental experience that you think is like that.
>
> That means that it is possible to have both the immediacy of feeling that
> you describe, and an intellectual experience at the same time. Then you
> really do have an experience and a half.
>
> Just pretending that you are a horse doesn't hack it - if you'll excuse the
> pun.
Well, I do think you're on to something here. It's something that I
think that I've experienced, but I've never been able to put a term on
it or even express it well in words. I've only been able to think of it
in very general, vague terms...like when you're in the throws of deep
artistic concentration, you're sort of "being" that what you are doing -
but it seems so irrational. I attended the last sessions that Wayne
Thiebaud had on his "Theory and Criticism" course (twenty lecture/10
weeks) before he went on emeritus status. It was marvelous, but the
part I really liked was when he describing some of the "magic" stuff
about art making. He would act it out with gesture. One day he almost
fell down as he was staggering across the front of the lecture hall,
trying to say something about pushing the concept of "balance" to the
edge. There was a lot of pantomime, in other words, where langague
proved inadaquate.
BTW, Thiebaud's lecture was taped. I would love to get ahold of those
tapes. It was excellent.
Erik
>
I also, to disagree with myself (because, as usual, there certainly are two
sides to the matter), think that there is a place for that kind of
metaphoric approach. Yes, it doesn't make sense to 'stand your perspective
on tip toes', or some such, but there is a way in which these metaphors do
help produce an end result.
Learning the trumpet, I am sometimes asked to do peculiar things, to, say,
project further (well, that isn't a problem I have had to date, but it will
serve), now that says nothing about embrochure, breathing, timing or even
volume, but, strangely, it is an exhortation that you can follow. It makes
sense whilst making none.
and I'm not sure I like the way you see difference in perception/brain
wireing as 'disgusting' or 'crazy'
Oliver
especially the first one which deals with phantom limbs.
Oliver
I wasn't talking about music.
This is done with a variety of materials. The objective is to store feelings
which can be called upon when building plastic forms and unified forms. The
objective is to eliminate scientific intellectual interpretation of form in
terms of light and shadow and focus on the pure tactile expression of form.
The compositional aspect of art now deals with the orchestration of feelings
in terms of rhythmic layers of foreground middleground background each with
subordinate elements harmonising into a unity in which the viewer's
perceptual system is an active participant. Naturally this process requires
the suspension of the intellect.
As you know the intellectual presentation of form (photo-realism etc.) seeks
technical admiration where as the tactile presentation of form seeks
involvement. One is appearance based the other gesture based - one singular
differential the other relational integrational.
My comments also expand on Marc's statements but there will always be people
who cannot enter this tactile world of pure art.
--
take care: Keith
The eye should not be lead where there is nothing to see.
Robert Henri - The Art Spirit
"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
news:3F31D73A...@oco.net...
Simple association. There is absolutely NOTHING extraordinarily intellectual
about association - which I disregarded in my original request for an
explanation. Nor does this have anything to do with synaesthesia.
Butt-sniffing Dawgs associate the sound of a can opener with pleased taste
buds and a full belly. Oh, see now the intellectual wizardy displayed in that!
Pbbbbsht.
That's because it is.
> I encourage my students to hold a small smooth stone in one hand and while
> drawing and shading with the other. The exercise requires that your fingers
> move over the stone while drawing with the other hand. The objective is to
> translate the feeling of the smooth stone in one hand through the pencil or
> brush held in the other hand into line or shading. Closing the eyes and just
> concentrating on the feeling as you fingers moves over the stone helps to
> memorise the feeling for later use.
Association
> This is done with a variety of materials. The objective is to store feelings
> which can be called upon when building plastic forms and unified forms.
Association
> The
> objective is to eliminate scientific intellectual interpretation of form in
> terms of light and shadow and focus on the pure tactile expression of form.
What blind people do.
> The compositional aspect of art now deals with the orchestration of feelings
> in terms of rhythmic layers of foreground middleground background each with
> subordinate elements harmonising into a unity in which the viewer's
> perceptual system is an active participant.
Jesus Christ - That sentence has 40 words in it! And it repeated what that 18
word sentence said!
Anyway, you are claiming that a viewer will be able to "feel" what an artist
felt simply by looking at a picture. That's only possible if the viewer has
the same *associations* as the artist.
> Naturally this process requires
> the suspension of the intellect.
Suspension of thinking, of use of the brain. Lol
> As you know the intellectual presentation of form (photo-realism etc.) seeks
> technical admiration where as the tactile presentation of form seeks
> involvement.
Mere association, which is a shot in the dark. And perhaps yet another reason
why some people don't like abstract art. Hardly anybody has associated
anything with that stuff!
OR
As in *my* case, which I am admitting for the first time, and I apologize
tremendously for this horrible revelation....
I do not care for abstract art (esp. expressionism) because you know what I
associate randomly placed art elements with?
DISEASE
I swear to God, if you would crack open a medical reference, you will see
abstract art living on a cancer-ridden liver, or lung, or whatever. If I look
at abstract art, I see GERMS, DIRT, and DISEASE.
So there - I said it. You may continue to hate me, or begin to. Whatever!
> One is appearance based the other gesture based - one singular
> differential the other relational integrational.
>
> My comments also expand on Marc's statements but there will always be people
> who cannot enter this tactile world of pure art.
I would rather stay healthy.
You have just broken one of the greatest taboos of modernism - specifically,
to say that an abstract painting looks like something, especially something
that isn't art - but you are perfectly correct, of course. A lot of Ab Ex
painting does look distinctly histological (and pathological).
You are incorrect in classifying and dismissing everything as "association".
The problem in doing this is to reduce everything to a word based dictionary
type of thinking which eliminates the use of interactive models. But all of
this is your problem - you are the one who gets sick.
--
take care: Keith
The eye should not be lead where there is nothing to see.
Robert Henri - The Art Spirit
"Flying_Naked_People" <http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl> wrote in message
news:vj55ur4...@corp.supernews.com...
>You have just broken one of the greatest taboos of modernism - specifically,
>to say that an abstract painting looks like something, especially something
>that isn't art - but you are perfectly correct, of course. A lot of Ab Ex
>painting does look distinctly histological (and pathological).
>
Abstract carefully stained histology specimens and microscopic images
are far more interesting then most all abstract art. Most artzy
fartzies have never looked through a microscope. They never even did a
theoretical analysis of floor covering or bed sheet design.
...no skill no art!
Want to get away from the indecipherable imbecilities and absurd pretensions of the modern art establishment?
Check out my web page http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
>No matter what you say does not change the fact that you are aware of your
>inability to feel artistically.
Even when Keith's explosive artistic feelings makes him come in his
pants it doesn't elevate the misery of his incompetent output.
That is correct. I do not feel artistically. I may feel "artistic" from time
to time - but never artistically. If I felt "artistically," I would suffer
from synaesthesia.
> That is your problem and if you are lucky
> you will solve it before you die.
I am clearly not the one with the problem.
> You are correct in saying that the viewer
> must have the same associations as the artist. Art is an acquired taste.
No. Art has no taste. It has no implied taste... no aquired taste... no after
taste. Art is simply art.
> You are incorrect in classifying and dismissing everything as "association".
> The problem in doing this is to reduce everything to a word based dictionary
> type of thinking which eliminates the use of interactive models. But all of
> this is your problem - you are the one who gets sick.
Right. And 5 + 5 = (a yummy 8)
That's true. Some ab ex looks like the histo images that got thrown away.
Some looks like the closeups in a book of dermatology. I am, of course,
speaking only of the relatively more interesting-looking AbEx. The rest is
too dull to bother comparing to anything.
> Most artzy
> fartzies have never looked through a microscope. They never even did a
> theoretical analysis of floor covering or bed sheet design.
True, also, and it lends the lie to the claims some of them make to be
interested in formal beauty.
There's at least one painter, Mark Francis, who deliberately bases his
images on histo photography - mostly images of spermatazoa (who'da thunk
it?). Not surprisingly, his pictures are prettier than an average ab-ex
painting. I think some others did try that kind of stuff in the 60s or 70s,
but it wasn't accepted then.
Oliver
> > I wasn't talking about music.
> >
> um, music is composed of sound, and the seeing of sound is part of
> synalsesia (spelt wrong)..... so you were actually.
I specifically addressed art. Not Music.
A runny nose is a symptom of the flu. Does that mean I'm talking about a cold?
> Oliver
Yes but then the thread weaved its way into synalsesia... which you called
'crazy' and 'disgusting'... do keep up :-)
>
> A runny nose is a symptom of the flu. Does that mean I'm talking about a
cold?
and how does this glib utterance actually relate to this discussion?
Oliver
I don't know what "glib utterance" you're talking about... unless you're
referring to the "analogy" I gave.
> Oliver
>
>
>