Taste the colour

Gathering around a bowl of Doritos and Avocado dip in the 303 cafe today with a few people, we spoke about many interesting topics. Firstly beginning with the tragic events that have happened over the past few days in Victoria, onto donating to help out and the GFC, the Kevin Rudd payouts, the trade wars and 'Made in Australia' stamps and the meaning behind it..

The last few chips I found myself with Mark discussing how some foods 'can taste like colours'. I then learnt that this is called Synesthesia, a condition in which one sense (e.g. taste) is simultaneously perceived as if by one or more additional senses such as sight.

So.. imagine that when you see a city's skyline, you taste blackberries. Or maybe when you hear a violin, you feel a tickle on your left knee. Perhaps you are completely convinced that Wednesdays are light red. If you have experiences like these, you might have Synesthesia.

We were trying to imagine 'tasting colours' as you might with Synesthesia, and agreed that Pineapple tastes like the colour Orange... Dark chocolate tastes like deep purple (Cadbury?)..

Some weird facts about Synesthesia:

• Studies in the US show that 3x as many women have Synesthesia than men, and in the UK 8x as many have been reported to have it. The reason for this difference is unknown.
• People with this condition are more likely to be left-handed than the general population.
• They are of normal intelligence and standard neurological exams are normal.
• Synesthesia appears to be inherited in some way, it seems to be a dominant trait and may be on the X-chromosome.

Famous painters with Synesthesia:

Vasily Kadinsky

A Russian painter born in 1866, he was one of the most famous 20th century artists, credited with painting the first modern abstract works.

Vision by Carol Steen;
Oil on Paper; 15 x 12-3/4 inches; 1996. A representation of a synesthetic vision the artist experienced during acupuncture treatment.

Doing some research on the net, I found a girl called Amie Slavin. Amie is a synaesthetic sound artist, she sees names, words, letters and numbers as colours. She also sees sounds, including her own work, as coloured. She explains her newest sound piece, Wave Play:

"WavePlay is a very visual piece for me, complete pictures for one thing, but also the shapes and colours of the waves - predictably dark and browny colours at the bottom, with yellowy gold and a little green at the top"
She also says that she experiences 'empathic synaesthetic', sometimes feeling other peoples' sensations. In addition to all this she has been totally blind for eleven years, so no longer see colours with her physical eyes.

I don't know why.. but this whole topic fascinated me!