Kandinsky's Synesthesia
Hearing color. Seeing sound.
Kandinsky's Synesthesia
About the project
An interactive canvas that transforms movement into abstract art, and art into sound. Each gesture leaves a trace of line, shape, and color. Capture twenty seconds of movement to create a personal composition, then listen as it plays back through musical interpretations inspired by Kandinsky's color–sound associations and explorations of synesthesia, the crossing of senses, where sound might evoke color.
Inspired by Kandinsky's Dance Curves, which distilled dancer Gret Palucca's poses into abstract lines, and his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art, which explored the emotional resonance of color, form, and music, this project invites the body to become both painter and composer.
How can we give lasting form to a fleeting movement? What happens when we can see and hear the traces our bodies leave behind? How might translating a gesture across movement, image, and sound reveal something we otherwise would not notice?
Camera off.
- Pinch and move: a line or arc.
- Pinch and wiggle: a wave.
- Pinch a tight curve: a swoosh.
- Pinch and draw a closed loop: a blob.
- Quick pinch: a dot.
- Quick pinch sideways, or a short run of pinches: a dot row.
- Open palm swept sideways: a translucent band.
- Open palm swept up or down: a lattice.
- Both palms flat, fingers sideways, held: a stripe block.
- Both palms up and vertical, held: two parallel lines.
- Open palm pushed toward the camera: rings.
- Fist, then open palm quickly: a burst.
- Flick the index finger: a triangle or hatch.
- Tremble the index finger: a checkered box.
- Wave an open palm quickly: squares.
- Large circle with one palm: a ring.
- Holding still: nothing new appears.
Colors. Tap one to read what it meant.
Associations follow Kandinsky's writing and common accounts of his synesthesia. Instruments vary by source; this is one reading.