R1

I found the Wikipedia entry on Synesthesia to be absolutely fascinating. I had always heard about people associating songs or pictures with certain things like colors. I had never understood this phenomenon but the examination of it in the Wikipedia article helped to see a different perspective. I have been able to experience Associative Synesthesia in certain songs. If I listened to a song during a specific action such as eating cookies or drinking soda, then I will tend to associate the song with that food or drink. The Ted Talk video about Cymatics was a learning experience for me that unveiled so much about a subject that I knew very little about. The Chladmi experiment was mind blowing for me to see because of its graphic depiction and visualization of Cymatics. To watch sound take a physical form and move via a force that we otherwise cannot see was a very cool experience. I have always found the idea of individual perception and its effects to be an incredibly interesting topic. How Daniel Tammet describes his worldview being dominated through word/number associations with color, emotion, and personality is partly relatable and partly foreign to me. The way he views the world is clearly exclusive to himself and how he shows to the audience is easily palatable. The example of showing the numbers, one through twelve, really showed just how different and bizarre his worldview really is. His explanation of how the word Hnugginn is seen as a sad word further cemented to me on a deeper level how different and strange his perception are from mine.

First Response

            What I immediately noticed about the movie was the aged and dirty looking film that made up the imagery. This look gave the film a retro feel that seems to mirror the music playing over the imagery of the film. The music playing over the imagery had a late-era jazz feel with a Bossa Nova twist. This music serves to be the main drive in what imagery is being shown to the viewer. This imagery creates a visual depiction of the audio that the listener is receiving. For example, when the sound of violins can be heard, a set of two parallel lines is seen winding and moving wildly. This creates a similarity with how one visualizes music within their own head. Essentially, it assigns a kind of character to the music and adds closer connection between audio and video. The imagery used to match the music is interesting because it understands how music is explored mentally. Other instruments included in the film are percussion and trumpets, which used their own specific visual representation. The film used this technique so effectively that the utter chaos and pandemonium that is shown moves quickly and relentlessly. This characteristic of the film allows for more repeat viewings to more fully take in the content onscreen. What truly amazes me about the film is the attention to detail and the incredibly joyful visual stimulation that the audience experiences. This is a kind of film that I have not viewed often but from the beginning to the end of the film, I was completely absorbed by the content.