Concept

The Spectral Band playing light colour

> Synaesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway, as in a "crossing of the senses". E.g.: the ability to hear colour or see sound. Many colour theories historically explore the relation between the vibrations in sound, light and colour.

Synestetrum pays tribute to many early inventors, magicians and light-art pioneers from the turn of the 20th Century, who used optical illusions to tease and test the perception of the viewer. Nourathar's aim with these works is to recover some of the fascination which, at that time, was felt for the magic of technology.

Synestetrum uses a 1960s keyboard, transformed into an interactive controller of musical & optical illusion.

Historical Light Organs, include Mary Hallock Greenewalt’s Sarabet - where the correspondence between colour & sound depended on the interpreter - or Thomas Wilfred’s (silent) Lumia.