Moore, S., 2011.

Animation: the synaesthetic art?

Is animation a significant medium for conveying synaesthesia? Animator Samantha Moore will look at how she and other artists have used the medium of animation to convey the intricacies of audio-visual synaesthesia. Is animation a useful tool in communicating synaesthesia and why would this be? What are some of the the opportunities and restrictions of using animation to convey synaesthesia? Animation can naturally make apparently surreal links between objects and places them in time and space for the audience using metamorphosis, movement and sound. It can replicate the impression of photo-realism, but it can also convey what Chris Landreth (director of the 2004 academy award winning animated short Ryan) called "psycho-realism" too, "to expose the realism of the incredibly complex, messy, chaotic, sometimes mundane, and always conflicted quality we call human nature." By using animation synaesthesia can be literally interpreted and visualised for a non-synaesthetic audience, to whom without context it may seem to be entirely abstract. From Allegretto and Fantasia to her own and other contemporary work she will try and unpick why synaesthesia may have a particular affinity for animation, and vice versa.