Synaesthesia festival brings classical music to light at Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art

 

7.30

By Michael Atkin

Updated 9 Oct 2014, 11:03am

 

Photo: Richard Tognetti was one of the headline performers at Synethesia Festival in Hobart's MONA

Photo: Gospel and soul musician Andrew Legg has Synaesthia, he found had to close his eyes during performances.

Map: Hobart 7000

A music festival like no other took over Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) over the weekend, in an orchestrated fusion of bright lights and classical music.

Synaesthesia used every nook and cranny of the MONA museum to explore how the senses could be affected by melding music and light.

The concept is taken from the neurological condition, synaesthesia, which involves two normally separate senses becoming intertwined.

Brian Ritchie, the artistic co-director and bass player from rock band Violent Femmes, said the aim was to turn the conventional classical music experience on its head.

"The place is subterranean and disorienting by design, so when you add in lights and music into that equation we just think that we're getting people in a fairly vulnerable position and that's a good time to give them some new ideas."

Internationally acclaimed violinist Richard Tognetti from the Australian Chamber Orchestra was one of the headline performers, playing alongside the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and sound and visual artist Robin Fox.

For Mr Tognetti says getting away from traditional venues like the Sydney Opera House unleashed a new creativity.

"It's a bit like you're in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Dr No at the same time and being lead on these amazing adventures," he said. 

He says he hopes the unusual surroundings challenged his audience.

"A lot of classical music lovers like to go and have no distractions or little distractions because the music is pure and they want to just experience the music," he said.

"There's a kind of contract that you as a musician, you're not going to turn it into too much of a light show or do too much because it will distract and take away from that pure, essential joy you get from listening to music, to art music."

'As I hear sounds the world around me seems to adopt a hue'

Gospel and soul musician Andrew Legg was amongst the audience. He has synaesthesia and experiences vivid colours when he hears music.

"Literally as I hear sounds, the world around me seems to adopt a hue, so I associate the colour with a sound, with a key and that's how I experience life," he said.

"G major for me is green, E major is blue, C sharp minor is dark grey and as I'm going you can actually see my eyes start to flick back in my head as I actually try to work out, what is it I'm actually seeing?"

 

 

Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video: Seeing music not just hearing it - a look at synaesthesia (7.30)

 

Robin Fox created an installation called the Colour Organ which uses a keyboard, high-powered lasers and lots of cellophane to try and replicate that experience.

"You make a small physical gesture and the entire room erupts with sound and light," he said.

"There's something kind of almost megalomaniacal about that feeling and hopefully they have a quasi-synaesthetic and ecstatic experience."

Mr Fox drew on his childhood full of unusual birthday celebrations for inspiration.

"My mother had a cross-modal association between sound, colours and numbers and so every time I had a birthday it would be a particular colour and it would be a particular number and it would have a particular pitch, so to me that seemed quite normal ... it was just always around," he said.

"She was an opera singer and she had perfect pitch, so obviously for her being synaesthetic was a real bonus."

'Like bringing a heartbeat to life as a visual pattern'

Another artistic take on synaesthesia featured Mr Tognetti performing selections of Bach from within a cage, with his every stroke projected in green spirals by Mr Fox.

"It's a bit like bringing a heartbeat to life as a visual pattern," Mr Fox said.

"When we were rehearsing and of course at first I was most intrigued and curious about what was going on, I found it disconcerting, playing and then seeing my tones coming out as visual patterns, so I had to stop looking after a while because it was very difficult to play," Mt Tognetti said.

While some people see vivid colours while he plays, Mr Tognetti is not one of them.

"I'd go nuts, I go nuts even trying to think about it," he said.

Photo: Gospel and soul musician Andrew Legg has Synaesthia, he found had to close his eyes during performances.

 

"I have absolutely no concept of what synaesthesia is, I mean, I know what it is as a notion but as a concept personally, I have absolutely not the vaguest idea what it is.

"Maybe I'm the least synaesthetic person I know but I certainly don't hear C major as green."

After the performance real-life synesthete Mr Legg raved about it.

"Tognetti is unbelievable, just the control, just the fluidity of his right arm, it's poetry in motion and he's able to just to carry melody in a way that quite few people are," Mr Legg said.

"He's just remarkable."

Mr Legg says he found it hard to concentrate on the colours his brain was showing him as well as the projections created by Mr Fox.

To focus on his internal kaleidoscope, he shut his eyes.

"That kind of forces it inside, when I get a bit confused or I'm trying to follow the line of the music which I hear aurally obviously, but it matches to the way I see the sound and sometimes I can't do that when I'm looking at what's going," he said.

"I need to shut my eyes and be happy in my own little world, it's very antisocial I know but it works for me."

Despite the mismatch, he is satisfied the general public had a chance to experience synaesthesia, even if it was just for the weekend.

"That's the power of what MONA's doing, it presents it to the world and says 'Wow, look at this, this is remarkable'."