Graduate Studies

Digital Futures (MA, MDes and MFA)

Maria Shirokova

CAN YOU HEAR YOUR DRAWING? Creating synesthetic experiences through an audio-visual web interaction

This research focuses on creating audio-visual web interaction inspired by the synesthetic experience. It explores the role of metaphor as a conversational tool and approach in the multimodal digital space. This project’s outcome is a web application Can You Hear Your Drawing?, that enables an empathic dialogue between people who experience audio-visual synesthesia and those who are eager to learn about it. This app aims to allow synesthetes to explain their audiovisual perceptions to a non-synesthete user and expand the non-synesthetes’ understanding of audio-visual compositions. With this tool, users can map their audio and visual senses’ associations by documenting and sharing them in the digital environment. Each user has a chance to create their library of audiovisual pieces and share their perceptions with others.

“Can You Hear Your Drawing? is a creative tool that enables an empathic dialogue between people who experience audio-visual synesthesia and those who are eager to learn about it. It aims to attract different creators, including visual artists, composers, writers, for their daily prompts as a tool for seeking and finding inspiration.Draw colourful shapes and map them to the sounds you associate them with or vice versa. ”