"To Hear the World With New Eyes": Free Digital Book
TBWB on the cultural history of synesthesia
Good news for fans who have been wanting to read my book on the culture of synesthesia, but were unable to get any of the very few printed copies available. I've finally added a .pdf / e-book version to this website, available for download here.
For those following me who aren’t already familiar with this publication (composed roughly 2013-2015, and appearing in printed form in 2016), here’s a synopsis of the approach and contents:
Synesthesia, a word derived from the Greek term meaning "unity of the senses," is a neurological condition that involves perceiving multiple forms of sensory information from one sensory input, such as "hearing colors" or "tasting sounds." Though only extant in a tiny portion of the whole human population, its influence upon the arts has been considerable, and this influence has increased exponentially as more accessible and powerful technological means have offered more convincing portrayals of the synesthetic state. Meanwhile, an uptick in the amount of serious neurological research on the subject has raised questions about the essentiality of synesthesia to the evolution of the human species, causing many to understand the synesthetic condition as a vestigial remnant that could sufficiently explain the development of all human expression. Unsurprisingly, synesthetic research has become one of the more reliable points of collaboration between artistic and scientific disciplines.
The discrepancy between artistic / idealistic interpretations of synesthetic phenomena and clinical synesthetes' phenomenological understanding of the world makes for an interesting friction, and for a state in which most "synesthetic" artworks do in fact fail to accurately simulate the condition of synesthesia. However, the failures to create an intellectually rigorous form of synesthetic art are still thoroughly investigated here, since both the artworks and the motivations behind them often point to a passion for reconciliation, e.g. between rational and irrational modes of thought. This book aims not to be a textbook on synesthesia proper, but a catalog of the different ways in which synesthesia has been used as either a metaphor for, or enabler of, a broader synthesis. From Richard Wagner to Iannis Xenakis, from the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk to computerized instruments that interpret graphic data as sound, more of the radical creativity of the modern age has been bound up with synesthetic inspiration than is often realized.
Over the past few weeks, I was discussing a proper re-print with a few different publishing houses, and consensus seems to be that nobody will take on an already printed project, even if it had "limited marketing and distribution". Oh well.
I *am* at some point in the future, barring increasingly plausible apocalyptic circumstances, going to release a full re-print of this on my own, but am rethinking the idea of publishing this via Amazon / KDP on-demand service if there are any other options whatsoever. As probably implied or stated on other dispatches from me, I'm increasingly distrustful of organizations of that size when it comes to issues of censorship and uninvited re-editing of work that I've made publicly available. So we'll see if there's any other reasonable option (for anyone curious, no, I won't be doing a "Lulu" version of this either, as I find that service's pricing per book copy to be ludicrous).
So, for the time being, please enjoy this and let me know if there are other formats you might like to see this in (.epub, at the very least, is being worked on). I've mentioned before that this is maybe my favorite work overall, in any medium, and I hope it will have relevance and meaning to you regardless of how you imbibe the information.