Defining (Syn)aesthetics

Abstract

(Syn)aesthetics derives from’ synaesthesia’ (the Greek syn meaning ‘together’ and aisthesis, meaning ’sensation’ or ‘perception’). Synaesthesia is also a medical term to define a neurological condition where a fusing of sensations occurs when one sense is stimulated which automatically and simultaneously causes a stimulation in another of the senses. An individual may perceive scents or words for certain colours, or a word as a particular smell, or experience tastes as tangible shapes. So in terms of this neurocognitive condition, synaesthesia is defined as the production of a sensation in one part of the body resulting from a stimulus applied to, or perceived by, another part. Also, the production, from a sense-impression of one kind, of an associated mental image of a senseimpression of another kind.

Whoever says feeling also says intuition, that is, direct knowledge, inverted communications enlightened from within. There is a mind in the flesh, but a mind as quick as lightning. And yet the agitation of the flesh partakes of the mind’s higher matter.

(Artaud, 1978: 166)