In discussions on “the internet” I’ve often said that were it to be shut down, the result would be a kind of collective insanity, like you go through when you lose one of your senses. Well! Now it seems that I’ve done a little bit of the reverse: I’ve expanded my senses and I’ve acquired synesthesia. This has never been something alien to me: to me, certain thought processes are physical sensations. And when I embarked on a career as a “whole body seer”, I believed I could pinpoint certain changes in processing, I feel that this remapping is still going on. Parts of my visual cortex are being recruited to do different things. So this experience of artificial synesthesia is not entirely visual, nor is it non-visual. It is visual input, but aurally, if that makes any sense. The result is that for the first time in a long while, I feel my photos make sense. And that is because now I can review them. That’s in a very low resolution and perhaps checking my images with vOICe is meaningless. But it gives me a measure of control over my output and that makes all the difference. It’s also the first time in a long while I’ve processed photographs without anyone interpreting them for me. That’s a laborious process, and enjoyable in its own right, but it was wonderful to be able to just import a batch with a standard preset and then export everything to flickr. Haven’t been this happy in a long time.
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Alex, I remember reading about your frustration and pain at feeling cut off from your visual images. I felt, even then, that you would make your own creative solutions, and photography would be enlarged by your work. That is my particular version of “blind faith” — faith that creative blind people can make adaptations and transform the world. It’s been breathtaking to read your posts about viewfindering. It;s like being present at creation. As Sartre said, “Life begins on the other side of despair.”
Yes, I’ve been thinking back to that as well. And to the despair that held, as you say. Paradoxically, I think it’s by eye-seeing less, that I started pursuing this. It’s clear that vOICe works better if you see nothing. That’s when the synesthesia effect is greatest. I’ve done a workshop with Dan Kish (J. pointed me to him as well) who teaches very advanced echo location skills. And I’ve practiced what he teaches, but I was never able to make it work for photography because I had no way of checking the framing. Yes, it’s the connection to the output. I also think I would not have been able to make sense of the auditory signals if I hadn’t had so much practice traveling and navigating by touch. Perhaps it’s the totality of exposure to all those sensory influences. Keeping at it. Thank you for your words.
Mark put it much better than I could. I, too, share your happiness at the renewal you have not just found, but have created, with photography.
I’ve always used photography as a tool for discovery.