Digital
Web
Interactive
Client
Side project
Agency
–
Release date
Location
South of France
What I did
Concept, design and development
The context
Synaesthesia has always fascinated me. I love the idea of connecting our senses beyond the expected, opening the mind to new ways of experiencing the world. As a musician, my talented wife Cyrièle can read a sheet of music like others read a book, and as she does, she not only hears the music come to life but also sees colours. As a very visual person, I wondered how interesting it would be to ‘translate’ a music sheet into a colourful representation, making the emotions of a song accessible in a way beyond musical notation.
The approach
Cyrièle and I began by deciphering the specific colours she sees for every note, giving us a palette to work with, and we analysed how a note’s loudness and duration should be translated. Once we had defined a ‘language’, I built a JavaScript application that connects to a physical MIDI piano, her favourite instrument, and started experimenting with all of these parameters.
Once happy with the visual output, we shared the experience at our wedding: Cyrièle recorded Chopin’s ‘Valse en Do dièse mineur, Op. 64 No. 2’ on her piano connected to the software, and we created posters of that representation as a gift for our guests. We also set up an interactive installation where everyone could play music, hear the sound, and see how Cyrièle would see and feel it.
