Plantigrade, Building Bridges Art Exchange, Los Angeles.
Synaesthesia: What is the taste of the color blue? curated by Marisa Caichiolo
23 September 2017
The word Plantigrade is a means of locomotion that humans and some mammals use when walking. Plantigrade movement ensures the largest possible surface area to be in contact with the ground.
Sensing color through the feet and hands is an ability suggested by Surrealist writer René Daumal, which he called paroptic vision.
Some of the panels have gentle gradations or steps, which involve proprioceptive interaction, a sense that is rarely engaged with in the contemplation of art. The geometries of hurdles and physical challenges present a body-schema of mental states. A slight rise in terrain creates anticipation, a step is a kind of phase transition into an elevated state.
The terrain is a psycho-synesthetic terrain meshing color with texture and body movement, suggesting a grammar of associations and at the same time inducing or teaching a new mode of synesthetic correspondence to visitors. This is a practice that can then be taken outside the Gallery and experimented in daily life.
The project is in collaboration with celebrated author and neurologist Richard E.Cytowic.
October 20, 2017 – Science Symposium at Art Sci Center at UCLA sponsored by IASAS 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Produced by IASAS, CC Hart, Sean Day, BBAX, Daniel Schuster, Art/Sci Center UCLA, Victoria Vesna
