Ponte Vecchio Bridge

When I see the two aqueducts as eyes, the bridge becomes the glasses worn by Peggy Guggenheim.

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Ponte Vecchio Bridge

When I see the two aqueducts as eyes, the bridge becomes the glasses worn by Peggy Guggenheim.

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Clouds Over Arno

I took this image the first night of a visit to Florence, Italy in July, 2004.

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Eye of Firenze

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Weekends Are Taller Than Weekdays

The title "Weekends Are Taller Than Weekdays" refers to the way I see time, which is synesthetic. I have always had distinct images in my mind for what units of time look like. The shape of a week is so paradigmatic that I can discern it underneath other formations which is how I recognized it in (or behind, or within) this image. With the two towering buildings on either side, the cityscape replicates the shape of my week. The tall building on the left is Sunday, the tall building on the right is Saturday, while the squat white section in the middle is Monday through Friday (which happens to sound like organ music).

DAYS OF THE WEEK: are rectangular blocks like elongated squares on a sidewalk but thinner; they are upright in a row, like dominoes, angled at about 25 degrees which is the reason I can see them in three dimensions. I see them in my peripheral inner vision to my right

A DECADE: is a three-dimensional rectangle in a bluish-gray color like that of the uniforms worn in the Civil War. It is shallow (like a gun box – don’t ask me why) suspended in space, in front of me slightly to my left in a horizontal position. I can see it as I am writing this, and notice that it is situated right in front of the city of Chicago. I know that sounds funny but this is how it works. The spatial plane where a decade is suspended is transparent which is why I am able to see geography behind it.

Perhaps this is a good time to mention that the reason synesthetic images are never intrusive or confusing is that each has its own naturally designated place in my universe while the universe is infinite with a multiplicity of planes. So there is no need for a synesthetic image or symbol to overlap or compete with another. I see everything I experience, and there is room for everything I see.

The synesthetic visions (like my other synesthetic responses) only appear when they are beckoned by whatever stimulus elicited their creation in the first place. When more than one synesthetic response is elicited at once, each one still has a specific location suspended in space.

While other people fix their coordinates in space, I anchor mine in time which is topographical and alive, as opposed to geography which is synchronic with no life in it or I should say no time in it. Geography, like any measurement of time, is just a symbol that is manmade, that has nothing to do with the experience of time.

MONTHS OF THE YEAR: I see in the shape of an oval though the months themselves do not move. Starting with January which is situated in the center at the bottom (closest to me), the months are arranged in a counterclockwise direction so that February (light green) is to the immediate right of January (pinkish white) while December (royal blue) is on the left of January. At the top of the oval are August, July and June and so forth. Each month has a unique shape and size. Click on the following link to see a drawing of the months of the year.

HISTORICAL TIME: I see in the shape of a loaf of bread which I view it in my left peripheral vision. The plane on which it appears is spatially much closer to my face than a decade which I see in front of me, quite close but still at least a foot away. In contrast, historical time is so close, I honestly have trouble saying if I see it inside my mind or projected outside my face.

Also, when I see historical time, I don't see anything on any other screen; i.e. there is no other active screen nearby like Chicago which I see behind the decade though their relationship has no meaning I am aware of; rather their spatial proximity works the same as longitude to latitude.

EACH CENTURY is a thick slab within the loaf. I can only see the face of the 19th century, which is brown but I "know" the others are there, arranged in descending chronological order reaching back beyond where I can see. After around the 14th century, they become so small they are hard to decipher and further back than that, they disappear from view, but I can always tell where I am in time by the lighting. When the shapes are too distant to make out, the lighting looks like it was produced by Caravaggio.

PRESENT TIME: I cannot see at all. What I see instead is this: that the past is in front of me, while the future is behind me, only that difference doesn’t have much meaning, since they don’t stay there, fixed; rather, they are both in constant motion and wash over me in opposite directions, meeting and mixing above me. I am bathed in their commingling. The past washes over me from front to back, the future washes over me from back to front, and somewhere above my head, the arcs of each intermingle (picture merging rivers).

The sensation of being bathed in their commingling is what present time feels like to me. Inside of their commingling, each particle, each atom, each individually distinctive piece that says this is past or that is future, dissolves; all identifying features are lost and they become indistinguishable from each other, losing their discrete boundaries. Within this experience, I have no self, I become what I am experiencing, just as I become what I am looking at when I take my pictures.

I suspect there is a loss of self because a self, like a concept of time, is synchronic, flat and meaningless in time. Everything that is not the experience itself (as it is felt) is a mere mask or icon designed to represent that which is unamenable to explanation or mathematical translation. When those icons, masks or symbols are used well (by Dostoevsky, e.g. who thought about this too), at their best, they can evoke the experience for another person.

I'm reminded of parable called Zeno’s arrow in which the ancient philosopher asks his students this question: “When you shoot an arrow, you can measure the distance it travels, but how do you measure the quality of its flight?” Defining the quality of the flight is like defining synesthesia.

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Uffizi

This is not a reflection. I took this picture at the Uffizi Gallery along the Arno River in Florence. I had just crossed the Ponte Vecchio Bridge ffrom the south side when I realized something had startled me on my right in peripheral vision. It happened so quickly that by the time I realized it, I had already walked past the source of my distraction. I scanned the crowd to see who else had noticed; surely, something so unignorable to me must have been seen by other people, yet no one appeared to have noticed but me.

I decided to retrace my steps to see if it would happen again. Looking straight ahead, not expecting it to occur, I began to walk. When it happened the second time, I stopped to determine the source. My sensation of an involuntary gestalt felt identical to my usual synesthesia -- the involuntary automatic response of color or sound elicited by an outside source -- only there was no color or sound in this case. What was the source and what did I feel?

I noticed that if I stood slightly to the right or left of that exact position, the feeling went away; so what was it about this confluence of shapes, this series of arches, that elicited the startle effect in me that felt identical to my synesthesia in a qualitative way? It is easier to tell you what I felt than why I felt it.

I remember the sensation of selfless abandonment, of suspension in perfect balance outside of the confines of time; the experience of ever-so-briefly being free of notions of quantity or measurement; indeed, of being beyond notions of any kind. It is a feeling I strive for in my art, though ironically, I can achieve it only if I give up striving all together.

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Glass to Nature, Firenze

By sharing my images, I hope to transform Nature’s mirror into a useful window for us all.

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Homage To Monet

"Homage to Monet" is a good example of how color elicits sound for me. I took this image when I heard a chord of color; in addition, I heard a crescendo which is produced by the shape of the white arc that goes across the image and looks (to me) like a lacy rainbow. The musical chord is produced by the arrangement of the colors themselves.

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Mouth of Milan

For some reason, the undersides of bridges, combined with their reflections, create eyes or mouths for me that belong to the cities in which they reside. In this case, I see the "Mouth of Milan."

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Circle

The evening I arrived in Amsterdam, I exclaimed with excitement when I spied my first canal. For to my surprise, I found a circle. Combined with its reflection, the lighted bridge created a golden circle just as the bridge I'd photographed years earlier in the United States had created with its reflection a "golden rectangle."

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Round Bridge

I took this picture when I felt myself stretch into the convex shape of the bridge. I felt my chest expand, my arms outstretched, fingertips on the edge of the universe. Also, the image, viewed upside down, looks and sounds like half a scale played on the piano.

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