Anne Patterson is an artist that creates large-scale immersive installations in public areas. She suffers from Synaesthesia, a condition which affects a human’s way of experiencing reality- some people taste words, some visualise sounds[FC1] . For Patterson, her condition is the basis to her work inspiration. She creates installations based around how she views and interacts with the world, with her personal symptoms being that she sees colours and shapes when she hears music; smells create different lights; she hears colours and to her, numbers have their own personalities. Her installations use ribbons and lighting (through forms of projection) to create immersive artwork where her audience can both physically and mentally lose themselves within. She works to enable her audience to connect with the piece for themselves and by using the senses, she allows the audience an insight to how Synaesthesia affects her reality.
Her piece Pathless Woods at the Ringling Museum of Art, Florida, was a piece created around her experience of hearing Classical music and the colours she’s sees when listening. The idea of ribbons came from her experience of listening to Toru Takemitsu and how she saw colours when listening to his work. The installation consisted of 24 miles of multi-coloured ribbons hanging from the ceiling of the performance space, with projection shone onto the ribbons to light the piece. The audience were allowed to walk freely through the installation, creating their own experience. She describes her work as “swimming through colour”[1] as this is how she feels is her reality, which I relate to as my condition makes my sense of reality a clouded and distorted version of the norm.
I am inspired by Anne Patterson with how she uses her condition to create work, as this is what I aim to do with my unknown condition where I experience spacing[FC2] out a week at a time. The way that she recreates her visualisation of the world into a physical state for others to explore is what I aim to do- create installations of how my spacing out feels to me. Instead of one large installation as she creates, I aim to create an audio-guided tour of a few mini-installations, to present the range of effects my conditions has on me. I will draw upon Patterson’s[FC3] technique of creating visually enticing work by using materials (such as her use of ribbon) that reflect how my symptoms feel- how materials ground me when I am spaced out.
I am inspired by how her work never declares that it is about Synasthesia, it is presented as an installation to interact with as you please and the meaning for it is left to the individual’s discretion. I believe that this has more of an impact on the piece and is a reflection of how the condition is received in everyday life, with very few being aware of the condition.
[1] Anne Patterson, Pathless Woods, http://www.annepatterson.com/Welcome/pathlesswoods.htm [accessed 28/03/2017].
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