Mirror-Touch Synaesthesia
- Submitting institution
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University of Oxford
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 1823
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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-
- Location
- -
- Brief description of type
- Multi-platform output
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- September
- Year
- 2017
- URL
-
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- This edited volume of 92,0000 words plus a trilogy of films constitute the first exploration of what it is like to live with the unique neurological trait ‘mirror-touch synaesthesia’. The volume is the first, in any field, on mirror-touch synaesthesia, and the artworks are also the first, in any media, on the subject. Martin’s interviews with thirteen difficult-to-access mirror-touch synaesthetes began in 2010 and continued through 2015, culminating in the first ever qualitative analysis of mirror-touch, the findings of which informed a Tate Modern symposium as well as contributors’ chapters in the edited volume, and the scripts to the films.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- How might a newly discovered neurological condition, mirror-touch synaesthesia, invite a new aesthetics?
Martin’s multi-platform output – an edited volume (Oxford University Press) and two films exhibited at VISUAL, Carlow; 14th Istanbul Biennial; Wellcome Collection, London; and Highline, New York – represents the first scholarly and artistic body of work to address mirror-touch synaesthesia, a form of heightened physical empathy. Mirror-touch synaesthetes feel touch when they witness touch to other people.
This research – spanning theory and practice, supported by a Leverhulme Award, an AHRC mid-career Fellowship, and a Wellcome Trust Engagement Award – refreshes a long history of artistic engagement with synaesthesia by investigating how mirror-touch expands the possibilities of the ‘participatory’ in contemporary art.
Martin attended cross-disciplinary synaesthesia conferences, which inspired a pilot mirror-touch film, and a symposium at Tate Modern. She then initiated pioneering qualitative interviews with mirror-touch synaesthetes. In creating her two films, At the Threshold (2015) and Theatre of the Tender (2016), Martin processed these interviews about synaesthetes’ lived experiences through theatre workshops, scripting, shooting, and musical scoring. Her exhibitions are designed to help ‘neurotypical’ viewers to understand mirror-touch.
This research was widely disseminated: a profile on Psychology Today online; interviews on BBC Radio 4 and Resonance FM; a Serpentine Gallery podcast; a contribution to The Conversation; in-conversations at The Showroom and VISUAL, Carlow. At the 14th Istanbul Biennial, 10,000 flyers detailing conversations with mirror-touch synaesthetes, and catalogues describing the project, were distributed; Martin also presented at a conference on neuroaesthetics; published a scientific, peer-reviewed paper based on her interviews with synaesthetes; and screened the films at an international synaesthesia conference. The films were widely and favourably reviewed as examples of successful interplay between art and neuroscience.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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