Date: Wednesday 23rd November // Time: 1pm // Location: Digital Arts Studios
Image courtesy of Carrie Firman, ‘Ulster Museum’ 2011.
Carrie’s work explores the experience of synaesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon whose definition is currently in flux. Literally, it comes from the Greek syn, meaning union or joining, and aesthesia, meaning sensation. A synaesthete experiences more than one sensory or internal modality upon one trigger. This could mean an impression of colour upon hearing sounds, shapes when having strong emotions, or personality for alphanumeric colours. It is often described as a personal code, as no two synaesthetes have the same experience. Carrie had always felt that she had a different way of seeing things, but did not find out about synaesthesia until she was 25. Finally, visualising sound, pain, and concepts (among other things) with colour, shape, and movement was no longer just a personal quirk and certainly not something that everyone experienced.
Image courtesy of Carrie Firman, ‘Samson & Goliath’ 2011.
Carrie C Firman grew up in Pennsylvania and received her BA in Commercial Design and Photography at Lycoming College in 2005 with art department honours and ‘summa cum laude’ distinction. After working in the area as a professional graphic designer for four years, she moved to attend the State University of New York at Buffalo. During the two year program, Carrie was a Dean’s Fellowship recipient, a teaching assistant, and a Mark Diamond Research Fund recipient. This spring she completed her Master of Fine Arts degree, taught at the University, and completed an artist residency in Pennsylvania at the Pajama Factory/Public Art Academy. In October Carrie arrived in Belfast as a resident at Digital Arts Studios, and in December she moves to Milton Keynes, England to Westbury Studios for another term. She has shown and presented her work at conferences of the American Synesthesia Association (Nashville), UK Synaesthesia Association (London), and Center for Consciousness Studies (Stockholm). Carrie was an Art and Synesthesia panel member and Artist’s Workshop educator at the Burchfield Penney Art Center and participated in group shows while in Buffalo, NY. She has presented her work to Greater New York Mensa in collaboration with author Maureen Seaberg, whose recent book on the synaesthetic experience Tasting the Universe features one of Carrie’s abstract photographs. In support of the synaesthesia community, she is also featured in several short video documentaries and an MIT online journal article. She will be exhibiting in Art Laboratory Berlin’s Synaesthesia Series in Germany next year.
Image courtesy of Carrie Firman, ‘St Annes Church’, 2011.
All DAS talks are free and open to the public.
For more information please contact the Digital Arts Studios on 02890 312900 or email the manager: angela@digitalartsstudios.com
