Symposium on ‘Mirror-touch’ synesthesia at Tate Modern in London
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How do artworks touch us?
Are images reflected in our bodies?
Can sensation be a form of participation?
Brian Dillon, Joel Salinas, Patricia Pisters and Laura U. Marks discussing mirror-touch synesthesia and its meaning for visual arts
From February 7 to 9, 2014, a symposium at Tate Modern in London discussed, how ‘mirror-touch’, a recently discovered form of the neurological condition synaesthesia, can help us explore the relationships between art, perception, the social and the visual.
‘Synaesthesia … has been a source of insight for artists for over a century and this recently discovered manifestation offers powerful new ways of understanding contemporary art experience. People with mirror-touch feel a physical sense of touch on their own bodies when they witness touch to other people and often to objects. This symposium investigates how mirror-touch synaesthesia can model an empathic way of engaging with artworks.’