ARAE is able to see colours and shapes when she listens to music. This type of synesthesia, called Chromesthesia, allows her to pinpoint the exact colour she sees, and she uses it to produce her music according to what she thinks is the "essence" of the song. Today, she wants to share her process and allow people to get a unique vision inside her brain.
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Presenting 'Chromesthesia', the planetarium show.
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About Chromesthesia
Visual colour guide for the song 'See Me Feel'.
Stills from the 'See Me Feel' planetarium video.
Visual colour guide for the song 'Warm'.
Stills from the 'Warm' planetarium video.
ARAE's vision is very precise. It's a feeling that emerges at the top of the head, behind the forehead. But ARAE explains that the phenomenon appears like the sparkling colours one sees behind their eyelids when closing their eyes. It's always there, but you choose to focus on it, or not. She describes it as "zooming in and out"; she sees an overall colour for a song, but can single out an instrument or a part.
In order to represent her perception as accurately as possible, she created a series of visual colour guides that pinpoint the exact shades she sees according to the instrument and the moment of the song.
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To bring this show to life, a team of video animators produced 10 original visual pieces following the pre-determined colour guides. Each video will display a specific range of colour and textures which will be played while ARAE performs these songs live.
Follow the video animators here:
About The Show Debut
9 - 10 JUNE 2021 - SOLD OUT -
Hemisfèric, Valencia, Spain
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On the 9th and 10th of June 2021, the Hemisfèric, Valencia's planetarium hosted the debut of a one-of-a-kind conceptual concert. 'Chromesthesia' is an unprecedented immersive experience aiming at making you see what it is like to hear colours. Although planetariums have hosted concerts in the past, never has one hosted a concert of contemporary pop music and utilised dome screens to demonstrate the link between music and colours.
The show is designed to be fully immersive and to cut you off from reality for the space of 45 minutes, the length of the concert.
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The planetarium, as well as the rest of the City of Arts and Sciences where it is located was designed by the prestigious architect Santiago Calatrava and inaugurated in 1998.
The Hemisfèric's projection room has a capacity of 300 seats.
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Additional information
The Hemisfèric is the first chapter of what will hopefully be a planetarium world tour. After Spain, we are hoping to export the show to other locations. If you work at a planetarium and are interested by our concept, please contact us here.
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This show was made possible thanks to the support of:
