Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Polina Dimova, "At the Crossroads of the Senses: The Synaesthetic Metaphor Across the Arts in European Modernism" (Penn State UP, 2024)
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Polina Dimova
Date: February 6, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode delves into Dr. Polina Dimova's interdisciplinary book, exploring how the idea and metaphor of synesthesia—a blending and crossing of senses—shaped and reflected artistic experimentation in European modernism. Dr. Dimova and host Dr. Melcher discuss the artistic, scientific, and mystical fascination with synesthetic experience, its metaphorical and real aspects, its neuroscience, and its imprint in visual art, literature, music, and multimedia projects spanning the 19th to early 20th centuries. The episode also introduces the book's digital companion, which brings synesthesia to life through interactive content.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Personal and Scholarly Motivation

• Dr. Dimova introduces herself as a professor of Russian and comparative literature with a strong interest in European modernism across literature, music, art, and science.
• Her background—multilingual, trained violinist, and composer—inspired her to look for ways to bridge the arts.
• Early fascination: Nabokov's synesthesia ("he could taste and feel the letters and see the letters when reading, and ... feel ... this tingle in the spine" — C, 03:41).
• The book's central question: How do the arts connect, and why did synesthesia capture artists and scientists during modernism?

2. Historical Development and Scientific Discovery

• Synesthesia as a concept was named in 1892. The first scientific report dates to 1812, coinciding with artistic interest.
• The 19th-century shift: Observers began to look inward, exploring subjective visual and auditory sensations rather than objective reality. This shift was key to synesthesia entering cultural imagination.
• Collaboration between artists and scientists at the time fostered exploration of perception, sense boundaries, and inner visions.
  • "Synesthesia presented itself as this one trope that interconnected the arts" — C, 06:28.
• The book’s thesis: Synesthetic metaphors anticipated and promoted multimedia artistic experiments in modernism.
  • "Synesthetic metaphors anticipate and promote multimedia experiments and adaptations across the modern arts." — C, 09:45.

3. Neuroscientific and Modern Understandings of Synesthesia

(11:07–21:13)

• Synesthesia today is considered both a rare neurological trait (approx. 4% of population) and a metaphor for inter-artistic creativity.
• Example types: seeing numbers as colors, tasting sounds, mirror-touch synesthesia (feeling what others feel), and month–color associations.
• Her synopsis of scientific debate:
  • Hyperconnectivity theory: more enduring connections between sensory regions in the brain due to less "pruning" during development.
  • Functional theory: lack of inhibition between sensory brain regions.
• The boundaries and definitions remain fuzzy: Not all cases fit neatly into criteria like consistency or vividness; types of synesthesia and its intensity are debated.
  • “Neuroscience doesn't have all the answers, and definitely we in the humanities … also don't have all the answers, but we need to admit that.” — C, 15:28.

4. 19th–Early 20th Century Theories and Contexts

(23:04–31:09)

• Synesthesia was seen as:
  • Degeneration (Nordau: “brains of mollusks”)—an attack on avant-garde art.
    • "Synesthetes are … brains of mollusks … like one sense for everything. … an attack on the arts and the cultural climate ..." — C, 23:17.
  • A mystical/spiritual gift (Theosophy: a window to universal correspondences).
  • An evolutionary advantage—a sign of heightened artistic genius.
• Key paradoxes:
  • Degeneration vs. evolution
  • Idiosyncratic/individual vs. universal/mystical experience
• Bouba/Kiki experiment: Most people agree certain shapes fit certain sounds—evidence of a sliding synesthetic scale in perception.
  • "All of us may have this weak sense of synesthesia ... we do experience through all our senses." — C, 27:59.

5. Synesthesia Linking Mediums: Case Studies

(31:42–43:29)

• Wagner’s Leitmotifs:
  • Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork) and the "eye of hearing" became central for later modernists.
  • "All artists wanted to synthesize the arts." — C, 32:26.
• Oscar Wilde’s "Salome":
  • The play’s language employs repetitive, incantatory motifs that blur vision and sound, setting up its adaptation into visual art (Beardsley) and music (Strauss’s opera).
  • Wilde’s synesthetic metaphors: e.g., in French, the voice is "wine," mixing taste and sound ("thy voices whine to me," i.e., “I’m drunk on your voice” — see C, 36:43).
• Alexander Scriabin's "Prometheus":
  • Designed as a multimedia synesthetic event, with a “color organ” projecting light for each musical key, connecting pitch and color.
  • Inspired future performances combining light, scent, and sound, extending Scriabin’s unrealized utopian vision.
    • San Francisco Symphony's 2024 performance included custom scents to match musical color.
  • "This initial idea ... continued to be realized in different ways ... as artists continue to approximate this ultimate mysterium ..." — C, 42:13.

6. Synesthesia’s Influence on Artistic Movements

(43:29–49:13)

• Abstract art's origins: While formalist critics saw it as the “purification” of art, Dimova ties it to both mystical/theosophical visions and direct perceptual phenomena (e.g., "form constants"—stars, tunnels, circles—seen in hallucinations or near sleep, see Kluver).
• Key figures:
  • Kandinsky (a self-identified synesthete): Abstract shapes were projections of synesthetic visions; inspired by Wagner and Theosophy.
  • Franceschek Kupka: Similar mystical and perceptual influences.
• "Artists like Kandinsky projected what they saw in their mind's eye onto their canvases." — C, 48:47.

7. The Book’s Digital Companion

(50:00–56:00)

• Dimova built a multimedia digital supplement for her book, now hosted on Scalar:
  • Play musical pieces (e.g., Scriabin’s Prometheus) and see annotated color/light effects in real-time.
  • Access full-color illustrations and interactive visualizations of themes and chapters—modelled as "constellations."
  • Ongoing project, giving the book a “utopian unfinished dimension.”
  • "For me, the digital companion embodies the text. It gives it voice and sound and color." — C, 54:47.

8. Future Research Directions

(56:30–60:06)

• Dr. Dimova is preparing a book on Scriabin and his legacy, looking at how synesthesia and electricity resonated through Russian and Soviet modernism.
• Further projects: collected volume on Slavic sensory studies, work on ideological and scientific metaphors of electricity in post-revolutionary Soviet art, and continued research on the arts/sciences divide in synesthesia studies.
  • "Who owns synesthesia? ... How can we repair the divides between the arts and the sciences?" — C, 59:46.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the universal appeal of synesthetic metaphors:

  "Synesthesia presented itself as this one trope that interconnected the arts ..." — Dr. Polina Dimova (06:28)

• On adapting synesthetic experiences into art:

  "My idea of synesthetic metaphors and synesthesia is that they're always connected to something that is unrealizable ... but in a future utopian moment, it's going to come true." — Dr. Polina Dimova (33:43)

• On the attraction and ambiguity of synesthesia as an artist's trait:

  "Synesthesia was considered to be this artistic gift ... but what was fascinating for me to discover is that synesthesia, well, the term itself appeared only in 1892 ..." — Dr. Polina Dimova (06:26)

• On scientific debates and uncertainty:

  "Neuroscience doesn't have all the answers, and definitely we in the humanities ... also don't have all the answers, but we need to admit that." — Dr. Polina Dimova (15:28)

• On the digital companion's constellation visualization:

  "...the visualization itself beautifully embodies and shows how synesthesia works, how I think of my book together with the digital companion." — Dr. Polina Dimova (54:01)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction & Motivation (01:40–09:45)
• Neuroscientific Explanations and Uncertainties Today (11:07–21:13)
• Historical and Theoretical Contexts (19th–Early 20th Century) (23:04–31:09)
• Case Studies: Wagner, Wilde/Beardsley/Strauss, Scriabin (31:42–43:29)
• Abstract Art and Mystical/Physiological Perceptions (43:29–49:13)
• The Book’s Digital Companion (50:00–56:00)
• Future Research (56:30–60:06)

Summary/Takeaways

• Synesthesia, once mysterious and mystical, is now better (but still incompletely) understood through both science and the humanities. Dimova’s work reveals it as a vital metaphor and method for connecting the arts, continually inspiring ambitious multimedia experiments.
• The boundaries between metaphorical/artistic and literal/scientific synesthesia are porous—both are intertwined in modernism’s “constellation” of creative and intellectual innovation.
• The project’s digital companion is essential, offering a living model of synesthetic, multimedia art scholarship.
• Dimova’s research extends synesthesia into the electric, utopian, and revolutionary dimensions of modernism—her next project promises new insights at those crossroads.