about

Rebekah Paulovich

I am an American freelance graphic designer and illustrator currently living in Nice, France.

rebekah[at]freshmilk.fr

Rebekah Paulovich - graphic design & illustration

shapes for sound : synesthesia and visualizing sound

I have always experienced color and spatial sequences when listening to music, hearing sounds, listening to someone speak. When I was younger, I thought everyone perceived sound that way. As time went on, I began realizing that others don't necessarily "see" sound the way I do.

I also realized my way of seeing letters and numbers in color, visualizing time units both spatially and in color, and experiencing color and shape from touch was a bit unusual too.

A few years ago, I came across a Newsweek article, Real Rhapsody in Blue, about synesthesia. It was incredible to learn that this way of perceiving things thad a name! 

Since then, I've enjoyed learning more about synesthesia, talking with other synesthetes and figuring out how my own perceptions function.

shapes for sound : the project

I decided to focus my artistic research on the theme "Shapes for sound" in February 2009 after reading Timothy Donaldson's book "Shapes for Sounds: Why alphabets look like they do..." This book inspired me to start thinking about how art can be used to visualize all types of sounds. I soon discovered that many artists and researchers have worked with this subject, and that there are many ways of approaching it.

I first started working visualizing sound with the "Create-a-Thing-a-day 2009" project. Through this initial approach, I realized that I am particularly interested in graphically interpreting the work of Gojira, a French technical death metal band. The band's highly complex, progressive song structures feature a very rich rhythmical component and a dense, finely nuanced sound. Basically, I visualize some beautifully shaped, highly constasted spatial sequences when listening to this music.

I'm intending this site as a way of discussing my work, but also as a way of exploring others' work in visualizing sound.