This thesis examines the semiotic experiences in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury from a reader perspective by analyzing in what ways sensorial gesamtkunstwerk is used to convey or evoke sensations that appeal to the reader on a cognitive level. Drawing from Marco Caracciolo’s theories on experientiality which operate under the assumption that an evoked feeling from a text is dependent on the reader’s familiarity with their emotions and senses, this thesis claims that the bridge between narratological (textual) experiences and the reader’s experiences in the novel is made possible through sensorial aesthetics that appeal to our sensory modalities and that operate in a gestalt fashion to form a sensorial gesamtkunstwerk. Upon closer analysis, the experientiality in The Sound and the Fury is not only evoked by sensory modalities operating as a sensorial gesamtkunstwerk that draws on the reader’s cognitive and sensorial familiarity as is suggested by Caracciolo, but the analysis also exposes a narratological gesamtkunstwerk that operates at an intratextual level and which is only manifested when the novel is examined holistically. Containing differently perceived semiotic experiences, collectively, the differently narrated sections complement one another in such a way that they, too, synthesize into a gesamtkunstwerk that is dependent upon each section to fully operate.

This thesis examines how visual music in Swedish silent film served as an allusion to sound, either as a cinematic effect or as an intertwined part of the film narrative. Drawing on the concepts of synaesthesia and visual music, a discussion on how both concepts relate to each other serves as the key method for analyzing a selection of films. By defining synaesthesia in relation to concepts such as Gesamtkunstwerk and photogénie, the analysis examines different synaesthetic expressions through visual music in Swedish silent film. This thesis argues that Swedish film was influenced through several forms of art and ideas from different cinematic cultures. By comparing synaesthetic expressions through visual music in Swedish silent film and other cinematic cultures, this thesis suggest that the concepts were used in different ways to define cinema as a unique form of art.

The structural and functional differences observed in the brains of adults with synaesthesia is thought to arise, at least in part, from less-than-normal neural pruning of the exuberant connections present within and among sensory cortical areas in infancy (reviewed in Maurer, Gibson, & Spector, 2013). This hypothesis is supported by previous work that has demonstrated that synaesthetes are superior at processing foreign speech sounds and inverted faces (Maurer et al., in prep). The present study investigated a link between spatial frequency and face processing in adults with synaesthesia by testing synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes on their ability to discriminate upright and inverted faces filtered at high and low spatial frequencies. As predicted, synaesthetes (n=20) were significantly more accurate than non-synaesthetes (n=20) at discriminating among inverted full spectrum faces (p=0.0235), with no differences in upright faces, replicating previous findings that support the hypothesis that synaesthetes undergo less perceptual attunement (Ghloum et al., 2013). Unexpectedly, synaesthetes were faster at responding across all face conditions. Faster reaction times with no sacrifice to accuracy suggest that synaesthetes may be processing faces more efficiently. In addition, no significant differences in accuracy were observed for high and low filtered faces at any orientation between synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes. Future studies could further explore the basis of synaesthete’s face processing advantages by using eye movements and a narrow-band noise-masking paradigm. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

This paper focuses on intermedial relations between music and literature of European Modernism and early Avant-garde, and monitors the impact of music on literary texts, literature as a whole, and the essentially literary medium - the book. "Musical work", in this case, refers to Richard Wagner's music dramas and theoretical texts that outlined Wagner's artistic-aesthetic concept of Gesamtkunstwerk as a total work of art uniting all the arts. This paper follows the meta-aesthetic line of intimate, synaestheticly oriented intracompositional literary Gesamtkunstwerk in selected literary texts by Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Marcel Proust, and in The Blaue Reiter Almanac. It reveals the essence of analogies between music and literature, various manifestations of musicalization, and their significance for literary works and literature as a whole. It additionally emphasizes that the selected texts have also been influenced by already "literarized" music, as well as by esoteric teachings on speculative music, and highlights the gradual disintegration of boundaries between the arts, which led to their abstraction.

This dissertation examines the relationship between phonetic sound and content in Latin poetry, with a focus on Books 1-3 of Horace's Odes. The central argument is that a relationship exists between sound and content in poetry, that this can be analysed and described more thoroughly and systematically than is usually the case, and that the appreciation of poetry can be enhanced by doing so. Part 1 presents a scheme for describing the sound-content relationship, and argues that this accurately reflects the perceptions of poetic audiences and is psychologically valid. The scheme begins with the concept of the 'sonance', defined as any set of sounds that renders a passage sonically noteworthy. Sonances that relate to content are classified either as 'harmonic sonances', which relate to content due to the properties of the relevant sounds, or 'repetitive sonances', which relate to content purely due to the repetition (including patterning or contrasting) of sounds, regardless of their properties. Harmonic sonances, it is argued, may relate to content through four 'harmonies', depending on whether acoustic or articulatory properties are involved and whether the relationship is one of similarity between property and content or a more distant 'metaphor'. Repetitive sonances may relate to content by several different means, or 'modes of repetition'. Part 2 presents a simple method of numerical analysis which may be applied to the text by computer to extract passages that are relatively likely to contain a sonance, and briefly discusses the process of assessing these results, identifying further sonances by more natural means, and relating each sonance to the relevant content. As an essential preliminary to such matters, Latin phonetics and phonology are also discussed in detail. Parts 3 and 4 present the results of applying these resources of assessment and description to the text, to demonstrate the type of poetic appreciation which may thus be gained. Part 3 consists of two catalogues of harmonic and repetitive sonances taken from the whole of Odes 1-3. Part 4 is a specific examination of two entire odes in much greater detail. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Humanities, 2004.

In this research I have explored the performance making process of world renowned director Robert Lepage. This exploration informed my own process, creating an original performance called GAIJIN, where my roles included producer / director / designer and co-writer. The practice-led research strategy employed in this research has allowed me to navigate the sometimes slippery slope of connecting various performance discourses with the pragmatics of the performance making process. The reason for this research is my strong interest in the director’s role and my affinity with the practice of Robert Lepage. My observation of the performance making process of Robert Lepage prompted the creation of a conceptual framework informed by Hans-Thies Lehmann’s work Postdramatic Theatre. These theoretical concerns were then further investigated in the creation of my own show. This research process has uncovered a performance making process that foregrounds the working principles of simultaneity and synaesthesia, which together offer a changed conception of the performance text in live performance. Simultaneity is a space of chaotic interaction where many resources are used to build a perpetually evolving performance text. Synaesthesia is the type of navigation required – an engagement consisting of interrelated sense-impressions that uniquely connect the performance makers with the abundance of content and stimulus; they search for poetic connections and harmonious movement between the resources. This engagement relies on intuitive playmaking where the artists must exhibit restraint and reserve to privilege the interaction of resources and observe the emerging performance. This process has the potential to create a performance that is built by referential layers of theatrical signifiers and impressions. This research offers an insight into the practices of Robert Lepage as well as a lens through which to view other unique devising processes. It also offers a performance making language that is worthy of consideration by all performance makers, from directors to performers. The significance of this process is its inherent qualities of innovation produced by all manner of art forms and resources interacting in a unique performance making space.

The ʻaudiovisual objectʼ is a fusion of sound object and visual object to create an identifiable perceptual phenomenon, which can be treated as a ʻbuilding blockʼ in the creation of audiovisual work based primarily on electroacoustic composition practice and techniques. This thesis explores how the audiovisual object can be defined and identified in existing works, and offers an examination of how it can be used as a compositional tool. The historical development of the form and the effect of the performance venue on audience immersion is also explored. The audiovisual object concept builds upon theories of electroacoustic composition and film sound design. The audiovisual object is defined in relation to existing concepts of the sound object and visual object, while synaesthesia and cross-modal perception are examined to show how the relationship between sound and vision in the audiovisual object can be strengthened. Electroacoustic composition and animation both developed through technological advances, either the manipulation of recorded sounds, or the manipulation of drawn/photographed objects. The key stages in development of techniques and theories in both disciplines are examined and compared against each other, highlighting correlations and contrasts. The physical space where the audiovisual composition is performed also has a bearing on how the work is perceived and received. Current standard performance spaces include acousmatic concert systems, which emphasize the audio aspect over the visual, and the cinema, which focuses on the visual. Spaces which afford a much higher level of envelopment in the work include hemispheric projection, while individual experience through virtual reality systems could become a key platform. The key elements of the audiovisual object, interaction between objects and their successful use in audiovisual compositions are also investigated in a series of case studies. Specific audiovisual works are examined to highlight techniques to create successful audiovisual objects and interactions. As this research degree is in creative practice, a portfolio of 4 composed works is also included, with production notes explaining the inspiration behind and symbolism within each work, along with the practical techniques employed in their creation. The basis for each work is a short electroacoustic composition which has then been developed with abstract 3D CGI animation into an audiovisual composition, demonstrating the development of my own practice as well as exploring the concept of the audiovisual object. The concept of the audiovisual object draws together existing theories concerning the sound object, visual perception, and phenomenology. The concept, the associated investigation of how audiovisual compositions have evolved over time, and the analysis and critique of case studies based on this central concept contribute both theory and creative practice principles to this form of artistic creativity. This thesis forms a basis for approaching the creative process both as a creator and critic, and opens up a research pathway for further investigation.

v anglickém jazyce The purpose of this thesis is to identify the principles and main aspects of a possible future theory of written language and to critically analyze the existing approaches to this issue. The first chapter outlines the main principles serving as a background for the other parts of the thesis. The second chapter deals with non-empirical approaches to the written language: it introduces selected conceptions of the written language and attempts to critically reflect their theoretical impact. In the third chapter, selected empirical approaches to the written language are considered; it shows how particular empirical researches and empirically based findings could help in the formation of a new theory. The fourth chapter offers a critical review of the conception of the style-forming agents in the Czech and Slovak linguistics. In its second part, possibilities of a more valid and reliable approach to this issue are shown using the example of an experiment on style-forming agents preparedness and unpreparedness. The fifth chapter considers the phenomenon of synaesthesia in the relationship to the written language: the aim is to connect a research area, which would be considered as non-linguistic in the eyes of autonomous linguistics, with paramount linguistic problems.

The concept of key characteristics deals with the particular moods which different tonalities are believed to provide to music. Discussions regarding their existence and the validity of the phenomena have always been controversial because of a lack of fundamental reasons and explanations for them. Nevertheless, references to key characteristics have appeared in various fields of study and over many centuries: the Greek doctrine of ethos, writings of Guido d’Arezzo, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Traité de l’harmonie, scribbles in Beethoven’s sketches, and several passages in Hermann von Helmholtz’s On the Sensations of Tones. The attitudes and opinions towards key characteristics have varied in each period of its history. Among the ancient Greeks and Romans, the characteristics of modes were discussed among philosophers, namely, Plato, Aristotle, Lucianus and Cassiodorus. They were believed to affect moral development but were also associated with mysticism. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, references to key characteristics can be found in the writings of numerous theorists, including Gioseffo Zarlino, Ramos de Pariea and Heinrich Glarean. The studies and discussions of key characteristics in those periods became so well explored as to result in the first appearance of a list of the characteristics of each mode. In Germany and France especially, the discussion of key characteristics reached its peak in the first half of the eighteenth century, when it was studied as a part of Rhetoric. Theorists and composers equally showed their interest in the elements each key could offer to music and how to use keys advantageously in order to enrich the musical experience of the listener. While key characteristics were studied commonly as a vital subject by composers in the eighteenth century and as a fundamental of musical education by many young musicians in the early nineteenth, this tradition had all but disappeared by the middle of the twentieth. The concept of key characteristics is no longer commonly taught in our musical institutions, and this desertion from such a traditionally significant discipline is ever puzzling and particularly interesting to me. In my thesis, I will focus on writings from the last half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth to determine the various paths taken in the study of key characteristics. I will investigate the writings and discussions of three scholarly groups—music theorists, composers and scientists—from late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and discuss how the survival of the study of key characteristics was influenced by aspects of the time: popular aspects and aims in the fields of music theory; cultural and social expectations in the validity of phenomena; pronouncements of composers (Arthur Bliss, Alexander Scriabin, Olivier Messiaen, Arnold Schoenberg and Vincent D’Indy) in their musical styles; the rise of a naturalistic view of physical reality as a field and changes it brought to music and societies. I will also include a comparative summary of the status of key characteristics in various periods.

The relationship between color and music, and their relation to the human being and our surrounding universe has been subject of studies, theories and experiments since the old ages. From the ancient China and Persia to the present times, philosophers, scientists and artists have tried to explain these connections between color and music and also tried to find answers to this ancient enigma. The invention of the color organ c. 1730, an instrument that was intended to display color in addition to the musical auditive experience, was the first attempt to materialize the practical correlation between notes and color. This correlation has its foundation in the ideas of Isaac Newton, who through his book Optics published only a few years earlier, conformed the beginning of a new art culture: “Visual music”, in which image and sound are the fundamental elements in the creative process. The “visual music” concept is not only grounded in the ideas of music and sound, but also in the extraordinary creative capability of certain individuals. In short, those blessed with the gift of synaesthesia, a condition that provides a very small percentage of our population with very unique abilities like seeing color when hearing sound. Synaesthesia, a term that has been surrounded by scepticism and disbelief until the middle of the 19th century, will be the ingredient that would open for a complete new world of creative experiences, and became one of the main subjects of investigation and creation for many modern artists like Kandinsky and Klee, poets like Baudelaire, and composers like Skrjabin, Schoenberg or Wagner. In this essay, I’ll create three different studies in which image and sound will be combined to conform unique works. And based on my own synesthetic experience, I will approach my own creative process with the intention of analyzing it and explain how this correlation of image and sound works from my own and subjective artistic perspective.