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H. Palmer:
"From Whorl to World: Composition as Kaleidoscope";
Keynote Lecture: Experimental Zone 1: Re-Thinking Methodologies at the Intersections of the Arts and the Humanities, Linkoping, Sweden (invited); 2020-11-19.

The consideration of a topology of the senses is derived from an apprehension of the limitations of geometric systems, segmentations and scales: particularly for those existing at the margins, interstices or outside these systems altogether. This paper draws together topology (the mathematical study of spatial properties preserved under continuous deformation) with synaesthesia (the perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one cognitive pathway leads to automatic experiences in another). These phenomena are linked through a shared goal to displace Western Enlightenment ocularcentrism in favour of intra-sensory entanglements. As a process of transformation from seawater into Cartesian logarithmic spirals, the architecture of shells appears to demand both mathematical precision and an order of time far greater than the human calendar. This provocation is explored through the ficteme: a speculative unit that mobilises material objects or concepts through setting them to work on a fictional stage. These various strands are explored speculatively in this paper via a writing journey based on a series of alternative taxonomies segmenting our sensory existence: a hormone symphony, a new theorisation of the vowel space after Rimbaud, a speculative taxonomy of musical intervals in the diatonic scale, and a meditation on sirens and organs based in Blackpool, north-west England.​