N: Happy to be introducing Wesley Trisnadi, our treasured Lead AR/VR Designer here at Change Lab. We were pretty excited to find that you had made a TedTalk when you were only 17 about what Synesthesia is and, more so, how it added such value to your creative journey. Thank you for letting us share it with our audience. The background of how you got involved in doing the talk is so interesting. Tell us about it if you would.

W: Thank you, Nancy! The opportunity came about when I was a junior at Jakarta Intercultural School, an international high school in Indonesia that hosted official TEDx conferences. One had to audition and create an outline of what the proposed topic would be and why or why not the school should greenlight the talk. Fortunately, they really liked my idea and selected me as one of the six speakers.

The selected theme for the year was “Crossing Paths,” intended to explore new human connections and expand cultural boundaries. I thought of my synesthesia because I knew that not many people had heard about this phenomenon. And once they do, they may be surprised to discover a new perspective on human sensory experiences. My talk introduced what synesthesia is to the audience and specifically revolved around the theme of it being an “EXTRAorder”.

Preparation started in the fall before the event in January 2018. We had 2-3 months to prepare but were only able to do a dress rehearsal once. I honestly didn't finalize my speech outline until the final rehearsal and just went with the flow. Luckily, speakers were allowed to create a slideshow, which is very useful for explaining visual and auditory subjects like synesthesia. After the talk, people came up to ask me more questions during the Q&A session, including a teacher who asked me to become a guest speaker for her IB Theory of Knowledge class. Eventually, my talk was published on the official TEDx YouTube channel and I received many emails and messages on social media with more inquiries. It was nice to see comments on people's reactions as well.

As explained in depth throughout my talk, there are many forms of synesthesia and in different intensities. Overall, I have various forms of synesthesia but my predominant ones are Grapheme Color and Lexical Gustatory. The former allows me to color code the alphabet and numbers in different colors, opacity, and textures. While the latter allows me to taste words, sounds, and experiences, in unique gustatory sensations. I also have a little bit of Spatial Sequence Synesthesia, which is why I am good at memorizing numbers and dates. Synesthesia is something that I was born with and, interestingly, my sister also has it. My mother is a pianist and we believe that there were early signs of it with her as well. Therefore, I believe genetics is the main factor as to why I have synesthesia.

Moving forward past high school, my experience with synesthesia has not only affected me with my personal life but also benefited my career. During my time at Loyola Marymount University's School of Film & TV, I wrote, directed, and produced an original sci-fi web series based on this neurological phenomenon titled “Synesthesia: Beyond the Visible Spectrum”. As I did my thesis paper on Extended Reality, I explored the topic of human perception and how synchronized sensory experiences could play a pivotal role in the future of immersive media.

Overall, this was one of the most memorable experiences of my life and I hope you will enjoy the full TEDxTalk!

Check out Wesley's video on Youtube here: Synesthesia: The “disorder” that truly is an EXTRAorder. | Wesley Trisnadi | TEDxJIS