From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Multisensory and synaesthetic adaptations
This article surveys a thematic lineage of Beach Surgery works that deliberately cross and conflict sensory modalities. For individual works, see Scent and olfactory art in Beach Surgery adaptation.
A lineage of Beach Surgery adaptations that deliberately stage sensory conflict rather than synthesis. Where conventional multimedia design seeks synesthetic harmony, these works exploit the analogical principle embedded in the novel: "Consciousness is an analogy of itself"—consciousness arises *only* from irreducible discontinuity between parallel experiences.
Works in this constellation pair incompatible sensory registers. Frequencies the Spine Refuses—A Binaural + Olfactory Installation (Tel Aviv, 2024–present) combines a binaural recording of the boundary between earth and space (inaudible to the ear, visible only as pressure) with a heavy incense designed to block olfactory reception entirely. The Kármán Whisper—A Synaesthetic Olfactory LARP (Tbilisi, 2021–ongoing) sequences spine-resonance tones (D or G, depending on sex/body size) with scents that atomise in conflicting directions. The Heartbeat Rice—A Rhythmic Meal Cycle in West Bengal serves dishes whose texture contradicts their flavor, while a rhythm track plays at the precise inverse ratio of the diner's heart-rate.
The shared argument: the glitch—the unseam between the novel's halves—is not a narrative failure but a sensory fact. Each adaptation maps one sensory impossibility onto another. No fusion occurs. The analogy persists only in the rupture itself.