Tony Oursler's Synesthesia project features interviews with twelve legendary figures in the downtown music, performance and art scenes: John Cale, Thurston Moore, Dan Graham, Genesis P-Orridge, Kim Gordon, Glenn Branca, Laurie Anderson, Tony Conrad, David Byrne, Lydia Lunch, Alan Vega, and Arto Lindsay. These works were originally included as one element of Oursler and Mike Kelley's multimedia installation The Poetics Project. These conversations reveal fascinating insights and anecdotes from some of the most influential figures in the experimental rock and art underground of the 1970s and '80s, from pre-punk innovators to post-punk icons, from industrial and avant-garde music to noise bands and "no wave."

Since the 1960s, Tony Conrad's experimental work has helped define the contours of minimalism, both in music and in film. Even as films such as The Flicker upped the structuralist ante, he was crafting a body of musical work that stands as a major achievement of experimental composition, from long-duration performances with LaMonte Young and John Cale as The Theater of Eternal Music to his more pop-oriented work with the German art-rock band Faust.