THROUGH THE SMELLING GLASS. CAN PICTURES SMELL.

OLFACTORY VISUAL AESTHETICS

Through the smelling glass. Can pictures smell? Olfactory visual aesthetics.
by Olympia Efstathiou
MA Digital Arts Online (Visual Arts) 28 January 2012

THROUGH THE SMELLING GLASS. CAN PICTURES SMELL. OLFACTORY VISUAL AESTHETICS

Aims and objectives

The main source of inspiration for my upcoming project is an intriguing, cryptic sense - olfaction and its visualisation through a series of artifacts. How can a pre-manufactured smell become the sole stimulus of creative expression carried out by a selected group of artists - experimental receptors? A significant paradox in terms, considering the fact that olfactory perception is normally limited to simplistic descriptions such as good or bad. Despite the fact that the definitive terminology is less than complex, smell creates astounding chain reactions within our brain by opening doors to the past, to forgotten places, to lost acquaintances, to dreams; what an intriguing experience it would be to monitor those reactions and see them potentially coming into perspective in visual form! The main aim is to examine the occurring possibility of a group of artists working together with sole inspiration something so mysterious and subjective as a smell. Will the artists of the group respond to this by working as individuals or will they influence each other ? Is the finished artifact going to be consistent and homogeneous or is it going to reflect a conflict between various ideas? Does too much information restrict the boundaries of self expression, or does it lead to vagueness and discoordination? Consequently, the secondary aim will be to prove that the more liberated the artist is from an avalanche of briefing data the more creative and productive he/she becomes. The process of carrying out the olfactory experiment will consist of forming a group of six selected artists, who will be provided with a coded vial consisted of the perfume; during the meetings they will be given identical uniforms and stationary designed by me, to capture their thoughts. The main idea behind this is to eliminate any external subjective elements and create a homogenous environment in the meetings. Specific parts of their research/journal will be revealed unanimously only at selected phases of the projects timeline. Thus providing this artistic symbiosis with more secrecy and even more elaboration. Parallel to this, the project will try to focus on revealing the reasons why people loathe or love certain smells through examining the personal or cultural assets that we use to identify smells.

THROUGH THE SMELLING GLASS. CAN PICTURES SMELL. OLFACTORY VISUAL AESTHETICS

Context [Including Historical, Contemporary and Theoretical Contexts]

Senses and the stimuli they communicate to the human brain have always been puzzling researchers. However, olfaction was mostly overlooked because of its primitive and animalistic connections. Man has always looked for ways to separate himself from animals hence the higher appreciation for the sense of vision. No other sense can produce a more straightforward and universally consistent perception, thus the indifference towards smell. As Andreas Keller mentions in his website Plato maintains that God has given us sight to give us philosophy. We can derive philosophy from vision because it gives us the inspiration to think of rational abstract concepts (he is thinking about the motion of the planets). Smells on the other hand are "a sort of half-breed". In his Timaeus Plato discusses the five senses. Vision is discussed over several dozen pages and smell in less than one. His pupil Aristotele distributed his attention between the senses similarly.[1] In literature, the primal notion of the sense is accurately depicted in Patrick Sskind novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, where the protagonist will not let anything to stand his way for his search of the perfect scent[2] which leads into a spiral of perverse and inhumane acts with a degenerate crescendo when the scent is set into the air. Art and olfaction were initially connected in the field of perfumery which has evolved and become more adventurous throughout the years. The search for the recreation of cutting edge smells from state of the art perfume houses has given the chance to many artists to experiment with olfactory perception and the human brain. An appreciable example is the smell artist Sissel Tolaas who has dedicated herself to the exploration of a diverse spectrum of smell molecules and the effect of pheromones on the human brain. In her curated issue of Monokultur magazine she states Olfaction is our most primitive, or first, sense. It heightens our reality, informs our desires, triggers memory, constructs our environment. Contained in the limbic system and the most ancient core of the brain, smell is so powerful that ones loss of olfaction known as smell blindness or anosmia can induce depression, perhaps even suicide [3]. Her work consists of installations that test the receptors olfactory limitations in order to provoke and let them discover their unexplored areas in their memory and develop their knowledge. Living in a sterilised world that diminishes unwanted smells that devalue the comme il faut of modern civilised society. Tolaas challenges us to

THROUGH THE SMELLING GLASS. CAN PICTURES SMELL. OLFACTORY VISUAL AESTHETICS

realise that we do not like or dislike the smell itself, but the given established data that surrounds it. As Christina Agapakis, a collaborator of Sessil Tolaas states nothing stinks, only thinking makes it so [4]. The MA project will also deal with the sociopolitical effects by establishing a mock society of individuals, with different backgrounds and preferences. They will need to adjust themselves to the smell and keep journals while undergoing the experiment. The formation of a secret society with references to fraternal organisations elaborating distinct symbolism will influence them to caucus and create a counteraction and at the same time will help us understand the level of domination and public thought control. In other words to which extend the westernised monoculture of smell predetermines ones judgement, feelings and thoughts. Will the inspiration remain independent? As humans, were not immediately predisposed to respond to a scent and believe that it is good or bad, whether we like a smell or not is learned..[5] The references to cognitive psychology are essential. The term "cognition" refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. It is concerned with these processes even when they operate in the absence of relevant stimulation, as in images and hallucinations... Given such a sweeping definition, it is apparent that cognition is involved in everything a human being might possibly do; that every psychological phenomenon is a cognitive phenomenon.[6] Therefore through cognitive psychology we are going to investigate how our noses are trained through our distinct experiences in life and to what level does this development inaugurates our lives.

Methodology
To achieve the above there is going to be a set of experimenting events. First, the six participants all of them artists from different fields - will be given a coded vial of an essence with six distinct base notes. Three of the base notes are going to be conventional flower based odors, two middle notes will be extremely unconventional industrial smells, while the last top note is going to be an animalistic smell with a close resemblance to human body smells. This obscure and hard to process perfume, will be the beginning of the journey. There are going to be weekly meetings in a studio space where the participants will work together at first holding conversations, sharing thoughts and co-operating. As mentioned above every member will be dressed in the same clothing in order to keep an essence of mystery, and will be given a simple substitute for

THROUGH THE SMELLING GLASS. CAN PICTURES SMELL. OLFACTORY VISUAL AESTHETICS

communication through coded gestures, words and symbols. After eight weeks of tutorials the artists will start working on their personal projects with the perfume being the sole source of inspiration.

Outcomes
Photography, fine art, fashion design, graphics, video art music and written word will all be implemented in the final presentation, together with 6 journals. The artifact will be interactive, where spectators will be able to smell the perfume, draw in blank canvases, alter the artifacts and formulate another presentation. This will test how people instantly react when smelling the perfume. No conversations, no guidance, just primal instinct and reaction. Parallel to that the artifact will be evolved, maybe destroyed, but its presence will not stay the same. This will offer the chance to the people involved to test their own limitations and reactions and participate in rearranging the final artifact.

Work Plan
The work plan will be separated in the following stages: 1. The preparation of the perfume. The research has already evolved and the selected notes are being tested in order to achieve the final smell. 2. The design and making of the participants uniforms. The designs and silk prints are ready and are in sewing production. The production of stationary is also under way. 3. The inauguration of the eight weekly tutorials. During this stage the participating artists will be keeping journals and I will be recording all conversations. 4. The creation of the final artifacts. This is going to be the most time consuming of the stages and will be monitored and examined by myself. 5. The interactive presentation of the whole project. This stage will initiate the transformation of the artifact and challenge the viewers to take part in the installation.

Bibliography

THROUGH THE SMELLING GLASS. CAN PICTURES SMELL. OLFACTORY VISUAL AESTHETICS

Agapakis, C., Tolaas, S., Agapakis + Tolaas <URL http://syntheticaesthetics.org/> [accessed 12 September 2010]

Brand, J., G., Chemical Senses: Volume 1: Receptor Events and Transduction in Taste and Olfaction: Receptor Events and Transduction in Taste and Olfaction Vol 1, (U.S.A., CRC Press, 1989) Classen,, C., Howes, D., and Synnott, A., Aroma: the Cultural History of Smell, (England, Routledge, 1994)

Dowling, S., Following Her Nose: An Odor Artist's Vision of a Smelly Future <URL http://www.spiegel.de> [accessed 25 November 2010] Feydeau, E.,A Scented Palace: The Secret History of Marie Antoinette's Perfumer, (England, I.B. Tauris, 2006) Gilbert, A.,What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life (U.S.A., Crown Publishing Group, Division of Random House Inc., 2008) Keller, A., Andreas Keller Olfaction <URL http://andreaskeller.squarespace.com/> [accessed 21 November 2010]

Lawton, W., Scents and Emotions Linked by Learning, Brown Study Shows , (U.S.A., Brown University, 2006)

Rouby, C., Olfaction, taste, and cognition, (England, Cambridge University Press, 2004) Sskind, P., Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, (Germany, Penguin Books, 1985) Tolaas, S., Life is everywhere: I collected smells instead of writting a diary, <URL http://mono-kultur.com/> [accessed 5 November 2010] Turin, L., The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell, (England, Faber & Faber 2007)

Wilson, A.D., Stevenson, R. J., Learning to smell: olfactory perception from neurobiology to behavior (U.S.A., The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006)

THROUGH THE SMELLING GLASS. CAN PICTURES SMELL. OLFACTORY VISUAL AESTHETICS

References
[1] Keller, A., Andreas Keller Olfaction <URL http://andreaskeller.squarespace.com/> [accessed 21 November 2010] [2] Sskind, P., Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, (Germany: Penguin Books, 1985) [3] Tolaas, S., Life is everywhere: I collected smells instead of writting a diary, <URL http://mono-kultur.com/> [accessed 5 November 2010] [4] Agapakis, C., Tolaas, S., Agapakis + Tolaas <URL http://syntheticaesthetics.org/> [accessed 12 September 2010] [5] Lawton, W., Scents and Emotions Linked by Learning, Brown Study Shows , (U.S.A., Brown University, 2006)

[6] Josephs, I., A psychological analysis of a psychological phenomenon: the dialogical construction of 129) meaning (Social Science Information, March 2000, 39:115-