Olfactory Experimentation

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Two or Three things I know about Ciro #1

On 10-11-12 of January 2017 the fashion exhibition Due o tre cose che so di Ciro curated by Angelo Flaccavento took place at the magnificent Palazzo Gerini in Florence, Italy. This show was a celebration on Kiton, the Napolitean haute couture tailoring brand, on the occasion of Pitti Imagine Uomo 91.

The show had 7 different spaces, beautifully designed by the architect Alessandro Moradei.

Mara Micciché was the sound designer behind the beautiful soundtracks, who also brought me into the project.

Antonio Pippolino co-curated the event and made a wonderful invitation card.

I had the pleasure of working on room IV: Tailoring. 

For this space I produced 3 scents: the tailors chalk, the ironed clothes and the metallic aroma of the sewing machines and other instruments.

The chalk smell was constantly diffused in the room; the ironed clothes would be activated by a motion sensor, when someone is in the space. The poetically metallic accord was microencapsulated and disposed in the wall: when you would caress the wall you would be able also to smell it.

Angelo also asked me to compose the scent of Naples. This was a delighting task. I researched about the city and asked some of its habitants how do they feel about the scents of their city. 

The result was an uplifting marine fragrance, sweet, radiant and oceanic. 

The Napoli fragrance was diffused at the entrance of the palace.

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BALTAN LABORATORIES #2

Thank you so much Vivan Fontijn for the lovely report on the workshop on the Sense of Smell I gave last november 2016 in the Baltan Laboratories, Eindhoven.

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SCENTED LANGUAGE #2

In spring 2016 I was invited by Maxwell Williams to create something, for a publication on scent, with a selection of prompts: 1) a visual representation of a nose, 2) use text or visual representation to describe a scent memory, or 3) use text or visual representation to describe a scent that doesn’t yet exist. The exercise highlights the unique intersection between scent and time. 

The result was an inspiring and limited run publication featuring 15 artists and writers who work in scent: now past later.

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BALTAN LABORATORIES #1

Last November the Baltan Laboratories,  a collaborative platform for future thinking that places art and design research at the core of its activities, in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, invited me to give a “smell” workshop in the context of their program Hack the Body.

It was an intense 4h afternoon were we review together the physiological aspects of smell, as how it related to memory, olfactory art examples, and the best, we conducted a distillation out of the 3-days-slept-in t-shorts of the participants.

The participants were an amazing group with different backgrounds: designers, psychologist, reserachers, artists, students...

Thank you so much Angela & Baltan for the nice treat! 

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RETUNE #1

Last October, 2016, I had the pleasure to participate in the Retune Festival in Berlin. I have a crush course into Smell&Art and smell extraction methods! We runned a dry rose steam distillation.

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MEDIAMATIC / AMSTERDAM #5

The last day of my 10-day-artist-residency I presented the results during the Odorama night curated by Caro Verbeek.

After a presentation on what did I do these last days and how was the workshop I presented an art work, smellSCAPES performance. 

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MEDIAMATIC / AMSTERDAM #4

The Smell Scapes workshop at Mediamatic was wonderful! 

I had a fully booked 1 day workshop with super motivated participants.

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MEDIAMATIC / AMSTERDAM #3

Then, when I was considering going for a first impressions smell walk on my own I discovered Mediamatic’s greenhouse! Sabrina, the girl working at the aquaponics system is also my neighbor upstairs where I stay. Anyhow, she was cleaning up the basil and I took a bunch of it. I could very well fill in the distilling flask!

For this distillation I picked up two samples, one that was being collected for the first hour and a second one that was being collected for the second hour. One can smell the differences clearly. Let’s see if I manage to write it down in words: the first one smells purely like basil, it makes you hungry, you immediately can imagine a delicious dish of spaghetti with pesto (YAMI!). The second sample is waaaaay more rough&tough, it smells closer to grass.

So technically, each of the volatile components that belong to a scent have a different boiling point, meaning that not all of them fly away from the main material (basil) at the same time, producing that differences on the scent of the water collected after distillation (hydrosol).

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MEDIAMATIC / AMSTERDAM #2

First interaction with Mediamatic and Amsterdam has been so far: BEER! 

I’m installed in the micro brewery project lab, where they brew beer! 

It was impossible not to distill some Barley (the beer malt they are using nowadays) and figure out if I could recreate that amazing bread smell the lab has.

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MEDIAMATIC / AMSTERDAM #1

I am being hosted by Mediamatic in Amsterdam for a short 10-days artist in residence. 

Tomorrow Saturday the 3rd of September I’m giving a workshop “The Scent of Amsterdam” where participants will learn a little theory on how smell works. We will also train our noses in a short smell walk around Mediamatic neighborhood and we will round the day with two types of distillation (steam & simple).

On thursday the 8th I will be giving a lecture and showing a performance during the net Odorama event curated by Caro Verbeek.

Will post the distilling experiments in the following posts.

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Video documentation from our second show, Connected Smells by Smell Lab at the Holz Kohlen Koks, Berlin, Germany!

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Für die taz war ich mit Michelle bei der Geruchs-Performance Connected Smells vom Smell Lab im Holz Kohle Koks in der Reuterstraße in Neukölln. Spannendes Projekt! Die Treffen sind offen, Infos hier:

http://spektrumberlin.de/communities/smell-lab/past-events.html

CONNECTED SMELLS is a live installation and a public distillation of substances and materials connected to memories. The sense of smell is often cited for its ability to elicit highly individualized associations and memories. Smell and memory are, however, social senses, mediating our interactions with others and acting as a repository for collective experience. With this experiment we want to bring the connected nature of smell forward, providing you with the chance of contributing to a smell that is composed through contributions of many people’s memories. To participate, merely bring a small amount (anything smaller than the palm of your hand) of substance or material that reminds you of someone in your own life. It can be a dollop of honey, an old sock, a collection of herbs, shards of a plate, a handful of candies - anything that connects you to that person. http://smelllab.tumblr.com/

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Smells like Sex #1

That warm, sometimes sweaty scent we evocate after sex.

My vagina smells.

Your vagina smells.

Your penis also smells.

You smell!

How are these aromas produced? All by bacteria? Diet?

New research starting NOW!

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Smell Lab #8

Smell Lab #8 April 2016. What an overload of a session! We hosted a divers and amazing guests. Starting with the experiment on Synesthesia by Dimitri Cacouris. Dimitri presented 3 different scented...

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Smell Lab #7

During the February smell lab edition we hosted 2 artist presentations. Alanna Lynch and Chaveli Sifre introduced us to their works. Both artist have worked previously with the sense of smell.

We had an improvised sniffing conducted by Max: he sprayed the most expensive perfumes from Rossmann in some plastic envelopes, without previous announcement of what were we smelling.

I made a game/experiment. I wanted to check what's easier, to match smells and pictures or smells and words. The results of the group proved that it might be more simple for the majority to relate scents and images.

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Sotto il sole giaguaro

Scented Language Post #1

¿Pero cómo podía describir con palabras la sensación lánguida y feroz que había experimentado la noche anterior en el baile de disfraces cuando mi misteriosa compañera de vals con un gesto in‐ dolente había hecho deslizar el chal de gasa que separaba su blanco hombro de mis bigotes y una nube atigrada y flexible me había agredido las nari‐ ces como si estuviera aspirando el alma de un tigre?

Bajo el sol jaguar. Italo Calvino.

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Smell Lab #6

On the 20th of January, from 20h at Spektrum, Berlin the Smell Lab will be exhibiting Collected Smells.

During the past months Smell Lab was born as part of the new art space Spektrum. A group of enthusiasts with a passion for the sense of smell and its uses in art and science, gather every month to experiment and discuss new realities and approaches to one of the most forgotten senses of the human body, olfaction.

This night will showcase the work that has been going on in the lab so far:

Collected Smells is the first installation produced by the Smell Lab. The work consists of several smells gathered during the Smell Lab's meetings and derived from various locations in Berlin-Neukölln. The installation is made up of sheets of cloth imbued with scents from our surroundings, for example - the water, the soil, cigarette smoke... The work is the culmination of the lab's explorations and is the first in a series of future projects.

This event is part of the transmediale/CTM Vorspiel 2016 festival.

At 20h there will be a short presentation about the piece with the participating artists:

Daria Chesnokova, Chaveli Sifre, Max Joy, Alanna Lynch, Sheraz Kahn, Mareike Bode, Dimitri Cacouris and Klara Ravat.

We hope you can join us! See you there!