"Static Noise And Cigarette Smoke" (静电声和香烟雾)
Don’t you miss it? All those wonderful smells and sounds that came out of Shanghai’s taxis… A scent enters the nose and jumps up the olfactory nerves like a trapeze artist, to a part of the brain called the olfactory bulb. The olfactory bulb presses against the amygdala and hippocampus, the emotional centers of the brain. Have you ever had a smell take you back to grandma’s kitchen? Artists like Sissel Tolaas are interested in the “aesthetics of smell”, or the idea that like sight and sound, smell can be beautiful. Think of taking a Shanghai taxi in the good-old days. The stoic driver had a sly-but-not-clever, devil-may-care demeanor. He was bored, but faithful to his car. He asked if you wanted a cigarette, “stick to Lesser Panda cigarettes, they’re much healthier”. The radio was tuned almost perfectly to Love Song Radio FM 103.7 and the air was stale but not quite enough to complain. Pure bliss. Those conversations were the most honest you could have in Shanghai, as if they were on another planet from your 9-5. The old guys were right: you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Artwork page: https://island6.org/staticnoiseandcigarettesmoke
Art for sale contact [email protected]
📷 Follow our instagram island6_gallery📷