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 ISTANBUL BILGI UNIVERSITY
INSTITUTE OF GRADUATE PROGRAMS

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Sissel Tolaas with her smell archive…………………………..…..10
Figure 2. Paddled scent dispenser from The Maurithuis Museum’s Scents in Colour exhibition…………………………………………………………….17 Figure 3. Visitors smelling 'The Smell of FEAR' by Sissel Tolaas ………....18 Figure 4. Revolution by Lisa Kirk …………………………………………..20 Figure 5. Kiki by Kiki Smith ………………………………………………..20 Figure 6. Olfactory Pathways………………………………………………..22 Figure 7. The Limbic System………………………………………………..23 Figure 8. The Smell Chess by Takako Saito, 1977………………………….26 Figure 9. Untitled artwork by Jannis Kounellis, 1969………………………27 Figure 10. Menstruation Bathroom by Judy Chicago, 1972………………...28 Figure 11. Earth Room by Walter Joseph De Maria, 1977……………….....29 Figure 12. A Thousand Years by Damien Hirst, 1990…………………..…..30
Figure 13. Eau Claire by Clara Ursitti…………………………………...…..34
Figure 14. the FEAR of Smell-the Smell of FEAR by Sissel Tolaas…...…...37
Figure 15. Sweat by Peter De Cupere………………………………………..41
Figure 16. You Can Call Me F by Anicka Yi………………………………..44
Figure 17. Ten Notes for a Human Symphony by Oswaldo Macia………….47
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Figure 18. Pollution Pods by Michael Pinsky…………………………...…...52
Figure 19. Smells for the Paris Agreement by Maki Ueda …………...……..56
Figure 20. The Olfactory Forest by Omer Polak, 2019……………...………60
Figure 21. Koku ve Şehir by ANAMED, 2016……………………...………63
Figure 22. AIR by Hilda Kozari……………………………………………..66
Figure 23. Scent of Sydney by Cat Jones, 2017……………………….…….68
Figure 24. Revolution Pipe Bomb by Lisa Kirk, 2008………………………73
Figure 25. Thanatos by Eric Fong…………………………………………...76
Figure 26. Famous Deaths by Sense of Smell……………………………….79
Figure 27. Because I could not stop by Anya Gallacio………………………81
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ABSTRACT
As artists started to challenge the conventional use of gallery space and artistic material choices by creating multisensory experiences, olfactory art became much more popular. Even there were early precursors of olfactory art, recognition of the sense of smell in the art world is recent. Due to its late acceptance, smell is studied limitedly in the context of contemporary art. In this dissertation, I first analyzed conceptual and technical challenges and opportunities smell presents artistically. Then through comprehending smell’s artistic capacity, I analyzed existing contemporary olfactory artworks conceptually. The artworks I chose focus on different topics including body politics, environmental issues, smellscapes, memories, wars and decomposition. The variety of topics, smell can be used manifests the conceptual capacity of smell. Finally, I identified the common characteristics of these different olfactory artworks. What I found is that contemporary olfactory art is most of the time multidisciplinary and collaborative; experimental and scientific; experience based and immersive; political and provocative. My dissertation ended up as a comprehensive study of the olfactory contemporary art and I hope this work to influence further studies and research on olfactory art while inspire contemporary artists to experiment more with the sense smell.
Keywords: Sense of Smell, Olfactory Art, Contemporary Art, Sensory Experience, Political Art
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ÖZET
Çağdaş sanatın geleneksel teknik, metot, malzeme kullanımı ve sergileme biçimlerini sorgulaması farklı duyuları hedef alan yaklaşımların sayıca artmasına sebep oldu. Bu yeni deneyimsel yaklaşımda koku duyusu kendine has özellikleri ile sanatçıların oldukça ilgisini çekti. Koku sanat dünyasında çok yeni kabul görmüş bir bileşen olduğu için kokunun sanat içindeki yerini ele alan çok fazla akademik çalışma bulunmamaktadır. Bu tezin temel amacı kokunun çağdaş sanat içindeki sanatsal potansiyelini hem teorik hem de pratik analizleriyle ortaya sererek, kokunun çağdaş sanattaki varlığını meşrulaştırmaktır. Öncelikle koku üstüne var olan çalışma ve literatürleri kokunun sanatsal potansiyelini ortaya çıkarmak için eleştirel bir analize tabii tuttum. Ardından çağdaş sanat dünyasında koku özelinde, öne çıkmış sanatçılar ve eserler üzerinden kavramsal ve sanatsal analizler yaparak, kokunun çağdaş sanat içindeki yerini ortaya çıkardım. Bu analiz aynı zamanda kokunun farklı konular ve temalar içinde ne kadar güçlü bir politik söylem aracı olduğunu da ortaya çıkarmaktadır. Çevre politikalarından, beden politikalarına, insan varoluşunun en derin sorgulamalarından, insan ve mekan ilişkilerine ve hafızaya birçok konuda koku efektif bir sanatsal bileşen olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Son olarak, kokunun kullanıldığı sanat üretimlerinin ortak özelliklerini ortaya çıkararak kokunun meşru varlığı ile alakalı analizimi noktaladım. Koku sanatının veya kokulu sanatın çoğunlukla multidisipliner ve işbirlikçi; deneyime dayalı ve içine alan; deneysel ve bilimsel; politik ve kışkırtıcı yapısını ortaya çıkarıyor. Tezim çağdaş sanatta kokuyu teorik, pratik incelemeleriyle ve sanatsal bağlamıyla bütünsel bir analize tabii tutarak kokunun sanat alanındaki varlığının meşruluğunu kanıtlıyor. Bu akademik çalışmamla hedefim konu ile alakalı yeni akademik ve sanatsal üretimlere ilham vermektir.
Anahtar Kelime: Koku Duyusu, Koku Sanatı, Çağdaş Sanat, Duyusal Deneyim, Politik Sanat
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INTRODUCTION
In today’s fast paced and hyper-real society1 museums try to improve their engagement strategies, engaging more and more with visitors and audiences. There is a shift towards experience which creates a demand of total experience for audiences. Artists are expected to use diverse media out of traditional realm. Museums started to show an effort to improve the level of audience engagement because the notion of total experience in contemporary art scene gained a great importance. While contemporary art moved towards conceptual practices and approaches, interactive experiences are becoming more and more important. Art audience become more familiar with involving into the practice and engaging with the artwork. Audiences demand an active experience challenging their passive status. Interactive experiences put meaningful emphasis on awakening of the senses2. There is a significant shift in the art world: from the contemplative to the interactive, from the mental to the sensory and from the traditional to the innovative3. It is proven that experiencing through body is more vivid than experiencing through mind and audiences started to get interested in involvement rather than keeping their passive external spectator status4.
Although the change in artistic status of smell is very recent, there are some early examples of olfactory experience in curatorial settings. Even cabinets of curiosities can be seen as the leading example because people were able to smell the artifacts on display5. Sensory politics tries to cover why certain senses dominate the other senses. It is important to mention, with the rethinking of sensory politics,
1 Linda Solay, “Scent in Contemporary Art: An Investigation into Challenges & Exhibition Strategies” (dissertation, LASALLE College of the Arts , 2012).
2 Rémi Mencarelli, Séverine Marteaux, and Mathilde Pulh, “Museums, Consumers, and On‐Site Experiences,” Marketing Intelligence & Planning 28, no. 3 (November 2010): pp. 330-348, https://doi.org/10.1108/02634501011041453.
3 Janet Marstine, New Museum Theory and Practice: An Introduction (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006): 135.
4 Mencarelli, Marteaux, and Pulh, “Museums, Consumers, and On‐Site Experiences.”
5 Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Multisensory Museum: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, ... and Space (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).
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art world started embracing non-optical senses such as smell which increase the interest towards multisensory museums. Multisensory museums and exhibitions provide sensory involvement to experience. In order to understand the place of smell in museums and exhibition settings the evolution of museums should be well understood.
Earliest modern museums are considered as “white cubes”6. The white cube setting was composed of undecorated white walls and artificial lighting. Mostly there were no windows, and the surrounding aesthetics was minimalist. Displayed artworks, were seen as a source of knowledge which were used by authoritative experts such as exposition commissioners to transmit certain knowledge to audiences so that there was a need for a clean and neutral environment. Knowledge was seen as absolute, neutral, factual, and singular and art professionals were trying to pass this factual knowledge to their audience without any distraction so that the neutral status of the exhibition environment should not be destroyed with any kind of olfactory element which made inodorateness a necessity.
From olfactory art perspective Anne Nieuwhof termed the early modern museums as “The Deodorized Cube”7. There were critics toward this curatorial approach as being ‘elitist’ and ‘patrician’. The white deodorized cube could be seen as the white board of elite culture to transmit its knowledge to society, marginalizing different identities, point of views, diverse representations and shutting down non-optical senses which were considered as lower in the hierarchy of senses.
All these critiques led to a shift towards the constructivist museums. This new approach was built upon the idea that knowledge is a construction, and it is open for reconstructions. Knowledge was considered as plural, constructed based
6 Anne Nieuwhof, “Olfactory Experiences in Museums of Modern and Contemporary Art: Smell As a New Curatorial Strategy” (dissertation, 2017): pp. 17-18.
7 Nieuwhof, “Olfactory Experiences,” 17-18.
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on “the internal representation of external world in individual’s mind”8. Curators started to be seen as facilitators or designers rather than authoritative experts and acquisition took the place of transmission because there were no factual and singular knowledge to be transmitted9. Nieuwhof considers multisensory museums as last post museum category. Early approaches prioritized mind over body which led the separation of the two but according to Levent and Pascual-Leone in “Introduction” of The Multisensory Museum10:
“The brain is not a passive recipient of information through the senses but instead an active seeker of information to confirm or refute predictions. Human neuroscience has taught us that our internal representations of reality, and thus the predictions we approach experience with and the nature of such experiences themselves, are intrinsically multisensory.”
The studies in the field of neuroscience showed us that it is impossible to separate mind and body from each other. Nieuwhof puts this into words by saying “Sensory apparatus of the body is no longer a subservient means to knowledge, but both our senses and our brain operate bi-directional and on equal level.”11 Before multisensory museums and exhibitions there were some examples for olfactory art in certain art movements such as symbolism, futurism, dadaism and surrealism. A list of artists from these movements leading to Marcel Duchamp and including famous artists like Andy Warhol engaged in olfactory elements but the multisensory museum approach can be considered as a turning point for accomplishments in last decades.
Sensory hierarchy applied in the art scene for a very long time. Most of the artworks were created for visual and auditory sensation. Because sense of smell was
8 Vaike Fors, “Teenagers' Multisensory Routes for Learning in the Museum,” The Senses and Society 8, no. 3 (2013): pp. 268-289, https://doi.org/10.2752/174589313x13712175020479.
9 Nieuwhof, “Olfactory Experiences.”
10 Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, “Introduction,” in The Multisensory Museum. Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, and Space (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014).
11 Nieuwhof, “Olfactory Experiences,” 21.
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considered as lower sense, olfactory was excluded from the art creation. In the age of digitalization, art representations become more and more digitalized. Sight and sound can easily fit into to the digital world but that is not the case with the smell. Smell is becoming to most and probably last material medium in the age of immaterial globalization12. In order to experience olfactory art, physical presence of the audience is needed. With the existing technology it is not yet possible to digitalize olfactory experience. Most overlooked sense of the art history and curatorial environment may be used as a strategy to attract visitors to museums because it is not possible to exhibit olfactory works online. Materiality of smell cannot be digitalized but what should audience expect sensorially? Scent receptors are directly connected to the limbic system which in turn is working independently from the cerebral cortex. This independence is utmost crucial because bypassing cerebral cortex means smell experiences cannot be processed through logic, will or reasoning. What about limbic system? What does that mean to be processed through limbic system? Limbic system is the part responsible for human memories. That is why smell has the capacity to bring back memories stored in the corners of subconscious. When compared to other senses, sense of smell is processed in whole different neural mechanism which may bring unique capacity to smell as an artistic medium.
Olfactory art uses the element of scent to convey artwork’s meaning. One of the Frankfurt School founders, Max Horkheimer reveals the capacity of smell by saying “(w)hen we see we remain what we are but when we smell we are taken over by otherness”13. There are two main stages of smell perception. The first stage is the sensation, and the second stage is the intervention of the olfactory experience and emotions associated with the experience. From natural environments to urban spaces, we are exposed to many diverse organic and inorganic odors. As long as we inhale and exhale, smelling continues simultaneously and ceaselessly. There is no
12 Ashraf Osman, “Olfactory Art,” 2013.
13 Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Continuum, 1989): 184.
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such a place which is isolated from scent so that smelling continues as long as we are alive and continue breathing. It is not always very easy to name what we are smelling though. Odors are usually described rather than being named. They are being described by their connection to certain experiences, objects, spaces, people and etc. Through smell people join dynamic and interdependent chemical dialogues with self, others and environment. Luisa Paraguai says that “(s)mell can be used to structure and classify different aspects of the world, from time and space to gender and selfhood.”14. Smell has the capacity to constitute new meanings and construct new relationships. It has the power to trigger emotions and bring back memories. Olfactory effect is direct, subliminal, imaginative, and most importantly highly personal because scent infuses into our bodies chemically.
The use of scent in the artworks and as a curatorial strategy in museums and exhibitions is being disseminated. It is much more likely to come across with an artwork engaging with scent. Through olfactory materiality and how it is perceived anatomically, there is a special potential to deliver artistic concepts and convey meaning, lying within olfactory art. I started my dissertation process by questioning the legitimacy of using smell in the contemporary art world conceptually. In the first chapter I analyzed curatorial capacity and challenges of olfactory art through critically analyzing the existing literature on smell. At the beginning of the chapter, I explain conceptual and curatorial difficulties olfactory art can face. Then I analyze how it is possible to use smell as an artistic element in artworks and its potential artistic impact. First chapter thus, aims to come up with a broad understanding of the concept of olfactory art by using resources from disciplines such as cultural studies, arts and psychology with a multidisciplinary approach. Because smell is a very recent topic in the context of contemporary art, I referred to academic work from very different disciplines. Through secondary resource review, I revealed the
14 Luisa Paraguai, “Spatialities and Scents: Chemical and Cultural Dialogues,” Technoetic Arts 9, no. 2 (2012): pp. 171, https://doi.org/10.1386/tear.9.2-3.171_1.
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great artistic capacity in smell as a material choice and proved that existing concerns on smell’s artistic statue do not illegitimate smell’s existence in the art world.
Then in the second chapter of this dissertation, I analyzed existing olfactory artworks from the contemporary art scene in order to understand if the artists are being able to legitimize the use of smell. Through comprehensive research I determined that most of the olfactory works were focusing on similar topics. In order to come up with a structural analysis I preferred to analyze artworks with similar subjects under shared topics. I analyze the place of smell and explain how smell is used curatorially. Artistic analysis in chapter 2 is built up on both conceptual literature reviews and research on each artist and selected artwork. Chapter 2 shows the legitimacy of using smell in very different topics of artistic expression. Existing contemporary artworks prove that smell is a legitimate component of contemporary art while can be used in various subjects. In chapter 3, I continue analyzing the pioneer selected artworks through identifying their common characteristics. So far it can be said that existing studies on olfactory art only covers limited dimension of this medium so my dissertation aims to provide a holistic and comprehensive understanding of the concept while presenting the legitimacy of use of smell in the contemporary art world.
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CHAPTER ONE
CHALLENGES AND CAPACITY OF OLFACTORY ART
1.1. CHALLENGES
1.1.1. Lack of Olfactory Language
Well known American professor of sociology and criminology, and writer Edward Sagarin, in his book The Science and Art of Perfumer, published in 1945, described his profession as a “science in search of a language”. When compared to other senses smell lacks a specific vocabulary. When we are naming or describing what we smell, we tend to borrow metaphors from other senses such as “sharp” and “loud” or we refer to the source of the smell or to material analogies such as “like…”, “fruity” and “spicy”. In cases in which neither of these naming or describing methods lack the capacity, people prefer to use very broad and limited terms such as “good” or “bad”. In the late 20th century ‘the linguistic turn’ came out to discover the relationship between language and world. Theorists such as Wittgenstein, Foucault and Derrida influenced the field. Theorists of “linguistic turn” tried to prove that humankind approaches world though their language capacity15. In early 21th century this approach developed further. As notions of culture and experience started to become popular in the academic world, theorists ended up with the idea that limits of language are not the limits of the world16. The notion of experience became popular in both academics and art world. The challenge is that in order to criticize an olfactory artwork, there may be a need for a specific language. In order to decide whether there is such a need, language-smell relationship should be well understood.
15 Nieuwhof, “Olfactory Experiences,” 7.
16 David Howes, “Introduction,” in The Empire of the Senses (London: Bloomsbury, 2005), pp. 1-17.
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Lots of scientific research showed that smell is a “hardwired” sense. Why don’t we have a smell specific vocabulary? One reason may be the unique neurological process of olfaction. Incoming olfactory signals directly conducted to the neocortex. Unlike other senses only negligible number of signals directed to the thalamus. Rest of the senses are first directed to thalamus and then passed to neocortex which is involved in perception, decision making and language. Olfactory signals bypass the language areas of neocortex and directly reach to the prefrontal cortex. Signal is first processed in areas of higher consciousness so that until it is directed to language center of the neocortex, olfactory is sensed already17. Sean Raspet criticizes Gordon M. Shepherd’s approach because Shepherd puts forward that scent lacks the linguistic capacity. Raspet says Shepherd underestimates plasticity of language, of culture and of brain itself. He suggests to re-analyze the forward cause and effect relationship should be re-analyzed because “hardwire” system may be reversible which means deprioritization of smell may end up with less need for vocabulary which causes olfaction to be relatively unintegrated with language centers during neural development18.
Some of the scientific research agree with reversibility of “hardwire” system. Asifa Majid and Niclas Burenhult showed that “Odors are Expressible in Language, As Long as You Speak the Right Language” in their article with the same title which is published in 2014. They conducted a survey with two different groups. The first group was the Jahai speaking. This language is spoken in parts of Malaysia and Thailand. The second group consisted of the same number of English speakers. Majid and Burenhult conducted an odor identification test to both groups. According to their findings, English speakers struggled in naming odors even they are culturally very familiar with. They gave inconsistent and long answers with just
17 Gordon M. Shepherd, in Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), pp. 111-116.
18 Sean Raspet, “Toward an Olfactory Language System,” Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory, and Criticism 13, no. 2 (2016): pp. 139-153, https://doi.org/10.5749/futuante.13.2.0139.
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little agreement with their descriptions. On the other hand, Jahai speakers came up with shorter answers quickly. They easily answered using highly abstract language with high level of consistent agreement upon their answers. When compared with olfactory, color is much more verbalized with abstract words in Western cultures. For example, rather than defining a color by saying “sky like” or “watery colored”, the color is called “blue” but this is not the case for odors, especially in Western culture. Non abstract definitions are limited to one-to-one relationship between the odor and the reference. Unlike non abstract definition system, abstract terminology has a large number of variables. Lack of abstract terminologies is specific to olfaction, but different cultures have different olfactory language capacities as shown in Majid and Burenhult’s study. There are also indigenous tribes with scent vocabularies as well, such as the Serer Ndut of Senegal and the Kapsiki of Cameroon19. It is for sure that olfactory vocabulary is linked with cultural context within which they exist and being produced.
While discovering some cultures have rich abstract vocabularies dedicated to olfactory and other don’t, there is also another approach to language issue, claiming there is no need for extra language olfactory because olfactory may be whole different mode of communication so that whole different language itself so that there may be no need for extra language to describe this experience. Smell may be the unique language as itself with its own potential and capacity20. Odors are not independent entities. They should be understood within cultural context. Cultural codes and norms have a great impact on how we perceive scents which are symbolic representations affiliated to cultural modes of perceived meaning21.
Since 1990, Norwegian olfactory artist and researcher Sissel Tolaas works on a project called ‘The Smell Archive by Tolaas’. Tolaas collected and archived
19 Constance Classen, David Howes, and Anthony Synnott, Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell (London: Routledge, 1994).
20 Osman, “Olfactory Art.”
21 Uri Almagor, “Odors and Private Language: Observations on the Phenomenology of Scent,” Human Studies 13, no. 3 (1990): pp. 253-274, https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00142757.
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around 7000 distinctive smells in order to learn ‘the alphabet’ of the smell and smelling. Tolaas explains her goal in this project as proving and showing the objectivity of smell. During this archiving process, a language started to emerge which Tolaas used to create the NASALO dictionary.
Figure 1. Sissel Tolaas with Her Smell Archive
Source: Tim Noakes, “Sissel Tolass,” Medium (Tim Noakes: Interview Archive, March 2, 2017), https://medium.com/tim-noakes/sissel-tolass-8e56b1ad7c91.
Tolaas explains her NASALO project by saying, “(t)aking into account that our societies have developed a language for color, it is remarkable that we have not yet developed one for smell. Therefore, I began to invent the first words for a language of smells, the NASALO dictionary. Although I made these words up myself, they are certainly not arbitrary”. NASALO took place in Re_Search Lab which was founded in 2004 for and sponsored by one of the biggest international flavor and fragrance manufacturer International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF). In the laboratory lots of interdisciplinary projects about smell and odor (the sense of scent) take place in order to research on smell and communication. Professionals from different disciplines cooperate in order to create new approaches to the social role of smell.
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The emerged fictional language was used to create an olfactory dictionary. She came up with an olfactory language which is composed of context free, fantasy words because she claims that how a certain odor is described has an influence on how people perceive it. The artist gives an example from one experiment in which the same body smell is presented to subjects with two different labels: “body smell” and “cheddar”. People who smelled the sample with cheddar found the smell pleasant whereas the other group who sniffed the same sample with a “body smell” found what they smelled unpleasant22. This was the reason why Tolaas focused on making new words up such as “fre” for wet and rainy street after a sunny day or “jamp” for apple pie smell.
As far as discussed, at first lack of olfactory language may seem as a potential challenge for olfactory art due to deprioritization of smell in certain cultures or neurological development of smell so far but as “experience” in art world gains power, olfactory becomes more and more crucial. Even the lack of olfactory language as seen in NASALO may be a subject for art or the whole experience of smell perception may be a whole different communication method which does not depend on any specific language in terms of transferring messages.
1.1.2. Prejudice Against Smell and Sensory Hierarchy
Lots of research put forward that people consider smell as the least important sense among all. When people are asked if they need to give up one sense which one it would be, most of the time people sacrifice the sense of smell. When a conflict is input both visually and olfactorally, people tend to trust their eyes rather their nose23. Sight has a great mastery over all senses whereas smell took its place at the bottom of the epistemological hierarchy of senses.
22 Sissel Tolaas, “An Alphabet for the Nose,” Journal for Artistic Research (Journal for Artistic Research, November 20, 2011), https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/7344/7350.
23 Lee Sela and Noam Sobel, “Human Olfaction: A Constant State of Change-Blindness,” Experimental Brain Research205, no. 1 (July 2010): pp. 13-29, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-010-2348-6.
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In 18th and 19th centuries Western civilizations started to study colonies through the discipline of anthropology. Eurocentric studies labeled Western culture as civilized, and science based whereas non-Western cultures were defined as primitive. People belonging to these primitive cultures were described as people who “live a life of the body, rather than a life of the mind”24. It was believed that primitive people were dependent on their senses to survive and satisfy their basic needs. Smelling and touch were categorized as lower senses because they were associated with animality of these primitive people. Unlike smelling and touch, sight and hearing were categorized as the least subjective senses and were recognized as most suitable for scientific investigation.
The low regard for the aesthetic potentials and intellectual importance of smell in modern philosophy and Western culture goes back to Ancient Greece. Plato put the sense of sight at the center of ‘foundation of philosophy’25. He described beauty as “the pleasant which comes through the senses of hearing and sight”26. Aristotle followed a sensory hierarchy within the question of beauty by saying, “(a)t the top were the senses of sight and hearing, whose special contributions to humanity were beauty and music… at the bottom were the animal senses of taste and touch, which alone could be abused by gluttony and lust respectively…in between was smell: it could not be abused”27.
Aristotle was not the only one applying sensory hierarchy. In the Middle Ages, Saint Thomas Aquinas linked questions of beauty and knowledge with sensory hierarchy by saying “(t)hose senses are chiefly associated with beauty,
24 Constance Classen and David Howes, “The Museum as Sensescape: Western Sensibilities and Indigenous Artifacts,” ed. Elizabeth Edwards, Ruth Phillips, and Chris Gosden, Sensible Objects : Colonialism, Museums and Material Culture, 2006, pp. 199-222, https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474215466.ch-007.
25 Anthony Synnott, “A Sociology of Smell,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 28, no. 4 (1991): pp. 437-459, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-618x.1991.tb00164.x.
26 Benjamin Jowett, in The Dialogues of Plato (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), pp. 586-587.
27 Synnott, “A Sociology of Smell,” pp. 439-440.
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which contribute most to our knowledge, viz, sight and hearing when ministering to reason; thus, we speak of beautiful sights and beautiful sounds, but not of beautiful tastes and smells”28. Modern philosophy followed the tradition of sensory hierarchy. According to Hegel smell, taste and touch have to do with sensuous relationships so that they have to do nothing with the course of beauty in art. Marx ranked touch, taste, and smell as primitive while categorizing hearing and sight as civilized senses. Immanuel Kant did not want to discuss smell in the course of aesthetics. He even positioned the level of brute within smell at the opposite to aesthetic sensation29. He said unlike vision and hearing, smell and taste make people aware of subjective bodily states rather than their objects. He described the sense of smell as the least people owe and dispensable30 and he defined the sense of smell as the “coarse sense” in terms of the question of aesthetics. Bonnot de Condillac explained the position of smell by saying “of all the senses, smell is the one that seems to contribute the least to the operations of the human mind” in the introduction of Condillac's Treatise on the Sensations. Most of the philosophers and scientists labeled sight as the preeminent sense of reason and civilization.
Before 20th century there were not many examples of olfactory art but in the last century there are increasing number of olfactory examples in the art world so that there is a great need of a devaluation of the aesthetic possibilities and artistic potential of smell. There are different objections against smell’s artistic and aesthetic status. First, moralist and idealist prejudice hold that odors take people’s attention by appealing animalistic instinct, but the truth is sight, sound and touch are much more involved in primitive activities like nutrition and sex. Another objection is because smell is volatile and evanescent but according to Shiner and
28 Rémi Mencarelli, Séverine Marteaux, and Mathilde Pulh, “Museums, Consumers, and On‐Site Experiences,” Marketing Intelligence & Planning 28, no. 3 (November 2010): pp. 330-348, https://doi.org/10.1108/02634501011041453.
29 Paul Stoller, The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989).
30 Immanuel Kant, in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), pp. 41-46.
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Kriskovets this is similar to music. Musical performances start and come to an end but are repeatable. Odors and music both have duration but they both can be re-experienced. Aquinas and Santayana claimed that odors lack the complexity so that odors are subjected to aesthetic discrimination, but this is also not true. In science, chemists showed that even the most simple and recognizable smells are made up of hundreds of molecules and elements. By using these molecules and elements infinite number of compositions can be made. According to Smithsonian writer and researcher Jimmy Stamp, fragrances are kind of a scent compositions. He says that a scent is made up of “notes” just like a chord. There is a harmony within a scent. A scent is composed of three notes: “The “top note” is the first impression of the scent and is the most aggressive, the “middle note” is the body of the scent, and the “base note” lingers after the other notes dissipate, giving the fragrance a depth and solidity”. Olfactory professionals see fragrance creating as an intellectual process which is very similar to composing music in terms of expressive complexity and compositional structure. As it can be understood, there is a great mathematics and harmony within a scent. French master perfumer Edmund Roudnitska (1905-1996) whose creations are still in production, explains this by saying “I do not create my perfumes with my nose but with my brain and even if I were to lose my sense of smell I could still invent and compose perfumes”. There is no doubt that olfactory is objected to the course of aesthetics. Designing smell consists of “acute sense of smell”, “mental discipline” and “power of discrimination and memory”31. Olfactory structure and temporal sequence create complex compositions and artistic forms so that olfactory creation is both intellectual and sensuous. Smells carry the potential to suggest meaning by association and feelings can be evoked through these associations.
31 Larry Shiner and Yulia Kriskovets, “The Aesthetics of Smelly Art,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65, no. 3 (2007): pp. 273-286, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-594x.2007.00258.x.
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1.1.3. Curatorial Issues of Scent
The experience of art is dominated by sight in museums, galleries, and other art spaces. Visitors can’t taste or touch an art piece. Sight dominates art scene so much that most of the visitors become blind for perception with other senses. Contemporary artists started to use smelling and hearing in their work, but it is sure that exhibiting scent is not easy as with other art mediums. Smell presents specific challenges for exhibitions. In her article “Smell as a New Curatorial Strategy”, Anne Nieuwhof mentions certain challenges that museums and curators face while using olfactory as a medium. Scents have unique, highly volatile, uncontrolled, and complex nature. First of all, positioning a scent in a museum is not as easy as hanging a painting on a wall. Odors are hard to position because of their volatile nature. They move freely in the air if there is no physical boundaries.
Also, it is not so easy to exhibit multiple odors in the same place. Neuroscientist Andreas Keller puts forward those odors can overlap and get blurred so that visitors will perceive all odors as a single blend. Another challenge is in deciding the concentration and density of the odor. Some odors can make visitors physically uncomfortable or irritated when used in high concentrations. Also keeping the odor as it is, is another very important challenge because odors tend to change and transform so that chemical mixture of odor should be refreshed regularly. Optimal physical conditions for keeping an odor is higher in temperature and humidity when compared to normal museum environments and this is another challenge present museum challenge. Another concern for olfactory art is that visitors can experience olfactory fatigue so that their sense of smell may shut down. Therefore, museums need to put some areas between smells in order to rest nose. Last challenge mentioned in this article is the ethical challenge. There is no such a thing like to stop breathing so visitors will not be able to escape from the olfactory exhibited. People may have allergic conditions that they were not aware before. According to Nieuwhof, olfactory manipulation is another concern because with using different odors visitors’ emotions, feelings and behavior can be manipulated.
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Also because of the odor used, unwelcomed memories of visitors can come back without any control. Because of unique characteristics of smell, there are different challenges and concerns in adapting current museums and art environments into proper places for olfactory art.
1.2. CAPACITY
1.2.1. How to Exhibit Olfactory Art?
When thinking of existing exhibition spaces, ranging from national institutions to private museums and artist-run galleries, we notice they are not designed to facilitate olfactory works. In order to come up with design and curatorial solutions to exhibit olfactory art, the nature of smell and smelly substances should be well understood. Smell tends to travel around due to its physical state so keeping the smell in a specific venue becomes crucial in exhibiting. When smell spreads to unplanned venue, it may challenge the integrity of other artworks. There is a need for air flow control to activate and maintain smell in the specific venue or gallery space. Opening or closing of a door, number of visitors, changing temperatures and even the sunlight falling can change the level of activation of the smell so that detecting smell for visitors can become easier or harder32. When air flow control is achieved, the density of the smell should be decided according to the exhibition space’s volume because high ceiling takes more scent and even corners matter because they reduce the scent distribution33. Before the exhibition, experimenting volume and density in test chambers may be a useful solution. The volatility of scent is another challenge because temperature and humidity have significant impact in the level of volatility34. Also, it should not be forgotten that different scent molecules perform differently under the same
32 Solay, “Scent in Contemporary Art,” 86.
33 Ibid., 87.
34 Ibid., 87.
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temperatures so that there is a need for temperature and humidity control for exhibiting smell. Last challenge I want to mention is collecting of olfactory artwork because there is an evident challenge in collection and preservation for both institutions and individuals35.
Figure 2. Paddled Scent Dispenser from the Maurithuis Museum’s Scents in Colour exhibition
Source: Torey Akers and Richard Whiddington, “The Mauritshuis Museum Captures the Smell of Art with the Art of Smell,” Jing Culture and Commerce, January 14, 2022, https://jingculturecommerce.com/mauritshuis-scents-in-color-immersive-smells/.
There are different techniques for exhibiting smell and overcoming previously mentioned challenged due its physical state and characteristics. There are different types of scent dispensers such as manual, motion detector, timer based and continuously emitting. Which one should be used, may be determined according to the state of artwork, curatorial priorities and physical conditions of the exhibition spaces. Some artists use closed containers which can be opened manually or with a motion detector, to that the visitor can sniff when the container is opened. There are also examples coating or soaking of objects or surfaces in scented liquids such as Clara Ursitti’s “Ghost” (2010) and “The SMELL of FEAR/FEAR of
35 Ibid., 102-105.
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SMELL” (2005-2006) by Sissel Tolaas36. Artist may also decide using microcapsulation technique in which smell is activated by scratching so that it can be considered as a tangible method37. Some artists prefer to use materials which naturally inherit smell, or some others can decide to manufacture scent through a laboratory process
Figure 3. Visitors Smelling 'The Smell of FEAR' by Sissel Tolaas
Source: Sissel Tolaas and Mar-Ina Uhrig, “The Smell of Fear,” Mediamatic, accessed June 5, 2022, https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/21095/the-smell-of-fear.
In order to control air flow creating different air pressures in adjoining rooms can be a solution but it is not financially feasible and is not easy due to need for highly controlled setting38. Diffusers are very useful for localized low-volume diffusion and financially more feasible. Using wall separation with diffusers will also maximize the preservation in exhibition space. Static walls can minimize contamination while creating separate scent rooms. The problem with static walls is that it requires larger exhibition spaces39. Whatever technique the artist prefers to
36 Solay, “Scent in Contemporary Art,” 44-47.
37 Ibid., 50-53.
38 Solay, “Scent in Contemporary Art,” 78.
39 Ibid., 78-81.
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use, experimenting the diffusion and density before exhibiting in the venue is very critical. The importance of air flow, density, temperature, and humidity control should not be underestimated. When it comes to the sustainability, it is noteworthy to provide enough odorous substance. Another alternative strategy is to provide chemical formulas and instructions for recreation of the odorous substance needed for upcoming presentation or collection processes.
1.2.2. Applied Arts or Fine Arts?
Larry Shiner draws the distinction between everyday arts, design arts and fine arts in his article Scents: Perfume, Design & Olfactory Art. Everyday arts, is a category which consists of each everyday activity done with skill and grace. Design arts is a category which is more commercial whereas fine arts are based on aesthetic qualities. Larry Shiner tries to distinguish both terms by giving examples such as Brillo carton design as an example for commercial art and Andy Warhol’s ‘Brillo Box’ as an example for “fine arts”. Design arts is a recent used for applied arts. Understanding the distinction between fine arts and applied arts is necessary to decide what is an artwork and what is not.
Applied arts is a category composed of industrial design, fashion design, architecture, crafts, interior design, and any other practices which design commercial objects of everyday use with function. I need to mention that most of the time these functional objects are aesthetically pleasing due to the design in their creation process. End products of applied arts become commodities in the market. On the other hand, fine arts are not used for their commercial or practical purposes. Even today it is possible to mention an art market in which artworks are sold globally, purpose of the creation of fine arts is to be exhibited for people’s gaze and admiration with no functional purpose beyond it. Painting, drawing and sculpture can be basic examples for fine arts category. Fine arts provide only an experience which is aesthetic and intellectual.
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Figure 4. Revolution by Lisa Kirk
Source: “Revolution Lisa Kirk Perfume - A Fragrance for Women and Men 2010,” www.fragrantica.com, March 8, 2011, https://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/Lisa-Kirk/Revolution-11063.html. Figure 5. Kiki by Kiki Smith
Source: “Kiki Fragrance by Kiki Smith,” Artware Editions, accessed June 5, 2022, https://artwareeditions.com/products/kiki-fragrance-by-kiki-smith.
Artist, scent maker, curator and writer Catherine Haley Epstein thinks that scent art is fine arts while fragrance purchased for daily wear is applied arts in her article Primal Art: Notes on the Medium of Scent. Shiner says, “From the perspective of a contextual understanding of fine art, standard perfumery lacks crucial elements of the practices that characterize contemporary art and should continue to be treated as part of design”40. In 1995, artist Lisa Kirk’s “Revolution” is shown in MOMA PS1. “Revolution” is a fragrance created with the collaboration of scent designer Ulrich Lang. Kirk hold a survey by asking what a revolution smells like to a group of journalists and political radicals. It was made up of tear
40 Larry Shiner, “Art Scents: Perfume, Design and Olfactory Art,” The British Journal of Aesthetics, July 2015, p. 387. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayv017.
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gas, blood, urine, smoke, burned rubber and body odor. The bottle made up of precious metals was designed by jeweler Jelena Behrend. “Revolution” was more of a fine artwork which was built up on the concept of revolution. It was totally a political work. Then the limited edition of the fragrance started to be sold in 2008: 15ml bottle for 90 dollars. Even it was sold, it was sold as a replicate of an art piece not for daily use. On the other hand, not all artists design fragrances as an olfactory art piece. Kiki Smith’s “Kiki” perfume was for merchandise even though it was sold in New Museum in New York (2010). She also collaborated with a perfumer in order to great a perfume for merchandise which is composed of the smells she liked such as patchouli, sandalwood, musk and boxwood with notes of chamomile, fig and black currant. It was commercialized for the daily use of consumers. The fragrance was aiming to meet needs and desires of consumers focusing on wearibility. That is why it is an example for design arts rather than fine arts.
The perfumes “Revolution” and “Kiki” are good examples to draw the distinction between applied arts and fine arts dimensions of the olfactory art. There can be hybrid approaches to smell as well but if a smell is designed to be worn as a product of an industry it can be considered as a work of applied art or design whereas if a scent is designed with a political or artistic statement rather than focusing on its wearability, that may be considered as a work of fine arts.
1.2.3. Neuroanatomy of Smell in Contemporary Art
In order to understand why contemporary artists started using smell as a medium, neuroanatomy of smell should be well understood. Smell is the most primal sense. From 12 weeks, fetus starts being able to smell. At first fetus smells amniotic odors from foods ingested within utero. After birth, the baby searches for its mother’s breast through smelling. Breast odor is a source of sustenance, comfort
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and pleasure41. Smell becomes the least important sense with sensory hierarchy as people grow up. Hellen Keller puts forward this by calling the sense of smell ‘the fallen angel’42. Even though smell seems like “the fallen angel” there is a very unique capacity. People start developing emotional connections since the early stages and this continues in adulthood.
Figure 6. Olfactory Pathways
Source: “Olfactory Pathways,” Richards on the Brain, accessed June 5, 2022, https://www.richardsonthebrain.com/olfactory-pathways.
Sense of smell is a chemical sense. What we call smelling is responding chemical stimulus. A particular smell is composed of many chemicals. What we smell of as coffee is composed of hundreds of different chemicals and the human brain is able to recognize this unique composition as coffee each and every time. The first step of smell conception begins with the entrance of volatile and airborne chemicals into the two nostrils and after entrance chemicals dissolve in mucus. Specialized receptors laying on the olfactory epithelium which is located on the roof of the nasal cavity sends signals to the olfactory bulb. What is important with
41 Heili Varendi et al., “Soothing Effect of Amniotic Fluid Smell in Newborn Infants,” Early Human Development 51, no. 1 (1998): pp. 47-55, https://doi.org/10.1016/s0378-3782(97)00082-0.
42 Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses (New York: Random House, 1990): p.37.
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these specialized receptors is they are the only example of the nerves which are directly exposed to outer environment.
Olfactory bulb is the first processing station, and it starts in the nose and continues till the bottom of the brain. It has also direct connections to the amygdala and hippocampus which are brain parts responsible for emotions and memories. While amygdala controls the memory storage, hippocampus is responsible for retrieving sequences of events in memories43. Olfactory signals directly travel to the limbic system and response is immediate. Limbic system is located beneath the cerebral cortex and is responsible for processing emotion, behavior, long term memory and olfaction44. When an olfactory signal directly reaches the limbic system, it automatically bypasses the parts responsible for language so that it is hard to put smells into words. Either person refers to smell’s source such as “It smells like an apple” or adjectives belonging to other senses such as fresh, sharp, or heavy are used to describe the smell.
Figure 7. The Limbic System
Source: George Boeree, The limbic system, accessed June 5, 2022, https://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/limbicsystem.html.
43 Sela and Sobel, “Human Olfaction.”
44 Ahmad R. Hariri, Susan Y. Bookheimer, and John C. Mazziotta, “Modulating Emotional Responses,” NeuroReport 11, no. 1 (2000): pp. 43-48, https://doi.org/10.1097/00001756-200001170-00009.
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Because smell interpretation, memories and emotions are processed in the same system, there are deep interrelations between them. The oldest part of the brain, limbic system constructs associations between smell, emotions and memories in the subconscious level. According to Tara Cooney’s article An Exploration of Olfactory Memory, smell plays very different roles like spurring memories, rousing dozy senses while also pampering self and helping the construction of self-image45. In their study which is on consumer behavior in cultural institutions, Pulh, Marteaux and Mencarelli put forward that “people are able to feel thing more vividly through their bodies than through their minds”. Cerebral cortex is the part responsible for logical thought, will and reasoning. It should be mentioned that limbic system works almost independently from the cerebral cortex. This creates a certain distinction between smell, memory, feelings, and logical thought, will, reasoning which means there is a great subconscious dimension in the interpretation of olfactory stimuli. Smell can evoke memories and bring them back in time. When a memory is brought by a smell, the experience is more vivid and emotionally loaded46.
Although, smell is seen as the least important sense, it has those unique capacities. Smelling is an integral and unconscious activity of daily life. Smell has direct connections to emotions and memories. It has the capacity to bringing back the memories as well as triggering feelings. As contemporary artists are looking out for the strategies to encourage audience engagement and power up artistic experience, smell takes their attention because of its special capacity beyond other senses. Contemporary artists are open to use different materials, approaches, and techniques outside the traditional realm. According to Linda Solay, the reason behind this is to offer much more interactive experiences and awakening senses that
45 Tara Cooney, “Scentefacts: An Exploration of Olfactory Memory,” Academia.edu (ideaschool, December 12, 2017), https://www.academia.edu/35415857/Scentefacts_An_Exploration_of_Olfactory_Memory.
46 Alexandre N. Tuch and Kasper Hornbaek, “Opportunities for Odor,” Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2014, https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557008.
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is why contemporary artists and institutions started to recognize the capacity of olfactory as an artistic medium. Because smell has a great subconscious dimension and linked to individual’s memories and emotions, individual has chance to involve in the artwork rather than being simple external spectator. This kind of experience is much more powerful and subjective. Smell has power to bring back our memories, so it has capacity to evoke emotions and the artistic experience has potential to become more personal and emotional.
1.3. EARLY PRECURSORS OF OLFACTORY ART
Scents are used in traditional and religious ceremonies since Babylonian Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Unlike perfume’s long history, olfactory art is relatively very recent. Until 2000s there were not many examples of olfactory art but whatever was experimented with smell since the beginning of the 20th century has constructed the ground needed for contemporary artists of 2000s. Olfactory art can be traced back to Marcel Duchamp who is considered as one of the most influential artists in the contemporary art world. In 1938, during Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme took place in the Gallerie des Beaux-art Paris, Duchamp led a performance called “The Scents of Brazil” with poet Benjamin Peret. During the performance, the artist roasted coffee which is considered as the first olfactory performance and artwork in modern art history47.
Especially in the 1960s there was a great effort on discovering smell within the artistic context by the artists of Fluxus and Arte Povera artists. The legacy of Marcel Duchamp continued with Fluxus movement. Japanese artist Takako Saito who was associated with Fluxus movement contributed olfactory art with her “Smell Chess” and “Spice Chess”. Normally roles of chess pieces are assigned visually. Saito uses smell as signifier of pieces by assigning a specific scent to each piece. The artist tries to draw attention to how smell serves to divide and oppress
47 Bruce Altshuler, Salon to Biennial: Volume 1 (Berlin: Phaidon, 2007).
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human beings. With her works, Saito presented the relationship between odors and the status and movement of individuals within society48.
Figure 8. The Smell Chess by Takako Saito, 1977
Source: “Takako Saito. Spice Chess. c. 1977: Moma,” The Museum of Modern Art, accessed June 5, 2022, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/131553.
The Italian American writer, art historian and exhibition maker Carolyn Christov Bakargiev explains how Arte Povera explores different perceptual and sensual dimensions in her anonymous book49. Arte Povera artists were criticizing modern culture for being visually defined. One of the leading artists of the Italian art movement was Jannis Kounellis. In 1969 Kounellis created untitled artworks using coffee. He liked to work with different materials with different textures, physical characteristics, and smells. He was very creative in terms of designing sensorial experiences. Multisensory experiences have been challenging visual dominance in the art world.
48 Hannah Higgins, Fluxus Experience (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002).
49 Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, in Arte Povera (London: Phaidon Press, 1999), p. 19.
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Figure 9. Untitled Artwork by Jannis Kounellis, 1969
Source: Tate, “'Untitled', Jannis Kounellis, 1969,” Tate, January 1, 1969, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kounellis-untitled-ar00069.
Fluxus and Arte Povera artists were not the only ones who used smell in their works and performances. Between 1960s and 1980s there were other artists who experimented smell in their art. Women artists were one of those groups who were very interested using smell due to their interest in body politics and female identity. Probably rising feminist movement of the period was very influential. One of those artists was Judy Chicago. In 1972 Chicago installed “Menstruation Bathroom” which was built upon the taboo of women’s blood, puberty, and shame of woman nature. Bloody hygiene products were displayed in the bathroom. “Menstruation Bathroom” is a dramatic presentation of how bodily odors are used in gender based social hierarchies.
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Figure 10. Menstruation Bathroom by Judy Chicago, 1972
Source: Courtney Bagtazo, “Female Study: Judy Chicago's Menstruation Bathroom,” Bagtazo (Bagtazo, June 25, 2019), https://www.bagtazocollection.com/blog/menstruationbathroom.
Beside feminist artists Land Art Movement artist have also started working with smell in their work. They preferred to work directly with landscapes and natural materials so that smell was a natural component of many of their works. In 1977, American conceptual artist and sculptor Walter Joseph De Maria exhibited “Earth Room” in New York. He filled 335 m² floor space with 197 m³ of earth which reached about 55 cm in height. The artist used plexiglass barriers so that visitors were able to see the depth of the soil exhibited. One of the most powerful characteristics of this work was the smell of soil within the venue but as I said, in this case smell appeared as a natural component because there is no such an effort of the artist in adding olfactory factors to his work. Visitors of the exhibited installation were able to smell the musty earth and could sense humidity caused by the earth located in an interior setting50. A similar example is “20:50” installation of the British artist Richard Wilson. 20:50 is considered as the most famous work of the artist and a contemporary masterpiece. For 20:50, the artist
50 “Walter De Maria,” The Art Story (The Art Story), accessed June 5, 2022, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/de-maria-walter/.
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filled the gallery with recycled engine oil which reached about waist height51. Mirror surface of the recycled engine oil added an extra dimension to the exhibition space while the smell of material used filled the space. Again, smell played an important role but there was no additional effort for creating or exhibiting the smell because smell was a natural component of the material preferred.
Figure 11. Earth Room by Walter Joseph De Maria, 1977
Source: Dia Art Foundation, “Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room,” Dia, n.d., https://www.diaart.org/visit/visit-our-locations-sites/walter-de-maria-the-new-york-earth-room-new-york-united-states.
In 1990s there were marginal efforts in olfactory experimentations, but it can be said that Damien Hirst somehow dominated olfactory art scene. He has multiple works including the ones focusing on decomposition, life cycles and ashtrays. One of his early works became very popular: “A Thousand Years” (1990). In this installation artist placed a real cow’s cut head in the middle of a glass box. The blood leaked could be easily seen. The cow was decomposing and getting rotten, so it became occupied by maggots. Flies surrounded the carrion head and an
51 “Richard Wilson,” Richard Wilson - Artist - Saatchi Gallery, accessed June 5, 2022, https://www.saatchigallery.com/artist/richard_wilson.
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insecto-cutor was placed in the box which electrocuted flies. Ammoniac air and rotten corpse could be smelled which was the smell of death in a sense52. “A Thousand Years” (1990) is a pioneer in terms of the artist using the medium of smell in the works on death and decomposition.
Figure 12. A Thousand Years by Damien Hirst, 1990
Source: “A Thousand Years, 1990 (Detail) : Damien Hirst,” Artimage, n.d., https://www.artimage.org.uk/3395/damien-hirst/a-thousand-years--1990--detail-.
First examples for olfactory art were created during the 20th century. These could be seen as early experimentations of trying to understand the role of smell in art whether intentionally or unintentionally. From body politics to social hierarchies, Land Art Movement to Fluxus, from life to death there were various examples with different intentions, but it should not be forgotten that there were not many examples even concepts were diverse. It is for sure that these early examples played a vital role in raising the popularity of smell in the contemporary art scene of 21st century. Efforts of 20th century were first attempts and experiences of legitimizing the presence of smell in the art world and exhibition venues including institutional museums and galleries.
52 Adrian Searle, “Damien Hirst-Review,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, April 2, 2012), https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/apr/02/damien-hirst-tate-review.
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CHAPTER TWO
ARTISTIC ANALYSIS OF CONTEMPORARY OLFACTORY ARTWORKS
When I first started researching about existing contemporary olfactory artworks, I realized the political and/or provocative significance they possess. Beyond their aesthetic features what is seen in most is the power of conveying messages to influence public opinions or asking critical questions on social, political, cultural, environmental, and even existential questions which people can’t stay unresponsive. Because there were not many examples for olfactory art, I did a comprehensive and broad research on existing olfactory artworks. As soon as I started this detailed research process, I realized that there were shared topics among artists using smell in their works. In this chapter I decided to analyze selected artworks under these topics in order to come up with a vibrant and strong conceptual analysis. When analyzing selected works, I preferred to group them selected works under categories of topics they are focusing on. In this part of my dissertation, I want to draw attention to the power of olfactory art in conveying messages and influencing public opinion while discovering artistic legitimacy of smell in the contemporary art world conceptually.
2.1. OLFACTORY ART FOR BREAKING DOWN THE TABOOS ABOUT BODY
When I did research on existing contemporary olfactory artworks, I found out that one of the most popular subjects artists deal with is the body politics. Smell is an inevasible component of our anatomic existence. Different body secretions have very different smells, and each person has a unique body smell which can be considered as a chemical biometric identifier just like fingerprints. In a highly deodorized modern societies, it may become hard to understand the importance of body smell but as soon as a human being is born, the first bond a baby creates is with its mother through body odor. First, baby uses the smell of nipple-areola region
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as a guide to nourishment. Second, after birth mutual recognition is essential in the development of the emotional relationship between mother and child. Visual, auditory, and olfactory imprints are crucial in mutual recognition53. It is proven that even using the mother’s scent can help the child to bond with strangers. From the instant a child is born, bodily odor has an undeniable role in building up relationships but the modern world we are born to is highly deodorized and body odor is seen as a source of disgust.
Body odor can be considered as a chemical ID card. Each person has a unique body smell which is part of our self-manifestation in a bio-chemical way. As soon as a baby is born, it uses sense of smell in building up safe and confident relationships with its mother. Even we are not actively using smell in building up modern adult relationships, using perfumes shows that we are still trying to shape our olfactory self-manifestations in modern societies. This is because each of us cares about our smell presentations while veiling our natural body odors. People use different perfumes and deodorants to recreate their smelly identities. When people use the smell, either natural body odor or through using additional perfumes, as a source of self-identification, it automatically becomes an instrument in defining the other.
Body odor is often used in insulting and discriminating the others. Different sorts of olfactory discrimination exist based on gender, ethnicity, race, and culture. Constructing the other or inferior is a process of generating hegemony over and body odor can be used as an instrument in constructing hegemonic relationships between different groups. Olfactory relationships between people cannot be understood without considering the social, political, and economic hierarchies. In this section I will analyze selected olfactory artworks focusing on the body odor. Artists prefer using smell in works on body politics which challenge existing norms and disparities attached to human bodies. Using body odor both embraces anatomic
53 Stefano Vaglio, “Chemical Communication and Mother-Infant Recognition,” Communicative &Amp; Integrative Biology2, no. 3 (2009): pp. 279-281, https://doi.org/10.4161/cib.2.3.8227.
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and bio-chemical existence while interrogating the hegemonic relationships built up between people through body odors.
2.1.1. Clara Ursitti and Eau Claire
Clara Ursitti is an Italian Canadian artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. Ursitti exhibits her works internationally in many museums, galleries, and public spaces all around the World. She has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in fine arts. The artist has been working with scent for more than 25 years. One of the reasons why she chose working with smell is, she likes ephemeral, ambient, and invisible nature of smells54. Her art has the capacity to discuss critical issues and discourses without being didactic because she appeals emotions through smell. Her works pushs the limits of olfactory tolerance of audience. People are discouraged to smell body due to social prejudices against bodily secretions. Body odors are considered as socially unacceptable. Sweating is a natural process which is a part of cooling down mechanism of bodies. It is a signifier for a healthy metabolism55. However, in today’s world people prevent the smell with perfumes and deodorants. Even antiperspirants are used to prevent sweating. To prevent sweating, people even prefer to use antiperspirants with unsafe components such as aluminum which can cause diseases like breast cancer and Alzheimer to prevent sweating. Looking from the gender perspective Ursitti says “For women, the pressure is even higher. Menstrual pads are scented, and there are vaginal douches and sprays if you are somehow worried and anxious about your genital smell. However, there is no equivalent for men”56. As a woman artist with a feminist approach Ursitti creates lots of works using her bodily secretions and she has come up with a series of olfactory self-portraits challenging the visual supremacy.
54 Laura Estrada Prada, “Interviewing a Scent Artist: Clara Ursitti by Laura Estrada Prada,” roots§routes, March 15, 2018, https://www.roots-routes.org/interviewing-a-scent-artist-clara-ursitti-by-laura-estrada-prada/.
55 Vedat Ozan and Mesut Varlık, Kokular Kitabı (İstanbul: Everest, 2020), 99-101.
56 Prada, “Interviewing a Scent Artist.”
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Figure 13. Eau Claire by Clara Ursitti
Source: “Clara Ursitti ‘Belle Haleine’ 2015,” Clara Ursitti , n.d., https://www.claraursitti.com/bellehaleine.htm.
According to art historian Caro Verbeek “(e)verybody has a body odor as unique as a fingerprint. This means creating an olfactory portrait is more personal, closer to our identity, more intimate and more realistic than a flat immobile optic copy of someone.”57. Unique scent prints are called very differently such as “odor print” (Engen), “olfactory passport” (Vroon), “smell-face” (Sacks) or “person-scent” (Helen Keller)58. Eau Claire (1993) can be seen as an olfactory self-portrait of the artist. It was produced organically (not a synthetic replicate of analyzed body odor). Ursutti collected her vaginal and menstrual secretions and secured what she collected by adding alcohol and coconut oil59.
The bottle of Eau Claire has a very minimalist sensuous look. Its round shaped bottle can be considered as a womb like feminine design where the artist conserved her fertile secretions in60. How it is exhibited creates a solemn experience. Ursitti honors woman body odor with Eau Claire in a world where for
57 Miguel Matos, “The Perfume Shop: Olfactory Art at the Ryder Projects, London ,” Fragrantica, December 24, 2018, https://www.fragrantica.com/news/The-Perfume-Shop-Olfactory-Art-at-The-Ryder-Projects-London-11731.html.
58 Jim Drobnick, “Clara Ursitti: Scents of a Woman,” Tessera, June 2002, https://doi.org/10.25071/1923-9408.25289.
59 Drobnick, “Clara Ursitti.”
60 Matos, “The Perfume Shop.”
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some people vaginal odor is a source of self-loathing and hatred of the body. According to American journalist, author and a feminist activist, Susan Brownmiller, there is a great double standard in regard to body odor, which is why women are turning against their bodies and getting alienated61.
I think that Eau Claire empowers women through celebrating womanly body odor, of which is most women are embarrassed. The work has the special capacity to change people’s perception of body from bad to good through its unexpected intimacy. A critic, curator and an associate professor of contemporary art, Jim Drobnick puts forward that Ursitti represents body odor as a source of individuality, self-knowledge, strength and esteem. Creating an olfactory self-portrait is a way of manifesting artist’s bodily existence. I believe that it is a way of discovering artist’s relationship with her-self while breaking the social taboos about woman’s body which is a way of challenging the borders of the public and private realms.
What I find very interesting is how the reactions of the audiences differ. Clara Ursitti shared her own experience and observations with Jim Drobnick and said men tended to respond very negatively with some sort of disgust whereas women audience reacted very positively. Even a man may be disgusted by the exhibited work making people exposed to womanly body odors in an artistic context has power to challenge people’s existing perceptions towards it. Another very interesting finding the artist came up with after a series of exhibitions is that where the exhibition takes place has a role in expected reactions because different cultures have different tolerances to body odors62. In Ursitti’s work what I see is a powerful self-manifestation which is exhibited to challenge the olfactory relationships a woman creates with other members of the society. Eau Claire sanctifies the female body by exhibiting it as an artwork.
61 Drobnick, “Clara Ursitti.”
62 Drobnick, “Clara Ursitti.”
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2.1.2. Sissel Tolaas and the FEAR of Smell-the Smell of FEAR
Professional provocateur, olfactory artist and researcher Sissel Tolaas was born in 1963 in Norway. The artist studied in Poland, Russia and Scandinavia and has graduate degrees in chemistry, art, and language. She can speak nine different languages and today she is living and working in Berlin. Her multidisciplinary background has an evident influence on her artistic process and methodology. Especially language plays a crucial role in her projects. Tolaas’ laboratory and studio Re_searchlab is located in Wilmersdorf, Berlin and her projects and laboratory are funded by a leading global flavors and fragrances company, International Flavours and Frangrances which is a 4 billion dollars63.
One of her many projects using the sense of smell, is NASALO in which she cooperates with the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. In this project the artist works on creating an olfactory dictionary by establishing a new set of vocabulary for sense of smell. Her long-term project now reached about 2500 words64. According to Tolaas, through smell it is possible to communicate differently65. Smell constitutes an exclusive language that we can use more effectively with the word we need to define scents. Even though Tolaas is funded by a commercial perfume company she does not make perfumes. She explains why she is not manufacturing perfumes by her interest in creating different smells for different purposes rather than coming up with something just to attract men and women. Rather she prefers discovering different smellscapes and uncovers different smells around us in order to create knowledge on smell which can be used by companies in exchange66. Her works can be seen as at somewhere between science
63 Paul Sullivan, “Sissel Tolaas: The Smell Artist,” Slow Travel Berlin, March 27, 2012, http://www.slowtravelberlin.com/the-smell-artist/.
64 Susan Irvine, “Meet 'Nasalnaut' Sissel Tolaas,” Financial Times, May 11, 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/5ac28a4c-3be1-11e8-bcc8-cebcb81f1f90.
65 Alice Audouin, “Conversation with the Artist Sissel Tolaas,” Art of Change 21, June 2020, https://artofchange21.com/en/conversation-with-the-artist-sissel-tolaas/.
66 Sullivan, “Sessell Tolaas.”
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and art. In her research laboratory artist archived thousands of smell samples that she gathered from all around the world. Through the sponsorship of the IFF, Tolaas has the chance to use high technology which helps her to capture, analyze and replicate any smell she wants. The artist has variety of collections in her smell archive including City Smellscape, Body Smellscape and Biodiversity Smellscape. The topics the artist chose to work on vary, including the notion of war, rainforests, environment, cities, and inequality.
Figure 14. the FEAR of Smell-the Smell of FEAR by Sissel Tolaas
Source: Sissel Tolaas and Marina Uhrig, “The Smell of Fear,” Mediamatic, n.d., https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/21095/the-smell-of-fear.
In 2004 Tolaas started her project the FEAR of Smell-the Smell of FEAR, which she then exhibited in Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) List Visual Arts Center. For her work, artist worked with 20 men from 20 different backgrounds from all around the world. Each of these men had different phobias and having a phobia was the only common characteristics among the selected men. A small and custom-made device was designed specifically for this project and distributed to the participant men. They used this custom-made device to collect their bodily smells whenever they were going through a fear attack. Participants placed the device under their armpits so that the device sucked the sweat molecules and registered them to a central data system.
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The information collected at Tolaas was used in reproducing the molecules synthetically. Then synthetic molecules were micro-encapsulated using nanotechnology in the artist’s laboratory in Berlin in order to be used during the exhibition 67. Microunits created were applied to white walls at the List Visual Arts Center. At first sight, there was nothing special with the white walls of the gallery. Keeping walls white protected the neutrality of the gallery space visually68. Only small marks were put on the left corners of each smell area. Microcapsules were created in such a way that, they could be activated by touch, through rubbing and scratching. Visitors could touch and then smell the wall. By using technological advances, artist tries to replace the long held visual dominance over other senses69. Scratch and sniff wall created a new way of interacting with the ‘neutral’ gallery space, challenging conventional realm.
Most of the olfactory artists challenge the dominance over smell with their works but here the artist also tries to come up with an alternative communication method between people. Associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School Vadim Bolshakov points out that sweating is a non-specific fear response70. In the artwork, the artist tries to understand how body reacts olfactorily to a specific psychological state. If a body secretes specific molecules during the fear attack, the smell of fear may be used for communication as well. The artist says, “We can be tolerant in many ways, but this physicality of not being able to stand each other’s smell, stops any kind of communication.”71. I think that Tolaas gives her audience the opportunity to discover a new way of bodily communication. Research show that animals can smell fear and people used to do so but today people are no longer
67 Suzan Kolen, “The Smell of Fear Installation,” Mediamatic, April 19, 2011, https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/21095/the-smell-of-fear.
68 Aditi Balakrishna, “MIT Exhibits Fear Smell: News: The Harvard Crimson,” The Harvard Crimson, December 11, 2006, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/12/11/mit-exhibits-fear-smell-the-white/.
69 Balakrishna, “MIT Exhibits Fear Smell.”
70 Balakrishna, “MIT Exhibits Fear Smell.”
71 Balakrishna, “MIT Exhibits Fear Smell.”
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able to smell fear72. Because smell is either described as pleasant or unpleasant in Western culture, there is a great pressure on modern people. People are not comfortable with their bodily smell which is a part of their existence and nature. Most of the time people’s representations are scentless. The FEAR of Smell-the Smell of FEAR gives its audience a whole different point of view towards sweating. It turns out to be an alternative way of communicating and reminds people of their human nature. What I find very interesting about this olfactory work is it redefines
2.1.3. Peter De Cupere and Sweat
Peter de Cupere was born in Belgium in 1970. The artist is one of the most famous contemporary artists who work with the sense of smell. De Cupere uses smell to create meta-sensory artistic experiences73. He creates variety of works including scent paintings, olfactory objects, soap paintings and sculptures, live performances, and smell installations. Besides his more than 700 hundred works of art, Peter de Cupere also has an academics dimension. He teaches New Media at the PXL-MAD School of Arts in Hasselt74. He describes himself as ‘a visual artist working with scents’. In the interview for the online magazine Lamu Slenis, Cupere says “I love to smell, but I love also to see.” and he adds how he is crazy about the combination of the smell and the visual.
Cupere’s 400 sq. m studio consists of a project room, a creation room, a storage space and a laboratory which he calls his VIBE75. Even the organization of
72 Elizabeth Thomas, “Sissel Tolaas: the FEAR of Smell- the Smell of FEAR,” Grand Arts, 2007, https://www.grandarts.com/past_projects/2007/2007_01.html.
73 Zoomoncontemporaryart, “Smoke Cloud, Peter De Cupere, 2013,” Zoom On Contemporary Art, November 29, 2017, https://zoomoncontemporaryart.com/2017/10/19/smoke-cloud-peter-de-cupere-2013/.
74 Mine Degirmenci Aydin, “Peter De Cupere’ Nin Sanatında Bir Ifade Biçimi Olarak Koku,” ODÜ Sosyal Bilimler Araştırmaları Dergisi (ODÜSOBİAD), September 2021, https://doi.org/10.48146/odusobiad.876125.
75 Kornelija Cesonyte, “Strawberry and Cardamom,” Peter De Cupere (Lamu Slenis), accessed November 5, 2021, http://www.peterdecupere.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=20%3Anews&id=118%3Ainterview-with-peter-de-cupere-english.
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the artist’s studio gives a clue on his approach towards the sense of smell and olfactory art. The artist says “My art is a kind of a research laboratory to stimulate people to question themselves and the universe” in his Olfactory Manifest76. His artistic approach towards smell is experimental and scientific. When people are looking at an artwork, they start to think about it, but Cupere also wants people to feel his works. Through using smell, the artists aim to make people feel his works77.He sees creating smell installations as coming up with another way of communication. On his official website, it is mentioned that people either love his works or they feel attacked via nasal senses.
De Cupere works on various topics including nature, society, culture and senses and delivers intensely personal and emotional experiences. The artist prefers using smell because he thinks odors make his works universally understandable while personal aspects remain. Intimacy smell establishes, adds an extra dimension which flourishes subjectivity of artistic significance as well. He explains his love for smell as it is more than just smelling, it’s context, vision, ideas, thoughts, and memory78.
As one of the leading contemporary artists who work with the sense of smell, he published his “Olfactory Manifest” in 2014. He signed the original text with his own bodily fluids which he collected for about two years79. In his manifest, he tells how artist started seeing smell as an equal medium to classic media such as paint. There are both “smell as the work of art” or as “the work of art itself”. By defining terms such as “olfactism” Peter De Cupere manifest his olfactory art movement by including smell as a new medium of art80. He sees smell as freedom.
76 Peter De Cupere, “Olfactory Art Manifest,” Olfactory Art Manifest (MIT, 2014), http://olfactoryartmanifest.com/en/.
77 Douglas Quenqua, “Art for the Knowing Nose,” The New York Times (The New York Times, April 6, 2015), https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/science/art-for-the-knowing-nose.html.
78 Kornelija, “Strawberry and Cardamom.”
79 Aydin, “Peter De Cupere’ Nin Sanatında Bir Ifade Biçimi Olarak Koku.”
80 Aydin, “Peter De Cupere’ Nin Sanatında Bir Ifade Biçimi Olarak Koku.”
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Figure 15. Sweat by Peter De Cupere
Source: Sweat - Hellebaut Valérie, n.d., https://valeriehellebaut.com/SWEAT.
A good friend of Peter De Cupere, a Belgian multidisciplinary artist, playwright, stage director and choreographer Jan Fabre invited Cupere to do an installation at his company Troubleyn’s Laboratorium to do an installation which is located in the North Antwerp, Belgium. About 2,500m², the studio is a multipurpose complex consisting of rehearsal rooms, performer facilities, gallery space and a theatre hall. Besides performances, training and research projects are other very important components of the mission of the company. Studio integrates theatre, performance and dance with the modern technology and scientific methods. It can be seen as a very experimental space for artists. The collections of the studio of the integrated works of art are shown in the building as well. The long list of artists includes names such as Marina Abramovic and Kris Martin81. In 2010 De Cupere exhibited his work SWEAT which can be considered as a smell performance in the Laboratorium.
81 Jan Fabre, “Laboratorium,” Jan Fabre / Troubleyn (Troubleyn), accessed November 5, 2021, https://www.troubleyn.be/eng/laboratorium.
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In the performance there are five dancers who wear special plastic suits designed by the artist. Their costumes are connected by a series of tubes during the performance. Before the performance De Cupere cooked five different menus of dinner for each of the dancers. Because chemistry and smell of sweat changes depending on what people eat, the artist tried to come up with whole different menus (5 different entries, 5 different soups, 5 different main dishes and 5 different deserts) to create different chemical interactions within the bodies82. When smells of each dancer differentiated, their sweat would be more pronounced among them as well. The sweat collected in costumes were then distilled and put on a wall which is protected by a glass box with a hole on it which allows visitors to smell. The video of the performance is shown next to the box. In case smell evaporates and disappears, the smell of the SWEAT can be synthetically reproduced and put up on the wall again.
De Cupere’s work on SWEAT shows us how bodily smell differs due to our daily preferences. Cooking totally different menus for each performer is significant in that sense. Each performer secretes a unique body smell. Connecting the performers through tubes represents the daily olfactory interactions people are subjected to. I consider the sweat distilled from the costumes as a collective secretion composed of different performers sweat which also reminds me of the concept of collective labor. This artwork stands both for olfactory individuality and collectivity of people. It presents the olfactory interactions and relations between different individuals. It gives us the opportunity to gain a whole different point of view towards a disgusted and excluded olfactory secretion. This work binds new connotations to sweat through discovering the labor relationships behind.
82 Peter De Cupere, “Sweat,” Peter De Cupere, accessed November 5, 2021, http://www.peterdecupere.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=20%3Anews&id=94%3Asweat.
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2.1.4. Anicka Yi and You Can Call Me F
Anicka Yi was born in Seoul, Korea in 1971 and moved to Alabama with her family at the age of two as an immigrant. Yi grew up in the Deep South in United States. Yi reported there were not a lot of Asian people there at the period83 so she had experienced being the other at that period. The artist spent her twenties in London as a stylist and copywriter. Then, she returned to New York in late nineties and started her art life84. Yi prefers to use olfactory medium within her sculptures and installations. Once she said what she liked was to sculpt the air in an interview85. Her works are meant to appeal all of the senses, encompassing sight, sound, touch and smell86 which gives her art a unique character. The artist thinks that the smell is a form of sculpture because of its volume. Smell breaks the “Look but keep your distance” situation and collapses the distance that visual art is built upon87.
Anicka Yi likes to use bacteria in her works as a smelly medium because bacteria is considered as the genesis of life88. Also, in an age in which people have serious level of anxiety over cleanliness and hygiene, using bacteria challenges people’s borders and limits. The artist puts great importance on repulsion and disgust because art scene is built on beauty and pleasure. By stimulating negative physical reactions on audience, artist also challenges the building notions of classical art scene. Through disgust, audience is brought back to their animalistic
83 Rosa De Graaf, “Anicka Yi on the Pungent, the Noxious, and the Palpable,” Extra Extra Magazine, accessed October 6, 2021, https://extraextramagazine.com/talk/anicka-yi-on-the-pungent-the-noxious-and-the-palpable/.
84 Stuart Jeffries, “'I Sculpt the Air' – What Does Scent Artist Anicka Yi Have in Store for Tate's Turbine Hall?,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, October 6, 2021), https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/oct/06/anicka-yi-tate-modern-turbine-hall-commission.
85 Jeffries, “I Sculpt the Air.”
86 Finn Blythe, “Anicka Yi: The Artist Who Wants You to Smell Her Art,” Hero Magazine, April 7, 2021, https://hero-magazine.com/article/188145/anicka-yi.
87 Karen Rosenberg, “Scent of 100 Women: Artist Anicka Yi on Her New Viral Feminism Campaign at the Kitchen,” Artspace, March 12, 2015, https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/meet_the_artist/scent-of-100-women-anicka-yis-viral-feminism-52678.
88 Rosenberg, “Scent of 100 Women.”
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nature. It should not be forgotten that bacteria are living organisms so that artworks with bacteria component go through metamorphoses89 during exhibitions which attributes a vital characteristic to her art.
Figure 16. You Can Call Me F by Anicka Yi
Source: SA Rogers, “Art That Breathes: 17 Living Creations Made with Plants, Bacteria & Insects,” WebUrbanist, n.d., https://weburbanist.com/2018/04/25/art-that-breathes-17-living-creations-made-of-plants-fungus-bacteria/.
One of the most outspoken works of Yi is “You Can Call Me F” exhibited at the Kitchen which was curated by Lumi Tan in 2015. Yi started working asking 100 different women from her professional network including artists, writers, art historians, curators, and dealers to provide samples collected through swabbing any part of their bodies with cotton swab. The artist reported that locations women chose ranged including mouth, hand, and vagina90. Artist collaborated with MIT scientists including Tal Danino, a postdoctoral fellow in bioengineering to generate a “collective bacteria”91 by synthesizing the collected material into a single
89 Blythe, “Anicka Yi.”
90 Andrea Scott, “Scent of a Woman,” The New Yorker (The New Yorker, April 3, 2015), https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/scent-of-a-woman.
91 Rosenberg, “Scent of 100 Women.”
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bacterium. The smell of cultivated bacteria sample was then analyzed in order to produce a chemical through the formula that came out. At the entrance of the dimly lit installation, a glowing vitrine with the bacteria odor secreted within welcomed the visitors. Within the vitrine, there was a rectangular shaped agar on which the show’s name was written with the blooming bacteria92. The installation was composed of five different rectangular tents composed of vinyl sheets and steel-pipe frames93. The semitransparent tents protected the fragile ecosystems94 composed of scent diffusers hidden under motorcycle helmets, agars and a medley of sculptural objects and elements. Gels and liquids provided the environment needed for bacterial growth. Diffusers odorized the space with a mixture of scent extracts from the Gagosian Gallery and bacterial scent produced from 100 different women. Tents challenged visitors to come closer and inspect the environments created closer95.
Bodies were represented with smell not through something audience sees but smells96. Olfactory factor within the show symbolized the society’s fear of female bodies of network97. Artist says most of the time society sees women networks and gatherings as threatening98. Collective bacteria open up a new way of collective thinking. This may be the reason behind why the artist came up with a single bacterium culled from 100 different women. As Joseph Henry puts into words “the organic substrate of a cultural slice of the female population” is portrayed as a viral pathogen99. The show can be seen as a feminist critique focusing on body politics and patriarchal fear of feminism through themes such as illness
92 Scott, “Scent of a Woman.”
93 Joseph Henry, “Anicka Yi,” ARTnews.com, June 10, 2015, https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/aia-reviews/anicka-yi-61959/.
94 “Anicka Yi: You Can Call Me F,” The Kitchen, 2015, https://thekitchen.org/event/anicka-yi-you-can-call-me-f.
95 B. Cole, “Anicka Yi: ‘You Can Call Me F’ at the Kitchen,” Art Observed, April 4, 2015, http://artobserved.com/2015/04/anickayi/.
96 Scott, “Scent of a Woman.”
97 Cole, “Anicka Yi.”
98 Rosenberg, “Scent of 100 Women.”
99 “Anicka Yi: You Can Call Me F,” The Kitchen, 2015, https://thekitchen.org/event/anicka-yi-you-can-call-me-f.
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and hygiene. Collective extent of this artwork is very unique because this work focuses on women rather than woman. As women became more connected to each other and start moving collectively they gain power over male hegemony that is why women networks are not welcomed. Disgust towards the collective bacteria stands for the hate towards the women networks. I think what is very crucial to mention is the disgust is a masculine disgust towards the feminine. It shows how feminine becomes unpleasant under the masculine hegemony. The disgust breaks the confidence women need to unite and Yi’s artworks reminds women of the importance of getting together to empower our womanly existence.
2.1.5. Oswaldo Macia and Ten Notes for a Human Symphony (2009)
Oswaldo Macia was born in the Caribbean City of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. In 1976 he started going to the School of Fine arts in Cartagena which he graduated in 1980 at the age of 16. Then he attended to Llotja School of Fine Art and started studying mural art but instead of graduating he started his studio works. In 1990 the Colombian artist moved his studio to London and enrolled in Guildhall University to study sculpture for his BA. After receiving his BA degree, he started MA in Fine Arts in Goldsmith’s College. His works can be seen in international collections such as Tate Britain and Daros Latinamerica100. Macia creates sound and smell based sculptures, through which he poses questions on human borders, coexistence, migration, and identities.
100 “Oswaldo Maciá,” Sydney Dance Company, accessed February 18, 2021, https://www.sydneydancecompany.com/people/oswaldo-macia/.
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Figure 17. Ten Notes for a Human Symphony by Oswaldo Macia
Source: “TEN NOTES FOR A HUMAN SYMPHONY, II Thessaloniki Biennale, Greece,” Website of Oswaldo Maciá, sculptor of olfactory-acoustic artworks., n.d., https://www.oswaldomacia.com/ten-notes-for-a-human-symphony.
In 2009, the artist presented one of his works called “Ten Notes for a Human Symphony” at II Thessaloniki Biennale in Greece. This work was composed of ten mechanical white canvas curtains which are installed in order to diffuse different scents produced. Macia collected hair samples from 10 different countries from all over the world including Argentina, India, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Peru, Russia, Syria, and Tibet. These samples were preferably collected from older people who do not use chemical treatments, but the ages of the hair samples differed. Then these samples were sent to a perfume laboratory in Paris to go through an empirical analysis. The results were then passed to Ricardo Moya, Senior Perfumer of the International Flavors and Fragrances101. Moya used laboratory results to create new smells for each country which are then put on the canvas fabrics used in mechanical curtains moving in the exhibition space.
As an artist who creates both acoustic and olfactory sculptures, naming of the work seems quite symbolic for his creative approach. He named the olfactory installation with a word with musical annotation. Moving of a curtain was like
101 “Website of Oswaldo Maciá, Sculptor of Olfactory-Acoustic Artworks.,” Website of Oswaldo Maciá, sculptor of olfactory-acoustic artworks., accessed April 29, 2022, https://www.oswaldomacia.com/ten-notes-for-a-human-symphony.
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playing a note so that mechanical composition of the movements was like playing a musical symphony in a sense. Each canvas curtain was in dynamic interaction with the guests and each second, the composition of smell changed due to the movement. The list of countries chosen is very interesting because each country has a unique cultural identity, and most can be considered as inferior in the Western culture. There is an undeniable role of smell in engendering white, Western supremacy. In construction of racial hegemony each sense played a particular role but because olfaction also gained a reputation for being lower sense in the sensory hierarchy, colonial powers associated the sense of smell with underdevelopment and primitiveness, so it became a tool for discrimination as white people became deodorized. Each scent created for this artwork can be seen as a symbol for another cultural other. Odors became a notion for racial disgust. Even today it is possible to hear olfactory racial insults. That may be why the artist chose countries which may have uglier olfactory conations due to their inferior status in dominating Western culture. Ten Notes for a Human Symphony created a symphony in which each olfactory identity coexisted in harmony, balance, and peace. I think that the most important notion this artwork presented is the idea of coexistence. Identical canvas curations on which odors applied removed any personal prejudices and fears and the olfactory experience opened a multicultural dialogue. This work has a meaning which transit individuals who shared hair samples for the odors to be created. It is beyond individuals. The work is about existing harmonically. Each curtain is a different note playing. When different notes are played together harmonically what we receive is a good music, a symphony.
2.2. OLFACTORY ART FOR ENVIRONMENTALISM
Another very popular subject between olfactory artists is environmental issues. The results of environmental issues are underrated in our daily lives. Most of the times we slowly get used to the result so that whenever the people become aware of the results, it will be very late. Environmentalists try to use striking
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photographs of animals and nature to take our attention towards the risk our planet is facing. Even a sad polar bear on a melted ice photograph touches our hearts, the scene is far away from our daily lives. Olfactory components become useful in that sense because rather than waiting for an empathy towards a visual element, smell creates a unique experience which brings a whole different perception towards the environmental issues. People become able to experience the outcomes and results of environmental issues rather than keeping abreast of through visuals shared.
Creating experiences is a good strategy to stimulate and influence new reactions towards the ongoing environmental crisis. People become more aware of the results we may face in the future. In modern societies the pace and struggle of our daily lives are great. We even become desensitized towards the ongoing environmental crisis. Our relations with the environment and bonds with the nature is weakened when we compare ourselves to proto-mammalian ancestors. Our ancestors were strongly connected to the environment through their senses. They were able to use the sense of smell more actively and efficiently when compared to us. According to Nate Dominy, Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at Dartmouth, sense of smell was much more important to our proto-mammalian ancestors. 80 million years ago, diurnal landscape was dominated by dinosaurs and birds so that the subordinate group, mammals were active at night. Because there was no daylight, mammals were dependent on their sense of smell for navigation, detecting food and water sources. After dinosaurs became extinct, mammals started changing shifts form night to day, so that sense of smell became deemphasized in their evolution102. Sense of smell of the humankind may be weakened but it does not mean that we are not olfactorily associated with the environment and landscapes around us.
Ongoing human evolution since the beginning is approximately 6-7 million years. It should not be forgotten that humankind spent over 99.99% of this period
102 Dave Anderson, Andrew Parrella, and Chris Martin, “Smell That Olfactory,” Forest Society, May 25, 2018, https://forestsociety.org/something-wild/smell-olfactory.
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in natural environment and only less than 0.01% of this period is spent in urban areas and modern surroundings103. People of modern, urbanized societies are exposed to high level of stress. Scientists are working on different approaches on coping with stress. There is a lot of scientific research showing the positive effects of interaction with forests and environment on physical and mental health104. When physiological effects on brain and autonomic nervous activity are investigated during the exposition of visual and olfactory stimuli related to forest, it is proven that spending time by walking in the forest or landscapes decrease the level of stress105. Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alaska, Kara C. Hoover puts forward that people living in polluted environments have weaker sense of smell and she names this inequality as “sensory inequities”106. These people are in a worse situation when compared with the people living in cleaner environments and engaging in landscape because first their sense of smell is diminished relatively. Second, they don’t have the chance to lower their stress level by engaging with nature. When compared to our proto-mammalian ancestors, our sense of smell may become blunt but still our olfactory relationship with the nature and environment is quite powerful.
The artistic analysis of the contemporary olfactory artworks focusing on environmental crisis will present how smell is used in attracting attention towards the ongoing crisis through creating experiences which people are exposed to in olfactory terms. I will show how these artworks design experiences which have to power to shape public opinion and collective reaction towards the environmental issues. Immersive experiences create environmental foreshadowing of what we may be experiencing in the future. This can be a better communication strategy
103 Chorong Song, Harumi Ikei, and Yoshifumi Miyazaki, “Physiological Effects of Nature Therapy: A Review of the Research in Japan,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 13, no. 8 (March 2016): p. 781, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13080781.
104 Song, Ikei, and Miyazaki, “Physiological Effects of Forest-Related Visual, Olfactory, and Combined Stimuli on Humans.”
105 Song, Ikei, and Miyazaki, “Physiological Effects of Forest-Related Visual, Olfactory, and Combined Stimuli on Humans.”
106 Andrea Korte, “Surroundings and Evolution Shape Human Sight, Smell and Taste,” American Association for the Advancement of Science, February 20, 2017, https://www.aaas.org/news/surroundings-and-evolution-shape-human-sight-smell-and-taste.
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when compared to a polar bear visual shared to wait for people’s empathy and sympathy towards to environmental act. People become able to experience the future outcomes of these issues today so that they become more aware of the risks.
2.2.1. Michael Pinsky and Pollution Pods
Michael Pinsky is a British artist who was born in Leadburn, Scotland in 1967. Since his early artistic practices, the artist has been engaged in environmental issues. Dr. Michael Pinsky graduated from the Royal College of Art. His innovative projects and installations are exhibited internationally in many galleries, museums, and public spheres. He participated in many residency projects as an artist. His works are a result of taking the combined roles of an artist, urban planner, activist, researcher, and resident.107 As an artist with combined roles, Pinsky tries to draw attention to some issues to shape public opinion and norms and to challenge the status quo on climate change, urban design, and societal wellbeing.108 The physical, political, and social environment determines his methodology and artistic narrative. He has received many awards in his career including the ones from the RSA, Arts Council England and British Council and his works are exhibited in respected institutions and galleries all over the world including London, Chengdu, Paris, Glasgow, Los Angeles, and Tours. Pinsky is not considered as an olfactory artist nor does he usually engage with smell in his works but since in this dissertation my aim is to understand narrative, artistic capacity of olfactory medium I will probably analyzing his most popular work Pollution Pods because of its engagement with smell.
107 “The Artist,” Climart (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, n.d.), https://www.climart.info/pollutionpods.
108 “About Michael Pinsky ,” Michael Pinsky, n.d., https://www.michaelpinsky.com/about-2/.
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Figure 18. Pollution Pods by Michael Pinsky
Source: Samantha Pires, “Artist Installs ‘Pollution Pods’ That Replicate the Effects of Climate Change Around the World,” My Modern Met, November 19, 2021, https://mymodernmet.com/pollution-pods-michael-pinsky/.
Pollution Pods are Pinsky’s popular installation which has been touring all around the globe since 2019. In 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) was held in Paris, France and within the context in the canal de L’Ourcq, Pinsky exhibited his work “L’Eau Qui Dort”, which was criticizing insatiable appetite to consume.109 Meanwhile a group of environmental scientists from Norwegian Institute of science and Technology was working on a project called Climart in which they were studying on artworks shown in COP21 in order to discover artistic potential in changing people’s perception of climate change. They studied cognitions people had when they saw selected artworks and concluded that negative emotions were much more powerful than positive emotions but both ways emotions were indirectly influencing policies. They also concluded that the emotions triggered thoughts which made the spectators support climate policies.110
109 Michael Pinsky and Laura Sommer, “Pollution Pods: Can Art Change People’s Perception of Climate Change and Air Pollution?,” ed. Cédric Baeche et al., The Veolia Institute Review: Indoor Air Quality, no. 21 (February 24, 2020): pp. 90-95.
110 Michael Pinsky and Laura Sommer, “Pollution Pods.”
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Researchers working in Climart Project wanted to use these findings for the creation of a new artwork and wanted to cooperate with Pinsky for COP25 in Madrid. Pinsky was a good choice because the artist was already working on projects to increase awareness towards environmental issues and change public perceptions. With this collaboration Pinsky would be able to measure how successful his works are in those terms empirically. A team of researchers and Pinsky started working together immediately. They discussed previous findings to come up with an artwork which brings people together physically and psychologically in order to promote an environmentalist action. They concluded that people only considered changing their behavior if existing issue had a direct effect on their daily basis so what Pinsky would create should demonstrate how people’s daily lives might be affected. When people are thinking about climate change environmentally iconic scenes came to their minds such as a hopeless polar bear on a melting iceberg or a starving child standing on a sun cracked land, but Pinsky’s work was built up on sensual experience rather than a visual narrative.
Pollution Pods were consisting of five geodesic domes which present five unique environments people can experience pollution relatively. Each dome replicated air quality of a different polluted city including Tautra, London, New Delhi, Beijing, and Sao Paulo. For each environment different recipes applied with different compositions of ozone, particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide. Also, safe innovative perfume blends and fog machines are used within the installation in order to prevent environments to become dangerous for visitors. Airlabs and International Flavors and Fragrances Ltd were two of the sponsors. Climates are also controlled so that each environment is conserved at different temperatures. Another very important component of the projects was the tubes connected domes. Even though each dome is representing a distinct pollutant environment they were all connecting replicating the complex nature of the globe and interconnectedness of biosystems. Different air qualities capsulated in domes were also moving freely at certain level using tubes which reminds how air passes across national borders. First dome replicates the air quality
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of Tautra, Norway which is considered as one of the cleanest. This dome is kept at a respectively cool temperature (16 degrees) and people are being able to easily breath the fresh air with most pleasant sensation. The dome standing for London smells like combusted diesel and tar. Pollution represented in this dome is driven mainly by combustion engines and transportation. Next dome is air replicate of New Delhi which is considered as having one of the worst air pollutions. This dome is respectively hot and humid and visibility in the dome is limited. The dome standing for Beijing smells Sulphur due to industry. Visitors also can smell burning wood inside because when winter comes people use coal and wood to heat their homes. This dome is kept in cool temperatures due to wintertime replication. Last dome of the project is for Sao Paulo, where air quality is distinct due to high use of ethanol rather than diesel engines. Ethanol is made up of sugar beets so air in this dome smells sweet and sour with a fruity characteristic. 20 degrees kept dome has high ozone level which makes visitors’ eyes water.111
Starting from the initial dome with a clean and fresh air, visitors pass through different environments, increasingly polluted domes from dry and cold to hot and humid. The installation makes visitors feel and smell five different samples of air from different cities all over the world. People experience shortness of breath while moving from one dome to another. It demonstrates what will be the effect of air pollution in people’s lives. Shortness of breath is a direct and memorable experience. It previews daily effect of air pollution people may expect and opens dialogues on climate change and air pollution. Toxic gases coming from domestic operations and industrial sources increase the rate of global warming. Also, air pollution directly damages public health through increasing the risks for diseases such as lung cancer and asthma. People living in industrial developing countries such as India and China are being poisoned due to global consumer demands and insatiable appetite of capitalist consumerism. Western cities have respectively clean
111 “Pollution Pods Installation by Michael Pinsky at King’s Cross,” King's Cross, accessed January 19, 2022, https://www.kingscross.co.uk/event/pollution-pods.
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air but populous global cities such as London also experience high level of air pollution. Walking through Pollution Pods demonstrate the interconnectedness of different part of the world and how they are interdependent. The project reduces the psychological distance between people and climate change through experimental learning using olfactory medium to demonstrate different environments.
2.2.2. Maki Ueda and Smells for the Paris Agreement
Japanese olfactory artist Maki Ueda was born in Tokyo in 1974 and currently based in Okinawa and Tokyo. She is considered as an olfactory artist because she tries focusing spectators’ attention on her olfactory gestures while minimizing the influence of all other senses. She does not use smell in more contextual approach, or she does not use the smell as if it is just a narrative element. She prefers putting the smell and its experience at the focus of her works and projects. As one of the most popular olfactory artists, she tries to cover variety of discourses including memories, identity, emotions, and historical events. She studied media art under The Environmental Information Department in Keio University. The artist also attended to Grasse Institute of Perfumery in 2008. Since 2009, she has given olfactory art courses in different faculties and art schools. Besides her olfactory practices, the artist is generously sharing her artistic experiences and knowledge on smell with the world. She even puts her process and recipes on her olfactory works, artworks, and research on sense of smell in an open blog for people’s benefit. She describes her art as a result of her olfactory experiments.112
112 “Maki Ueda,” MAKI UEDA, n.d., https://www.ueda.nl/index.php?lang=en.
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Figure 19. Smells for the Paris Agreement by Maki Ueda
Source: “Smells for the Paris Agreement,” MAKI UEDA, n.d.,
https://ueda.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=321&Itemid=
896&lang=en.
In history there are lots of different examples of use of smell for healing,
seducing, and creating different sensations. Today smell is even being used in
marketing strategies for influencing consumer behavior so there are many examples
of how the smell is used in achieving goals in different aspects of our lives. Ueda’s
main motivation was to come up with a project which uses smell for a universal
goal and the artist tried to understand if smells can be used to stop global
warming.113 Ueda started with the question “Does a smell make you feel cooler and
warmer?”114 She took advice from her friend Jas Brooks who is a scientist and an
artist and Brooks referred to an article called “Chemosensory Properties of the
Trigeminal System” by Felix Viana (2010).115 Researches showed the artist that
smell works on many mucous membranes (like lungs and eyes) and not only on
113 Maki Ueda, “Smells for the Paris Agreement,” Smell, Taste, and Temperature Interfaces, 2021,
https://stt21.plopes.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/STT2021_Smells-Paris-Agreement.pdf.
114 Ueda, “Smells for the Paris Agreement.”
115 Félix Viana, “Chemosensory Properties of the Trigeminal System,” ACS Chemical
Neuroscience 2, no. 1 (2010): pp. 38-50, https://doi.org/10.1021/cn100102c.
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nose. Olfaction not only stimulates the sense of smell but also it also has certain
effects on the trigeminal system, so it has a complex effect on temperature
perception. Smells for the Paris Agreement is an experimental installation which
tries to discover if sense of temperature can be controlled with the sense of smell.
Ueda, first selected “warm” and “cold” considered smells from perfumery
genealogy. She realized that people mean “warm” when the smell evokes “warm”
imagination like the way cinnamon remind Christmas season. It is understood that
smelling a “warm” scent not necessarily influences temperature perception and
most of the time interpretation of “warm” or “cool” is cultural rather than
physical.116 With the guidance of her friend Jas Brooks, Ueda made a series of
experiments, creating different compositions of fragrances which may have an
impact on perception of temperature. Ueda ended with the cooling fragrance
composed of menthol, eucalyptol, thymol, citral, cinnamaldehyde, lialool and
methyl salicylate; and the warming fragrance composed of black pepper, camphor,
eugenol, red chili extract and methyl salicylate. I need to mention a critical point
here. Linalool, eugenol and cinnamaldehyde are considered as warmer smells, even
though they are used for the cooling recipe.
Ueda, constructed two separate rooms, side by side, “warmer” and “cooler”.
In one of the rooms, the olfactory formula which is expected to stimulate warm
senses was diffused whereas in other, the olfactory formula which is expected to
stimulate cool senses diffused. Because visitors could move between both rooms,
they were able to compare their experience in both. Two airtight rooms were kept
in the same temperature and humidity. Rooms were constructed transparently so
that people’s reactions could be tracked. Visitors shared that “warmer room” felt
warmer as if people were in the desert. They experienced itchy and dry throat and
smell reminded them of a campfire, a dry sauna, dry wood, and cork. On the other
hand, “cooler room” made people feel as if they were in a forest. The room felt
116 Ueda, “Smells for the Paris Agreement.”
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much more moisturizing and refresh.117 Again, I want to put an emphasis on the
rooms kept under the same temperature and humidity. Results and analysis of these
results have shown that people have similar “warm” and “cool” sensations and
smell can be used for manipulating temperature and humidity perception.
So why is “Smells for Paris Agreement” being crucial in terms of olfactory
art? First, the main medium of the installation is smell. The artist made it possible
to make people sense the effect of climate change. The difference of experiences in
both rooms is a good way of projecting what the future air quality will be like. Then
artist tried to understand if it is possible to manipulate temperature perception with
olfaction. If people may feel cooler with the use of smell in hot environments and
feel warmer with the use of smell in the cold environments, then there would be an
alternative way of reducing energy consumption. How efficient it will be or how
this strategy may be used a large scale are different topics but what is important
here is that through using smell, the artist helps people start thinking out of box
while humanity is facing serious problems. The installation both conveys a message
and forces the visitors to gain different approaches towards the issues while coming
up with solutions.
2.2.3. Omer Polak and The Olfactory Forest
Artist and designer Omer Polak is graduated from Bezalel Academy of Art
and Design in Jerusalem and then attended to a one-year program at the Design
Academy Eindhoven. The artist received his MA degree in design for luxury and
craftsmanship from the ECAL, Switzerland. Omer Polak runs his interdisciplinary
studio in Berlin. Polak’s art is driven by his curiosity for science and innovation.
He likes to use different materials in his multidisciplinary artistic approach. Polak
designs sensory experiences. According to the artist design can be a medium for a
discussion and debate on the social, cultural, and ethical implications118. In an
117 Ueda, “Smells for the Paris Agreement.”
118 “About the Studio,” Omer polak, accessed August 21, 2021, https://www.omerpolak.com/.
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interview with Giulia Zappa for Domus Magazine in 2017, Polak said enhancing
experiences can be more significant than creating objects119. In the same interview
the artist shares his creativity process. He starts his works with research and likes
to use scientific methods while interacting with different disciplines. Polak likes to
use smell as a communication medium and artistic component and defines smell as
a vector of identity which says a lot about places and people.
Olfactory Forest (2019) is an olfactory experience designed with the
curiosity for the environmental future which is exhibited in the SENSE ME
exhibition at Trapholt Museum in Denmark for the first time. The artist wanted to
answer if society will need to fake nature in order to sustain humanity in the
future120. According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
31 percent of Earth’s surface is covered by forests and deforestation continues with
a very high rate121. Olfactory Forest can be a conceptualization of our forestless
future in which people need artificial forests for experiencing it. Polak first,
collected smells of organic materials in the forest with a device called “smell trap”
and brought those samples to the Symrise Lab in Germany to get analyzed. Recipes
for scents were created in the laboratory. The laboratory came up with 8 different
fragrances out of over 2000 base notes. Senior perfumer Marc Vom Ende produced
mushroom, linden, tree resin, moss, damp soil, broken wood, fresh green leaves and
sweat of the forest’s mammals in the laboratory artificially. These can be seen as
replicants of natural odors from forest ecosystem. The fragrances created are
diffused from an installation of 15 cane poles placed in a circular room surrounded
by mirrors created by Manua Rattan for Omer Polak’s olfactory experience design.
As usual Polak uses audio to accompany olfactory experience in the work. 15
speakers are placed all over the installation and soft sounds recorded in forest
119 Domus, Domus, December 4, 2017, https://www.domusweb.it/en/design/2017/12/04/omerpolak-
designing-the-impalpable%20.html.
120 Lauren Grace Morris, “How a Studio Uses the Senses to Spur Ecological Dialogue in an
Exhibition Space,” FRAME, November 19, 2019, https://www.frameweb.com/article/how-astudio-
uses-the-senses-to-spur-ecological-dialogue-in-an-exhibition-space.
121 “The State of the World's Forests 2020,” www.fao.org, 2020, https://www.fao.org/state-offorests/
en/.
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played including the sound of termites eating a log of wood, a moth flapping its
wings and a mosquito flying around. The volume of the recordings inside is kept
low in order to invite visitors to come closer and sniff so that experience becomes
more intense122.
Figure 20. The Olfactory Forest by Omer Polak, 2019
Source: “Olfactory Forest,” Omer Polak, n.d.,
https://www.omerpolak.com/olfactoryforest.
Humankind takes environment and natural sources for granted which results
in risky levels of pollution and climate change. This taking for granted fostered the
rate and aggressiveness of urbanization and industrialization with the lack of
environmental policies. In recent decades, green activism has been rising in the civil
society and academics, which raises awareness of the environmental issues. Artists
and creative professionals all over the world are also influenced by the rising
environmental awareness. In that kind of context, Olfactory Forest can be seen as a
tool for raising environmental awareness. Forests are rich in biodiversity while
providing the oxygen we need. Forests can be seen as the sources of life due to the
oxygen they provide. Losing forests can be seen as losing lungs of our planet.
Artificially creating a forest reminds the visitors how lively forests are by
122 Omer Polak, “Olfactoryforest,” Omer Polak, 2019, https://www.omerpolak.com/olfactoryforest.
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presenting a lifeless environment which has no chance to take the place of the real
lively forests. Man-made forests may imitate the lively real forests with sound and
smell but this artificiality reminds the visitors of the risk of losing what we take for
granted and grows concern on planet’s future ecology.
2.3. CITIES AND SMELLSCAPE
One of the most popular subjects among contemporary artists who prefer
using smell in their art is the smellscapes because they wanted to discover the
people-surrounding relationships that we built up with where we are living in.
When Western city designs are examined, visual dominance in the design process
is obvious but experience and perception of cities and where we live is much of a
multisensory experience. Environmental perception can be seen as collecting the
knowledge out of our interaction with sensory environment123. Environment should
be understood as a physically and socially constructed space. We are interacting
with the space and the people we are sharing the space with both physically and
socially. Place of smell should be understood within each context. People attach
meanings to sensory inputs they are gathering from the environment through
association124. That is why portraying a surrounding or city through smell becomes
very popular and interesting among contemporary artist who use smell.
Perception of the environment is considered as situational, contextual, and
ecological125 so that olfactory perception of the environment should be discovered
within these structural relationships. Smell of a place or space and olfactory
interactions are part of individual and collective memories. Smell has the power to
manipulate, intensify or distort the memory created as well. Smell has also power
123 Barry Truax, Acoustic Communication (Westport, CT: Ablex, 2001).
124 Trygg Engen, in Odour Sensation and Memory (New York etc.: Greenwood press, 1991), p. 36.
125Neil S. Bruce and William J. Davies, “The Effects of Expectation on the Perception of
Soundscapes,” Applied Acoustics85 (2014): pp. 1-11,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2014.03.016.
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to create or enhance the sense of belonging or alienization to a place. The sense of
smell is both a contributor to perception of an environment and creation of
memories on that environment. I think that memory- smellscape relationship adds
an additional dimension to these works. Smellscape works present the semantic
relationship between memories, places and smell. In this section, I will conceptually
analyze the olfactory portraits of cities.
2.3.1. Koku ve Şehir (2016)
Koku ve Şehir (2016) is a project developed on Dr. Lauren Nicole Davis’, a
PhD candidate and teaching assistant at the Department of Archaeology and History
of Art at Koç University, research on the relationship between ancient Anatolian
civilizations and smell. The exhibition was curated also by Davis and supervised
by Prof. Dr. Lucienne Thys Şenocak and smell expert Vedat Ozan gave advisory. I
consider this project as a sensory installation which presented Anatolian
civilizations’ smell inventory, which consists of more than 50 smell samples from
ancient times historically. Exhibition was designed by Pattu which is an architecture
studio working in the fields of architecture, urban research, exhibition design and
graphic design. Studio is run by architecture Cem Kozar and Işıl Ünal126.
Collaboration with a design studio in exhibiting smell can be easily observed by the
audiences because the exhibition technique and design are very advanced.
126 “About,” Pattu Architecture, November 19, 2020, https://www.pattu.net/en/about/.
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Figure 21. Koku ve Şehir by ANAMED, 2016
Source: “Koku Ve Şehir,” Pattu Architecture, May 21, 2018,
https://www.pattu.net/koku-ve-sehir/.
According to Lauren Nicole Davis the process started with the research of
different eras and civilizations. Hittite section was based on a ritual from a
Hattusa tablet which was a fragrance composed of fine oil, honey, cedar trees and
sesame. For Greek and Roman section, writings of the ancient Greek historian
Herodotus and poet Homer used to understand the place of the sense of smell in
the ancient Greek and Roman. For Byzantine section, the role of smell in
Christianity and perception of the royalty and nobles was researched. The
Ottoman era was characterized with spice markets and exotic goods due to
Constantinople’s place on the trader routes127. Perfumer Fulya Yahya used the
exact recipe for incense water found in the Helvehane Defteri of the Topkapı
Palace. Smells were produced by the sponsorship of MG International Fragrance
Company in Turkey which produces 80 percent of the fragrances used in Turkish
industries. Since 1961 MG International Company has created over 200,000
fragrance formulas and has a collection of about 12,000 raw materials128.
127 “Scent and the City,” ANAMED, 2016, https://anamed.ku.edu.tr/en/events/scent-and-the-city/.
128 “Company,” Gulcicek.com, n.d., https://www.gulcicek.com/en_EN/company.
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At the entrance of the exhibition a warning was shared with visitors saying
people with asthma and allergy should not enter129, which I find very important
because it reminds me of the ethics of exhibiting smell. Unexpected smell can have
side effects on people due to their medical conditions. Also, most of the time
visitors don’t know what they should expect from the smell until they are exposed
to. What is smelled has the potential to bring back traumas so that in the entrance
of olfactory installations, projects, or exhibitions there must be warnings and
visitors may even be asked to fill out consent forms. After entering, the first section
of the exhibition is based on writings and videos which try to answer scientific
questions on smell such as “How do we detect smell?” and “Why some smells are
good and some other are bad?”. The first chapter is very crucial for preparing the
visitors for upcoming olfactory project.
The second and third sections can be considered as the main work. Local
and exotic scents of the Hittite, Ancient Greek and Roman Civilizations, the
Byzantine and the Ottoman empire are exhibited in the second section. Cem Kozar,
the partner of Pattu says that the studio worked about 2 months on not to spread the
smells exhibited because there were more than 50 smells to exhibit at the same
place and therefore, they came up with a special mechanism for exhibition of the
second section. They inserted buttons for each smell. Each button activated a faucet
which diffused smells in the form of a beam of smoke. Smoky phase was another
noteworthy detail because Kozar says they wanted to make smell visible. Making
something invisible, visible is a way of turning smell into design object130. This
section was designed with the collaboration of Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi
(famous Turkish coffee brand), Atelier Rebul (Turkish cologne brand) and Gülsha
(Turkish rosewater brand). The third section was based on İstanbul’s late
urbanization and modernization process. Designer changed the whole mechanism
129 Ekin Türkantos, “İstanbul'Un Kokuları Bu Sergide,” www.haberturk.com, May 15, 2016,
https://www.haberturk.com/yasam/haber/1239745-istanbulda-koku-ve-sehir-sergisi.
130 “Scent and the City,” ANAMED, 2016, https://anamed.ku.edu.tr/en/events/scent-and-the-city/.
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by using smell pumps and oils to cultivate the experience in terms of presentation
of the smells. This section aimed to show visitors the changing smellscape of
İstanbul in 20th and 21st centuries so the odors exhibited varied (linden tress, judas
tress, rakı, car exhaust, burning coal, sea). At the end of the exhibition there was a
guessing game settled for visitors which visitors tried to guess what they were
smelling.
Koku ve Şehir (2016) means “smell and the city” in Turkish. Scents selected,
created, and exhibited drowned from literature, ancient rituals, archives, and
traditions from Hittites to today’s modern Turkey. This exhibition presents the
visitor the historically changing smellscape of Anatolia and Istanbul and reminds
visitors of smell’s place in history and culture. Today we are living in a world in
which modernization deodorized our daily lives but through olfactory design it is
shown that smell was a very important part of daily lives in history. Through smell
even the economic activity of a certain place can be guessed as we see in the
example of spice markets. Through smell same city’s different eras are portraited
in a way that audience can imagine the social and economic life of each era without
any visual input. This project focuses on recalling Anatolia’s olfactory history by
sharing pleasant, unpleasant, familiar, daily, exotic and/or mystical smells from
ancient times to today. What I find very interesting about this project is, it is like an
olfactory time machine which makes it possible for audiences to time travel in
İstanbul and Anatolia.
2.3.2. AIR: Smell of Helsinki, Budapest, and Paris (2003)
A Hungarian artist Hilda Kozari (b. 1964) exhibited her olfactory
installation “AIR” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki for the
first time and now the work is in the museum’s collection. Kozari had a long-lasting
relationship with smell in her art. She chose three cities as a starting point: Helsinki,
Budapest, and Paris. Her choice was personal because she was born and raised in
Budapest, Hungry and then emigrated to Helsinki, Finland where she has lived
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since 1997. Paris was not chosen with a coincidence. It was picked up for its fame
for being the perfume capital of the world. Then she started working with perfumer
Bertrand Duchaufour who worked for Comme de Garçons, Givenchy and
Penhaligon’s before131. What came out of this olfactory collaboration should not be
imagined as a basic process in which artists use stereotypical olfactory assumptions.
The process was more of distilling Kozari’s memories and what they reached as a
product was smell. As a result, multi-note, complex, fragrance like scents produced
for each city. Instead of reaching the exact stereotypical smells, the artist wanted to
come up with something very personal. That is why I wanted to use “distilling
memories” in explaining the creative process for developing the smells.
Figure 22. AIR by Hilda Kozari
Source: “Sniff, Sniff,” CityStories, November 24, 2010,
https://raineytisdale.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/sniff-sniff/.
Then the artist collaborated with Esa Vesmanen (b. 1965). Vesmanen is a
famous Finnish product designer and interior architect, who studied at Aalto
University in Helsinki and at the ENSCI-Les Ateliers in Paris. Since 2004, he has
131 Madalina Diaconu et al., “The City, Distilled,” in Senses and the City: An Interdisciplinary
Approach to Urban Sensescapes (Wien: Lit, 2011), pp. 263-265.
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been running his design studio, Pure Design in Helsinki in which he creates
products, interiors, and exhibitions. His products and Works have been shown in
different countries of Europe, United States and Japan132. Vesmanen designed three
transparent, acrylic bubbles. Each bubble has an opening at its bottom to let visitor
get inside to sniff the odor diffused inside. Each bubble stand for another city and
images of the city projected on the surface of each bubble. Visuals were kept blurry
like memories. Faint images kept the distance of the guest with his/her sense of
sight so that experience become more dependent on the odors diffused.
This mixed media of Kozari can be considered as multisensory because the
artist still uses film footages projected on the bubbles, but this time smell drives the
experience while sight sits at the back. AIR is beyond a stereotypical experience.
The artist wanted to distill her memories rather than the olfactory reality of each
city. Unlike ‘Koku and Şehir’ this work is much more personal and is beyond
olfactory realities. I think AIR shows the connection between place, smell, and
memories rather than just focusing on the identity of a certain place. What is
presented is relational. AIR is a representation of Kozari’s Helsinki, Kozari’s
Budapest and Kozari’s Paris which reminds the guests how personal the olfactory
relationships we build up with the cities we are living in. The odor of a city is not
just about the smell of its sea, parks, garbage, wind and buildings but it is more
about the people we are interacting with, the living environment and all the cultural,
emotional and economic interactions we are taking part in. What is unique about
this installation is the artist uses smell to present her own olfactory experiences and
memories with different cities. Smell is used to personalize selected cities through
portraying personal olfactory relations the artist built up.
132 “Companu: Kokemuksellista Muotoilua: Pure Design Helsinki,” Puredesign, September 23,
2021, https://puredesign.fi/en/company/.
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2.3.3. Scent of Sydney by Cat Jones (2017)
Australian artist, writer, director, and curator Cat Jones filled her 30 years
career with experimenting multidisciplinary approaches collaborating with senses,
neuroscience, science, technology, and environment. The artist likes to create
participatory experiences for her audiences. Her work “Century’s Breath” received
the Sadakichi Art, and Olfaction award and the artist is also 2021 recipient of the
Australia Council Award for Emerging and Experimental Arts133. The artist works
on a range of topics embracing gender and sexuality, environmental politics,
climate future projections, senses, language and social constructs.
Figure 23. Scent of Sydney by Cat Jones, 2017
Source: Tania Leimbach , “Scents, Sensibility and the Smell of a City,”
The Conversation, April 21, 2022, https://theconversation.com/scents-sensibilityand-
the-smell-of-a-city-71271.
In 2017, Jones created “Scent of Sydney” which is a conceptual, olfactory
work for The Sydney Festival. The artist started doing an interview with prominent
Sydneysiders including writer Anne Summers, photographer William Yang and
133 “Cat Jones,” Australia Council for the Arts, July 23, 2021,
https://australiacouncil.gov.au/news/biographies/cat-jones/.
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political activist Lyall Munro Jnr134. She asked about their feelings, memories and
opinions about Sydney and collected stories from each. Then she separated these
stories under 5 themes of landscape, democracy, resistance, competition, and
extravagance. Jones started creatin scents in the UTS Science Super Lab where she
was an artist-in-residence at the time. She came up with 10 different scents which
stands for Sydney. Artist says “Smell has such an incredibly powerful and
immediate response in people. It consciously tells us where we are in space.”135. On
the website of the project, Jones defined her purpose as distilling the substance of
Sydney rather than just coming up with a simple first impression. She also
commissioned designer Naomi Taplin and Studio Enti in Sydney for creating
ceramic plates and beakers to exhibit the scents she created136.
Cat Jones tried to understand the relationship between landscape, politics,
and social interactions. She tried to create scents out of the memories she collected
through interviews with Sydneysiders. Again, rather than a simple olfactory
serotype of Sydney, the artist came up with personal olfactory interactions with the
city. These scents were created in order to explore ongoing cultural, political,
economic and personal interactions between place in this case Sydney, and identity
of the residents. This time the artist chooses to portray other people’s olfactory
Sydney rather than her own which shows the diversity of olfactory relations people
built up with the same city, Sydney. I see that same city stimulates different feelings
and thoughts in different residents. This project shows how partial and unique the
relationships we are building up with the places we are living in. Because our
experiences and feelings we are going through varies, we all have different
connotations with the exact same place.
134 Peter Munro, “Sydney Festival Artist Cat Jones Led by the Nose to Create Scents of the City,”
The Sydney Morning Herald (The Sydney Morning Herald, January 4, 2017),
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/sydney-festival-artist-cat-jones-led-by-the-nose-to-createscents-
of-the-city-20161219-gtee1x.html.
135 Munro, “Sydney Festival.”
136 “Scent of Sydney,” STUDIO ENTI, n.d., https://www.studioenti.com.au/scent-of-sydney.
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2.4. DARKSIDE OF THE OLFACTORY ART: TRAUMAS, DEATH AND
DECOMPOSITION
We all experience moments in which a coincidental odor we are exposed to,
brings us to a very distant memory unexpectedly. This situation is named as “Proust
phenomenon”137 after the part from Marcel Proust’s 1913 novel “Swann’s Way”.
In the novel Proust illustrates a scene in which a bite from a madeleine cake that
has been dipped into Linden tea brings the character to a long-forgotten childhood
memory138. In the book what the character experienced was a powerful joy but this
may not be the only case in real world. Proust Phenomenon is not just about
memories of happy days and joy. An odor can also bring up traumatic, bad moments
of our autobiographical background. In chapter 1, neurological infrastructure for
smell is explained. Science proved that smell, emotions, and memories are very
closely linked. An odor has the capacity to trigger memories which can be highly
emotional but distant. When odor triggers, the person may experience the memory
intensely as if it is taking place one more time, here and now139. Olfactory input has
the capacity to trigger vivid flashbacks140. These works can be seen as attempts to
bring back the traumatic memories of traumas and catastrophes by using smell
artistically. Anyone can see photos and videos from wars but not many had
experienced it. Olfactory artworks focusing on catastrophes has the power to help
people create an olfactory collective war memory as it is happing “now and here”
even though not many had experienced it in the real world.
137 J. S. Jellinek, “Proust Remembered: Has Proust's Account of Odor-Cued Autobiographical
Memory Recall Really Been Investigated?,” Chemical Senses 29, no. 5 (January 2004): pp. 455-
458, https://doi.org/10.1093/chemse/bjh043.
138 Marcel Proust, Swann's Way: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1, ed. Lydia Davis (UK: Penguin
Classics, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2004).
139 Y. Masaoka et al., “Slow Breathing and Emotions Associated with Odor-Induced
Autobiographical Memories,” Chemical Senses 37, no. 4 (September 2012): pp. 379-388,
https://doi.org/10.1093/chemse/bjr120.
140 Neal A. Kline and Jeffrey L. Rausch, “Olfactory Precipitants of Flashbacks in Posttraumatic
Stress Disorder,” The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 46, no. 9 (1985): pp. 383-384.
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Besides traumatic memory based connotations smell has, disgust to the
smell of death is considered as universal and fundamental part of human nature141.
Phenomenological philosopher Aurel Kolnai explains that disgust results from the
life surplus and intention dead body shows142. According to Kolnai decomposition
is the integrity of an organism falling apart and decay which engenders life in cycle
of eternal recurrence143. Freud explains disgust as a learned reaction which anyone
could cultivate towards anything through development144. Social anthropologist
Mary Douglas defines disgust as a product of culture145. When it comes to the
disgust towards smell of death, evolutionary perspective is widely accepted. This
perspective approaches disgust as a result of adoptive process in order to avoid
infectious diseases which can pass through the dead body or cadaver146. Very
recent research done by James Anderson from Kyoto University, Japan and his
colleagues showed that chimpanzees avoid the smell of dead things which was
never known before147. As a part of a psychological system or an evolutionary
process, disgust appears to protect organism from pathogens and infections which
may be passed from the dead organisms.
In this section I will conceptually analyze olfactory artworks which focus
on the darker topics of humankind such as traumas, wars, death, and decomposition.
In a world in which collective memories and personal traumas are visually
141 Valerie Curtis, Mícheál de Barra, and Robert Aunger, “Disgust as an Adaptive System for
Disease Avoidance Behaviour,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological
Sciences 366, no. 1563 (December 2011): pp. 389-401, https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0117.
142 Aurel Kolnai, Barry Smith, and Carolyn Korsmeyer, in On Disgust (Chicago: Open Court, 2004),
pp. 72-73.
143 Aurel Kolnai, Barry Smith, and Carolyn Korsmeyer, “Visceral Values: Aurel Kolnai on Disgust,”
in On Disgust(Chicago: Open Court, 2004), pp. 16-18.
144 M. L. Phillips et al., “Disgust – the Forgotten Emotion of Psychiatry,” British Journal of
Psychiatry 172, no. 5 (1998): pp. 373-375, https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.172.5.373.
145 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo with a New
Preface by the Author (London: Routledge, 2015).
146 Valerie Curtis and Adam Biran, “Dirt, Disgust, and Disease: Is Hygiene in Our
Genes?,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44, no. 1 (2001): pp. 17-31,
https://doi.org/10.1353/pbm.2001.0001.
147 James R. Anderson, Hanling Yeow, and Satoshi Hirata, “Putrescine-a Chemical Cue of Death Is
Aversive to Chimpanzees,” Behavioural Processes 193 (2021): p. 104538,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2021.104538.
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fetishized, smell can be used as an instrument for audiences to make them gain new
perceptions and point of views towards even the darkest sides of our existence.
From wars to death and decomposition, smell is used to challenge existing
understanding of traumatic experiences of mortal reality. Upcoming arts works are
important examples which show the broad scope of smell conceptually. In these
examples what I find very interesting is that olfactory art can even reconcile us with
our biggest fears and traumas. Smell is not just used as a pleasant component or just
as a stimulator to challenge existing norms and approaches, but it can also be used
for people to discover the mortal and temporal character of human existence.
Catastrophe is a natural component of human beings and life. Artists like to use
smell in catastrophes of life because of its immersive characteristic. It has power to
stimulate us to reconcile with our biggest fears and darkest corners.
2.4.1 Revolution Pipe Bomb
American artist Lisa Kirk was born in 1967. The artist graduated from the
School of Visual Arts and received her MFA from the University of California. The
artist creates various works including paintings, sculptures, videos, and
installations. Kirk uses themes like war, revolt, violence with popular culture,
consumerism, and middle-class critiques. Her work has been exhibited in both
domestic and international institutions and galleries, including MoMA PS 1,
Performa, New York; Galeria Comercial, PR; PARTICIPANT Inc., New York; and
MOT International, London; among others148. Lisa Kirk’s art can be considered as
an activist attempt. She challenged the art world with her exhibitions thrown in her
mother’s apartment, a display of broken windows as art and by curating an illegal
exhibition with over 50 artists. Her works even criticize the contemporary art world
which she is a part of.
In 2008, Kirk developed “Revolution” with perfumer Patricia Choux and
Symrise Perfumes. Revolution is a luxury fragrance produced based on the series
148 Brainard Carey, “Lisa Kirk,” Interviews from Yale University Radio WYBCX, May 25, 2018,
https://museumofnonvisibleart.com/interviews/lisa-kirk/.
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of interviews Kirk did with anonymous journalists, activists, and political radicals
from Central and South American revolutionaries, Black Panthers, and militant leftwing
underground groups, with historians and French philosophers149. Kirk asked
about their memories of the smell of the revolution. Then a solution developed
which contains the odor of sweat, blood, smoke, gasoline, tear gas, burnt rubber,
decaying flesh, and urine150.Then Kirk cooperated with Serbian jeweler and artist
Jelena Behrend for creating limited editions of the Revolution. Behrend apprenticed
for the master jeweler Gabor Nagy in Los Angeles and then moved to New York in
1996 to work with Barney’s. In 1998 Behrend opened Jelena Behrend Studio on the
Lower East Side, New York. Kirk and Behrend created pipe bomb shaped
sculptures filled with the aggressive fragrance. They produced limited quantities of
pipe bombs made of precious metals (platinum, 14K gold, and sterling silver). A
symbol of revolution became a bold fetish object of consumerism and a valued
commodity that people desire.
Figure 24. Revolution Pipe Bomb by Lisa Kirk, 2008
Source: “Lisa Kirk and Jelena Behrend Revolution Pipe Bomb 2008,”
PARTICIPANT INC | Revolution Pipe Bomb, n.d.,
http://participantinc.org/books-editions/limited-editions/revolution-pipe-bomb.
149 Yorca Schmidt Junker, “Viva La Revolution,” Qvest, 2010.
150 “Lisa Kirk and Jelena Behrend Revolution Pipe Bomb Mar 13, 2008,” PARTICIPANT INC |
Revolution Pipe Bomb, accessed January 3, 2022, http://participantinc.org/seasons/season-
6/revolution-pipe-bomb.
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Popular culture has the power to commodify and fetishize objects. The
Revolution Pipe Bomb is a good example of the aestheticization of even the radical
signifiers. Associating a fragrance with violence and war reminds moral
contradiction of consumerism. The Revolution Pipe Bomb commercialized
violence and traumatic memories of revolt by turning them into a consumer
product. The product created was a symbol of money, power, and social status.
Using three different metals for three different versions was not coincidental. It is
a way of recreating the hierarchies in purchasing power. With Kirk’s Revolution,
collective fear and trauma are turned in to an odor. It has the power to show the
political truth behind the market economy while reminding us of the power relations
behind. Kirk and Behrend turned a weapon of revolt into a desire and a traumatic
odor into a precious commodity, a consumer product people want to own. The
fragrances revolutionized the market by protesting absurdity of consumerism. The
Revolution answered the question of “How does revolution smell?”. In the premiere
of the Revolution in New York, the fragrance was sprayed to the guests. Their
reactions changed. Some of them were showing great amusement while some other
were in terror. German art and perfume consultant Ulrich Lang gave supervision to
Lisa Kirk during the process. Lang described the outcome as not pleasant but
absolutely wearable and defined it as an art object151. After the Revolution Pipe
Bomb, special editions, premiered Lang proposed Kirk to produce inexpensive
versions which are accessible to anyone to complete the commercialization of the
art object produced. In the end smell of revolution and war became an affordable
commodity which can be accessed by anyone.
2.4.2 A Perfume That Smells Death: Thanatos by Eric Fong
Eric Fong is a London based, multimedia artist who likes to combine art,
science and technology in his various works including video art, photography,
151 Yorca Schmidt Junker, “Viva La Revolution,” Qvest, 2010.
75
sculpture, and installation. His experience and knowledge as a medical doctor has
influenced the topics he works on in his art. In his art he worked on the topics such
as mental health, disfigurement, blindness, and the phantom limb phenomenon152.
Fong combines his scientific background with his artistic experience in exploring
the body. The works of the artist are in private and public collections including Art
Council England’s collection.
Thanatos is a recent work of the artist which is exhibited in 2020. With a
forensic anthropology approach Fong wanted to develop the smell of a
decomposing body discovered in woods. For Thanatos, the artist collaborated with
two other professionals: perfumer Uean McCall and forensic anthropologist Dr.
Anna Williams. Composition of these three professionals gives an insight of Fong
interdisciplinary methodology. Euan McCall owns Jorum Laboratories which is a
fragrance formulation company in Scotland. McCall led the laboratory process. Dr.
Anna Williams works as a principal enterprise fellow in forensic anthropology in
University of Huddersfield. Thanatos is intellectually built upon Williams’ five
years of forensic research supervision on the gaseous products of decomposition of
her student Lorna Irish who wants to combine more than 400 hundred volatile
organic compounds (VOCs) emitted at different stages of decomposition in order
to be used in training of cadaver dogs in order to improve their performance153. Dr.
Anna Williams used this knowledge in collaborating the interdisciplinary process
of creating Thanatos.
152 “A Perfume That Smells of Death,” Phoenix, January 9, 2020,
https://www.phoenix.org.uk/blog/thanatos/.
153 “Forensics Research to Make Cadaver Dogs More Efficient,” University of Huddersfield News
Archive, August 21, 2014, https://newsarchive.
hud.ac.uk/news/2014/august/forensicsresearchtomakecadaverdogsmoreefficient.php.
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Figure 25. Thanatos by Eric Fong
Source: “Eric Fong,” Aesthetica Magazine, n.d.,
https://aestheticamagazine.com/profile/eric-fong/.
Thanatos is exhibited as a part of an installation154. Photographs taken in the
Crime Scene House at the Forensic Anthropology Department at Teesside
University were exhibited on the walls. The scenes of this photography series were
staged crime scenes. An additional short film, “The Search”, which shows a cadaver
dog chasing the smell of a death body seeking its smell in the woods displayed in
the exhibition space155. Thanatos is a multisensory experience. In the middle of the
exhibition room a stainless-steel autopsy table was placed. When visitors leaned
close to the drain hole on the autopsy table and took the plug out, they could smell
the perfume created. The black bottle of “Eau de Mort” was displayed in a glass
case. The perfume was inspired by the smell of death, so decomposition VOCs
appeared as middle or heart notes. Top notes were composed of floral and wooden
scents156. Limited edition of 50 bottles of Thanatos was made available for purchase
which solved the collectivity crisis of the olfactory installation.
154 “A Perfume That Smells of Death,” Phoenix, January 9, 2020,
https://www.phoenix.org.uk/blog/thanatos/.
155 The Search, Vimeo, 2021, https://vimeo.com/534477456.
156 Eric Fong, “Thanatos,” Eric Fong, n.d., https://www.ericfong.com/albums/thanatos/.
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When someone we know dies, we experience death with a physical distance.
In modern societies most of the time after ceremonies, dead people are either buried
or go through cremation. In the normal flow of the life, we don’t experience the
decomposition of the loved ones. On the other hand, when walking in the forest it
is possible to coincide with the intense smell of a cadaver animal which is dead so
that we do have an idea of how a dead body may smell. Most of the time smell of a
cadaver disgusts whoever smells it. About 400 of more than 800 chemicals which
compose the smell of death are identified so far157 and each cadaver can smell with
a different composition due to its unique condition, but disgust is universal.
The relationship between people and the smell of death appears as disgust
and this disgust is discussed by different fields including philosophy, psychology,
and anthropology. In that sense, choosing to cooperate with other
professionals from different fields appears to be reasonable. Fong’s medical
background and experience with science serviced his artistic creativity. Thanatos
reminds visitors the eternal recurrence. Placing an autopsy table in the middle of
the installation place and infusing the smell from the table takes the installation
beyond a forensic search of a dead body. Because what is exhibited through smell
is not a prevalent thing to experience of our daily lives it has the potential to make
visitors feel and think of the idea of death and physical decomposition. With
Thanatos, Eric Fong creates an opportunity to think on organism’s decomposition
after death which we rarely think of because we don’t witness it on our daily bases
unless we lose someone.
157 Arpad A. Vass, “Odor Mortis,” Forensic Science International 222, no. 1-3 (2012): pp. 234-241,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2012.06.006.
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2.4.3 Sense of Smell and Famous Deaths
Sense of Smell is an international research project designed by Polymorf
Communication and Multimedia Design Breda at the AVANS University of
Applied Science in the Netherlands which also takes part in Value Increase by
Visual Design (VIVID) international network. Lead designers of the project are
Marcel Van Brakel and Frederik Duerinck. They work with a crowded designer
team consisting of instructors and students who want to explore scent158. Sense of
Smell develops sensory, interactive installations to explore potential of scent in
strategic communication.
In 2014, “Famous Deaths” wa exhibited for the first time and then it has
travelled all around the world. With this project, Sense of Smell aimed to create last
few alive minutes of four different celebrities with scent which gives the visitors
the opportunity to intensely experience the last minutes of very famous people
whose deaths are part of our collective memory with their tragic ends. The “scent
printer” is developed by the team for this sound and scent and experience-based
installation. The printer used 40 scent-containers and worked with a specific
software created for the installation159. Four different mortuary drawers are
connected to the printer and in each another story of a celebrities’ final moments
are portraited. Within the project, John F. Kennedy’s final motorcade, Whitney
Houston’s last bath, Princess Diana’s fatal ride and Muammar Gaddafi’s violent
end were reconstructed using just smell and sound, eliminating sight160.
158 “Famous Deaths Project by Sense of Smell,” Famous Deaths project by Sense of Smell, accessed
February 2022, https://www.famousdeaths.nl/.
159 “Famous Deaths,” MM~, accessed April 2022, http://www.markmeeuwenoord.com/famousdeaths.
160 Allison Meier, “Climbing into a Mortuary Drawer to Smell the Scents of JFK's Last Moments,”
Hyperallergic, April 19, 2016, https://hyperallergic.com/292013/climbing-into-a-mortuary-drawerto-
smell-the-scents-of-jfks-last-moments/.
79
Figure 26. Famous Deaths by Sense of Smell
Source: “Famous Deaths,” MM~, n.d.,
http://www.markmeeuwenoord.com/famous-deaths.
Mortuary freezers are coffin like structures and visitors are driven in with
metal trays just like cadavers in the morgue. Inside the freezers were blind dark.
Visitors were given an emergency button when sliding inside, in case of panic or
feeling uncomfortable. Going into a morgue freezer is a claustrophobic but intimate
experience. It gives the chance to experience someone’s death very closely even
the visitor can feel as if she/he becomes the subject, the celebrity died. We all share
the collective memory of four of the deaths. Last minutes of Kennedy appears in
our memory: his car driven slowly, President waving the audience, Jackie Kennedy
sitting next to her husband… In the freezers what is experienced is the part which
is not part of the collective memory: Jackie Kennedy’s perfume, scent of leather
seats of the limousine, freshly mown grass, smell of the autumn wind…The
experience becomes much more personal with sound and smell. Then comes the
smell of the gunpowder and blood. The experience brings you to the exact scene
with scent and sound documentation. These scent scenarios offer a whole new
perspective. This new way of storytelling shows the potential of smell in
communication and potentiate the place of smell in collective memory. Taking
away the visual elements gives us the chance to go through those moments as the
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subject, rather than an outer observer of the event. The freezers can also be seen as
time travel machines. Most of the time smell is not preferred in media and
storytelling but thanks to the efforts of the team of scientists and designers, it is
proven that smell can be used as an intense communication tool.
2.4.4 Anya Gallaccio and “Because I could not Stop” (2002)
British artist Anya Gallaccio was born in 1963 in Paisley, Scotland. She
studied at Kingston College of Art and Goldsmiths’ College from where she
graduated in 1988. Gallaccio is working as a professor in the Department of Visual
Arts at the University of California, San Diego and she was also nominated for the
Turner Prize in 2003. Gallaccio uses organic materials such as flowers, fruit, sugar,
and chocolate. Her installations and sculptures are perishable due to the use of
organic materials and her aesthetic style can be considered as minimalist. Besides
organic elements Gallaccio likes to use classic sculpture materials such as bronze.
Organic materials go through changes in exhibition period. Those materials start
decomposing and fresh smells at the beginning turns out to be rotten161.
Since her early career, Gallaccio has preferred to use feminine elements in
masculine exhibition spaces. One of the most organic elements she uses is flowers.
She likes to leave flowers to decomposition during the exhibition period. At the
beginning flowers smell fresh and beautiful but as time passes by and flowers start
to lose their vitality, their scent starts to get unpleasant. The artist portraits the decay
of beauty of the feminine in masculine spaces with a gendered subjectivity.
Displayed decomposition of feminine elements constructed an alternative memento
mori. Her installations from 1990s such as “Preserve “beauty”” (1991) were
composed of fresh flowers placed minimalistically. In the specific installation a
hybrid flower, which is a mixture of daisy and gerbera and specific hybrid breed
161 Susie Hodge, in Artistic Circles: The Inspiring Connections between the World's Greatest
Artists (London, United Kingdom: Frances Lincoln, 2021), pp. 12-14.
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known by its name “beauty” were used162. Because since 1990s, Galliccio has been
using decomposition of organic materials in her works, she has gained an
experience of different materials responding various spaces. Her minimalistic style
became matured as well.
Figure 27. Because I could not stop by Anya Gallacio
Source: “Anya Gallaccio - Alchetron, the Free Social Encyclopedia,”
Alchetron.com, May 30, 2022, https://alchetron.com/Anya-Gallaccio.
“Because I could not stop” (2002) is a great example for this maturation in
artistic perspective and material knowledge. This installation is composed of a
bronze minimal tree which is adorned by fresh red apples. At the beginning of the
exhibition period, apples filled the space with fresh and sweet scent. Aromatic
apples both looked and smelled fresh and delicious. As time passed by, they began
rotting so the smell turned out to become sour and rotten. Pleasure alters into
disgust. Again, the material the artist chooses to leave to rot is symbolic with a
mythical story behind. Besides its feminine characteristic, apple symbolizes sins,
temptation, and worldly pleasures. It is also considered as “forbidden fruit” which
is the reason for Adam and Eve to be punished with mortality. Smell of
decomposition of the aromatic apples reminds the viewers of death and decay.
Unpleasant smell due to the decay reminds of the effects of time on beauty and life
162 Fiona Anderson, “'Preserve 'Beauty'', Anya Gallaccio, 1991–2003,” Tate, May 2014,
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gallaccio-preserve-beauty-t11829.
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but what about the people who visited the installation at the beginning? If they don’t
visit the same installation after a period, they are not able to experience the smell
of the decomposition so the same installation will not be able to remind visitors of
decay, death, and temporality. In that case exhibiting different phases at the same
time may be a solution. In the case of Gallaccio’s art, the artist does not develop
any artificial scent. She uses the element of smell organically due to the
characteristics of material she prefers. Because smell of the installation changes
organically she did not need to work with an additional team or laboratory in
developing any scent.
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CHAPTER THREE
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CONTEMPORARY OLFACTORY ART
3.1. EXPERIENCE BASED AND IMMERSIVE
Smell stimulates intimate and immediate response. Unless people stop
breathing, smelling is an ongoing and continuous activity. Smelling should not be
considered as a conscious experience or choice. People may come close to the
source of the smell and sniff but smelling works simultaneously with breathing so
it can be said that most of the time people are exposed. The response after the
stimuli is much more interesting because the sense of smell has the power of
recalling memories, and the stimuli is processed subconsciously. What a specific
smell makes person feel and think are subjective and intimate experience. Because
limbic system is involved in emotional responses and memories, the smell one is
exposed to may trigger different emotions in different people. A smell can bring
back a forgotten memory or a feeling associated to that memory unexpectedly.
Even smell appears as an immersive component in artworks, none of the
works analyzed was only composed of smell. In each, the artwork had at least visual
components accompanied the smell. Most of the olfactory artworks are designed as
multisensory experiences rather than just exhibiting the smell created. Even some
of the works were built up on the notion of smell, audiences were able to see the
exhibition design. I prefer to categorize existing olfactory contemporary artworks
as multisensory experiences. I wonder how it would be to exhibit just created smell
to blindfolded audience. As far as I researched, I couldn’t find a noteworthy
example for that.
When thinking of olfactory art, most of the time visual dimension is not
eliminated but I believe that it should not be understood as if smell is just
accompanying the visual components. I approach these artworks as multisensory
experiences in which there are infinite combinations of senses to use. Artist can
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change the senses they pick to use while being able to play with the balance between
the selected senses. Olfactory Forest by Omar Polak is a great example for this. The
artist used sounds recorded in forests but kept the volume so low that tape
recordings became an element to attract audiences to come and sniff the diffused
smells. Famous Deaths eliminated visual elements within freezers but again before
sliding inside, audiences see the freezers they are getting in which reminds the
audiences of the experience of death. Elimination of the visual elements within the
freezers though adds a deeper dimension to the experience because the audience
find an opportunity to feel as if they are not watching a historical moment but living
in it. This way experience pushes the audience to use their imagination to recall
historical deaths from the collective memories and inserting themselves within
those memories like time travelling. Sissel Tolaas used microcapsules activated by
touch, so the audience needs to touch the wall created to smell the smell created.
So, while creating olfactory artworks, artists have infinite ways of creating
multisensory experiences. Of course, at that point the relations between each sense
with others become a very interesting topic to be discovered within the artistic
context.
Because smell has a unique process neurologically when compared to other
senses, it has the power to enrich the experience created. Through olfactory
components, an immersive dimension can be added to the artwork which can
stimulate audiences’ feelings and memories at a subconscious level. What really
concerns me is the ethical context of this issue. Because people are most of the time
exposed to scents which they don’t know what to expect from. Audience may go
through an uncomfortable experience which they are not ready for. In the Famous
Deaths by Sense of Smell, an emergency button is placed inside the freezers in case
of panic or feeling uncomfortable. As in this example, I do believe that warnings
should be placed in the exhibition spaces to eliminate the ethical concern of
exhibiting smell. That way at least people will be able to take the responsibility of
what they will experience emotionally.
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Most of the time smell is in artworks which focus on our relationships with
self, the other, environment, place, memory, and time. That is not by the
coincidence of course. As I explained previously how smell is processed plays a
very crucial role in that choice. When audience becomes exposed to the created
smell, the experience is so immersive that the audience becomes hunted by the
artwork. Artist becomes able to affect the audience through the immersive
experience created. Michael Pinsky’s Pollution Pods is a great example for this.
Shortness of breath using smell is very direct and memorable experience to show
people what they may expect from air pollution in the future. Even in Koku ve Şehir,
a timeline is created using the sense of smell. Using smell gives a chance for people
to go through the experiences they have never been exposed to. Thanatos of Eric
Fong gives the audience a chance to smell death which modern people normally do
not smell in their daily lives. Sandscapes has showed the olfactory capacity to make
people travel to different places and even compare them through olfactory
narrations like in AIR by Hilda Kozari. Audience had the opportunity to smell three
different cities with the olfactory narration of the artist. Also, in this kind of
olfactory artworks which use smell to present specific places, the close relationship
between memories, places, time, and smell can be easily detected. The smell created
for a place, neighborhood or city should not be considered as an objective notion.
The additional component, smell, makes it possible for the artwork the process with
audience’s feelings and memories at a subconscious level. The multisensory
experience becomes very personal through smell. That is why contemporary artists
prefer to use smell in political works. What people may stay unreactive in daily
lives may become very personal through using smell.
3.2. POLITICAL AND PROVOCATIVE
Such immersive artistic experiences should not be created for no purposes.
The intense nature of using smell in contemporary art has the power to change and
influence existing public opinions while challenging status quo and existing norms.
The idea why contemporary artist start experimenting with smell is because they
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wanted to discover a new and powerful communication medium that they can start
using in their artistic expression in conveying messages and stimulating audiences.
As I built up my second chapter of this dissertation, there are shared topics beyond
the artists using smell in their works. Artists who are interested in body politics,
environmental issues like to use smell their work but besides politics, smell is also
prevalent in the artworks which discover the relationships people built up with self,
the others, places, memory, time, and existence. Because smell has a capacity to
hunt us, its provocative nature is preferred to be used in very personal topics. What
we see in olfactory artworks is that these ask provocative questions and/or
interrogate audience’s relationship with self, the artist, memory, place and time.
Of course when it comes to smell, body politics appears to be one of the
most preferred topics artist chose to work on. In modern society what people are
used to is deodorized bodies and spaces. As put forward previously, the pressure of
deodorization on women is much higher and even vaginal or menstrual decertations
may become a source of humiliation. Clara Ursitti’s Eau Claire is a product of
challenging settled norms on body odor, specifically with a feminist critique which
can be detected through the material choice. The artist here embraces her sex and
sexual anatomy and challenges the expectations imposed on her body by the
society. Rather than seeing womanly secretions a source of anxiety, Ursitti
celebrates her nature by bottling up as a luxury perfume which may be considered
as precious as people would want to own them, so they create a market demand
toward these secretions. Anicka Yi’s collective bacteria is produced by different
samples collected from different women. Here Yi draws attention to collective
existence of women. Her collective bacteria stand as a symbol for the power of
acting together as a collective unity. Yi’s work shows the importance of working
together in claiming rights and freedoms.
Body odor depends on the food consumed, environment, daily activities,
and genetics. Bodily smell is also used as a source for racist humiliation. Body
odors may become instruments for defining self and the other. Oswaldo Macia’s
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Ten Notes for a Human Symphony eliminates visual elements so that only odors
left on blank curtains. It is impossible to match which smell belongs to which nation
or community. Macia identifies each odor sample as a different note so that as the
curtains move a symphony was composed. The artist emphasis the importance of
coexistence and harmony of different identities. He also challenges human borders
while removing prejudice and fears of the audience away.
In an era, which environmental concerns are rising and environmental act
against the issues started to be heard, one of the most popular topics in the whole
contemporary art world becomes environmentalism. Humankind takes all the
natural resources and environment as for granted. In recent decades green politics
and environmental movements have gained power as environmental costs have
become more apparent. As the crises deepen, result of pollution, climate change,
erosion, and deforestation become more direct and evident. Michael Pinsky
exhibited his works in UN Climate Change Conferences in which world leaders
came together to work on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions. Public opinion
on environmental issues has the power to influence the governmental policies and
even supra-governmental acts. Pinsky tried to illustrate what our future may be like
in terms of air pollution with Pollution Pods. Rather than simply explaining possible
future, Pinsky’s installation give opportunity for visitors to experience the air
pollution which is very intense. Design and art can be mediums for environmental
discussions like Omer Polak’s Olfactory Forest. The Olfactory Forest is an artificial
forest which tries to replicate smells and sounds from forest for the days when
forests become extinct. The lifelessness of the installation is so disturbing that it is
almost impossible for visitors to stay reckless towards deforestation. The
relationship with the planet we are living in is very direct and reciprocal.
Humankind will get what they give, and art has the power to create experiences
which creates flashforwards to future when the costs will be paid.
People have reciprocal relationships with not just our planet but also with
cities they are living in. Our relationships with cities and places we are living in,
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are built through emotional, cultural, social, political, and economic interactions. In
Cat Jones’ Ascent of Sydney project what is very interesting but also to the point is
that each Sydneysider came up with a whole different composition in creating the
scent of the city. Because each person has a unique relationship and interactions
with and in the city, Cat Jones created different smell compositions for the same
city which challenges visitors to examine their own relationship with the place or
city they are living in. This examination will bring back a series of memories of
very different social, emotional, cultural, political, and economic interactions each
person experienced and participated in.
Beside personal memories, collective memory is another very interesting
topic to challenge. Collective memory should not be considered as an objective
notion. Most of the time collective memory is visually fetishized and there are
always social and political representations behind. It should not be considered as
constant and unchanging. Collective memory is in continuous relationship with
contemporary social and political circumstances so that it is continuously being
reconstructed. Lisa Kirk’s Revolution Pipe Bomb is built up on the notion of
revolution. Revolution is a word with a very positive connotation when heard. It
reminds people of a positive social and political change. Lisa Kirk cerates the smell
of revolution through interviews conducted with people who witnessed revolution
and the smell was created at the end of these series of interviews. The smell of the
revolution came out to be very unpleasant. It was a combination of sweat, blood,
smoke, gasoline, tear gas, burnt rubber, decaying flesh, and urine. The unpleasant
smell stands for the truth behind revolution. It reminded pain, struggle, and war
behind the glorious revolution. Lisa Kirk manifests the cost of change. Also, the
artist draws close attention to the market-politics relationship by bottling
revolution. She emphasized commodification and fetishization of even very radical
political signifiers such as pipe bomb.
Responding smell is immediate reaction. People either like the smell and
find it pleasant or hate it. That is the reason why smell has the power to empower
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the installation created and to attract extra attention of the audience. Through smell,
Eric Fong reminds people of the darker side of existence, death. The smell is so
decayed, it is impossible for an audience to forget about that experience. Unlike
Thanasos, Famous Deaths portray last minutes of famous people through using very
lively smells. The experience is created in such a way that people experiencing it
go through those moments auditorily and olfactorily. The work challenged visitor’s
collective memory while creating a very lively experience to remind the people of
the notion of death. Reminding people of death is very catchy because it is about
coming to an end and accepting your physical annihilation while separating from
anything that belongs. Anna Gallacio’s Because I Could Not Stop illustrates this
separation and decay as a performance by letting feminine beauty decay in a very
masculine setting. Gallacio uses the change in the smell of rotten apples as an
additional element. Whether you come across with fresh apples or rotten ones, the
installation attracts the audience either with its liveliness or collapse of vitality.
Besides its emphasis on life cycle, the artwork also has a powerful discourse in
feminist criticism.
Olfactory art explores and criticizes our relationship with ourselves and the
others. It pushes people to accept their anatomic nature and existence. Creating the
other is accepted as a process of defining the self. Smell has been used as an
instrument to create the other for a very long time historically. Again, there are great
examples of contemporary olfactory art in challenging the categories of other built
up on different discriminations based on gender and culture. There are many
examples for olfactory art challenging body politics and norms. On the other hand,
olfactory artists draw attention to close relationship between people and place.
People are interacting with the places they live in politically, economically,
socially, culturally, and emotionally so that each person has a unique relationship
with place or space they are living in. Olfactory art also works on the notion of time.
Smell is used to recall different time periods, different events, and different phases
of life. Even a timeline can be designed through smell. Olfactory artists, use an
alternative language in asking questions to audience, finding answers, challenging
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norms, and status quo, and influencing public opinion. Due to process of smelling,
people become able to inhale the artwork in and become possessed. The interaction
is much closer and more intimate so much more provocative.
3.3. MULTIDISCIPLINARY AND COLLABORATIVE
When selected artworks are analyzed, in the process of creation most of the
artists collaborated with perfumers, scientists and other artists. Artists have two
different options in using olfactory in their works; they need to either choose readyto-
use scents or create the scents. For example, artist Anna Gallaccio chooses to
work with fruits and flowers which smell by nature. Even, she uses the smell of
decomposition of these organic materials as olfactory component of her works but
most of the time that is not the case. Artists using olfaction prefer to collaborate
with perfumers and scientists in creating and exhibiting smell due to their lack of
competence.
Oswaldo Macia collaborated with Ricardo Moya, the senior perfumer of
International Flavors & Fragrances for multiple works. Moya graduated from the
Perfume Institute of Versailles which gives higher education in perfumery,
cosmetics, and flavoring, founded by Jean-Jacques Guerlain. After having
collecting smelly samples from forest Omer Polak collaborated with senior
perfumer of the Symrise, Marc vom Ende in producing smells from forest
artificially. Hilda Kozari worked closely with perfumer Bertrand Ducahufour in
distilling her olfactory memories of the cities. Ducahufour is a French perfumer
who is famous for his niche perfumes created for luxury brands like Acqua di
Parma, Comme des Garçons and Givenchy. Lisa Kirk created the smell for the
Revolution Pipe Bomb with perfumer Patricia Choux. Perfumers work either in
cosmetics, flavor industry or industrial perfumery. It is important to mention that
education programs in olfactory are now concentrated in these industries as the
artistic capacity of smell has been discovered very recently by the artists through
experimenting.
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Some artists chose to work with scientists of different expertise. While
creating NASALO, Sissel Tolaas worked with scientists from Max Planck Institute
for Psycholinguistics, which studies how people produce and understand languages.
Anicka Yi collaborated with MIT scientists like postdoctoral fellow Tal Danino
who studies in bioengineering in synthesizing a “collective bacterium”. Again, for
Pollution Pods, Michael Pinsky worked with a team of scientists from Norwegian
Institute of Science and Technology working in the Climate Project. Pinsky both
used previous findings of Climate Project and collaborated in creating his Pollution
Pods. Maki Ueda studied perfumery in Grasse but she worked with Jas Brooks in
fragrances which manipulate people’s temperature perception. Jas Brooks, a Ph.D.
student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of
Chicago's Human-Computer Integration Lab., studies and does research on scent
technologies and how chemicals intervene in the interactions of everyday life. Eric
Fong uses his scientific background as a former medical doctor in his art and still
collaborates with Dr. Anna Williams, a forensic anthropologist.
The International Flavors and Fragrances is one of the international
companies which give sponsorship to artists who work with smell. Tolaas was able
to use high technology to capture, analyze and replicate smell due to the IFF’s
sponsorship. One of the sponsors for Pinsky’s work for COP25 was again the IFF.
Also, Oswaldo Macia was sponsored by the IFF in creating different smells for each
country from the collected hair samples. Symrise is another international company
in flavors and fragrances industry. Omer Polak collaborated with Symrise
laboratories to analyze the samples he collected from the forest and Lisa Kirk
worked with the laboratory in the process of creating the scent for the Revolution
Pipe Bomb. Artists who know how to work with scents and smell may prefer to
have their own laboratories like Sissel Tolaas’ Re_Seach Lab, based in Berlin
which is also part of the artist’s studio. The Lab is also supported by the IFF.
Another alternative is perfumer owned laboratories such the Jorum Laboratories
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owned by perfumer Euan McCall which Eric Fong collaborated with for the
Thanatos.
Of course, olfactory artists and artists working with olfactory elements not
just collaborate with scientists, perfumers, and laboratories. They also collaborate
with other artists like all other artists. With the collaboration of Peter de Cupere
with Jan Fabre’s Troubleyn’s Laboratorium which is a multidisciplinary studio that
integrates performance and dance with modern technologies and scientific methods,
we see how smell becomes a prima donna in a multidisciplinary performance. Omer
Polak collaborated with Manua Ratton in designing the installation for the
Olfactory Forest. Jeweler Jelena Behrend designed pipe bomb for Lisa Kirk and
Esa Vesmanen designed the bubbles for Hilda Kozari’s AIR installation. In these
artists’ collaborations, the collaborated notion is never on olfactory element so I
believe that they are not characteristic for olfactory art. Rather they should be
understood as any other artistic collaborations within artwork.
What can be seen in olfactory art is that there is a great potential for
multidisciplinary collaborations due to the complex nature of the smell. Olfactory
artistic practice can intersect with a wide range of areas including anthropology,
neuroscience, engineering, perfumery, and biology. Normally people may think
that as the knowledge on smell increases, artists prefer less to collaborate with other
disciplines but what really happens is that as artists’ competency on smell increases,
new possibilities for different collaborations flourish due to the fact that complex
nature of smell is studied by very different disciplines. There is a wide range of
professionals who artists may choose to collaborate with, while using smell in their
works.
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3.4. EXPERIMENTAL AND SCIENTIFIC
Collaborations with scientists and laboratories give a clue on the process of
creating olfactory art for sure. The use of smell in artistic expression is recent. The
process of artistic creation can be considered as experimental due to the lack of
experience in the professional use of smell in art. Cat Jones started creating scents
in her artistic residency period in the UTS Science Super Lab. Most of the olfactory
artworks can be defined as somewhere between art and science. Tolaas archived
thousands of smell samples in her laboratory sponsored by the IFF. Peter de Cupere
constructed his own laboratory like Tolaas which he calls VIBE. Maki Ueda
describes her art as outcomes of her olfactory experiments as previously mentioned.
From the discovery of new materials to creation and exhibition of smell there is a
scientific approach to art. Clara Ursitti collected her bodily secretions and
conserved these secretions using alcohol and coconut oil and Anicka Yi likes using
bacteria in her artistic practices. New possible materials for art are being discovered
through olfactory art. Creating scents and artificial smells can be seen as integrating
a whole new spectrum of materials into art, which requires experimenting with
materials and chemicals. Collecting smell is completely another experimental
process. Tolaas uses a custom-made device which is used gathering chemical
formulas of sweat analyzed from all around the world. The device immediately sent
the formulas to a central database. New technologies also built for the exhibition of
smell and the scent printer used in the Famous Deaths is a great example for that.
Pattu Design Studio spent about 2 months in designing how to exhibit the smells.
Eric Fong built his Thanatos on the forensic research conducted by Dr. Anna
Williams and even some artists prefer to start working with research and surveys.
Omer Polak is one of those artists. He starts each work with doing research and uses
scientific methods in his works. Cat Jones conducted interviews with Sydneysiders
on how they would define their olfactory experience of Sydney through their
associate memories. Again, Lisa Kirk conducted a survey with a group of
participants including journalists, activist, political radicals, and revolutionaries to
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learn more about how the revolution smells. Like in any scientific research
proposing a question and trying to answer trough experimenting become a crucial
element of the process. Peter de Cupere defines his art as an experimental process
which stimulates questions on self, society, existence, and universe. Tolaas tries to
understand how body reacts olfactorily in the state of fear in her work the FEAR of
Smell- the Smell of FEAR. Maki Ueda tries to answer if it is possible to manipulate
temperature perception using smell in Smell for the Paris Agreement. What is
characteristic for these artworks is that during the performance or exhibition of the
installation what is really going on is a kind of experiment to answer the question
asked or to test the hypothesis proposed.
Through olfactory art, previously marginalized materials and substances
like bodily secretions or some organic materials are reintroduced to art scene.
Through collection to creation and exhibition of smell, artists conduct scientific
approaches. Each process takes place with an experimental nature. Most of the time
artists prefer to collaborate with scientists using laboratories and perfumers who are
experts in the chemistry of scents and smelly molecules. There are even artists who
have their own laboratories such as Tolaas and De Cupere. Experimental and
scientific nature of olfactory art should be understood together with collaborative
and multidisciplinary creative processes.
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CONCLUSION
The sense of smell is being studied by many different disciplines from
neurology to philosophy, anthropology, and psychology. There is a rich literature
about the sense of smell, but existing knowledge is never comprehensively
interpreted for the context of art so researching on olfactory art was little
challenging. I support my dissertation through using academic literature from
different disciplines. Because smell was not analyzed in the context of art, I used
secondary literature review to understand smell’s potential and challenges in the art
world. I highly recommend people who are interested in olfactory art to use
academic literature from different disciplines. That is why first chapter of this
dissertation is based on a comprehensive literature review. I used existing literature
to understand the place smell in contemporary art. First chapter shows that even
there are artistic, intellectual, and technical concerns on exhibiting olfactory art, I
put forward that it is legitimate to use smell as an artistic material and component.
Then through artistic analysis of existing contemporary olfactory artworks, I show
the legitimate use of smell conceptually.
Smell can be used in various subjects due to its provocative and immersive
characteristic. Most of the works are multisensory. The additional use of smell,
experience becomes very intense for the audience. People are exposed to the smell
and even get possessed by it. I also find out that most of these olfactory artworks
are highly political so that smell’s provocative and immersive nature is very
convenient. These works challenge social and political norms, status quo while
influencing public opinion. Artists convey discourses through olfactory art to their
audience. Besides smell’s artistic capacity, in these examples I show that it also has
an intellectual capacity as a powerful communication medium. Chapter 2 reveals
the legitimacy of use of smell in art world intellectually and aesthetically.
Because use of smell is very recent in art world, the process of using smell
appears as an experimental process for artists. Some of the artists have laboratories
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in their studios while others collaborated with private laboratories. Most of the
artists working with smell prefers working with perfumers and scientists.
Collaborating with laboratories and smell professionals helps artists reach high
technologies in creating and exhibiting smell. The processes of creating and
exhibiting smell are mostly experimental and scientific. Scientific approach
between olfactory artists can be easily seen. Even some of the artists start their
creative processes with posing a question to be answered. Besides smell’s aesthetic
capacity, there is also an intellectual dimension.
Smell can be used in wide range of subjects in art including environmentalist
issues, feminism, and existential questions. It can be used as an alternative language
to reveal people’s relationship with themselves, the other, time, place, and
collective memory. Smell is used to challenge normative relationships people built
up with self, the other, environment surrounding, time and memories. Olfactory art
makes it possible for its audience to embrace differences. It has the capacity to open
new dialogues. This dissertation presents a holistic understanding of smell in
contemporary art world. Because there is not much literature on smell in
contemporary art, I reviewed existing literature from different disciplines and
prepared an analysis with an artistic concern. The reviewed artworks show the
richness of topics and how it is possible to use smell in different topics in
contemporary art systematically.
I believe that my dissertation will be a good starting point for new academic
studies. It has the potential to stimulate new questions about olfactory art. When I
started my dissertation there were very few academic literatures on olfactory art so
this academic work will be a good starting point for people who are interested in
this topic. I both used literature review and case studies of existing examples. I need
to add that none of the artworks eliminated the sense of sight. Most of them can be
considered as multisensory experiences while none of them exhibited smell
blindfolded. At that point relationships between different senses may appear as an
interesting topic which should be studied in future research. Also, why smell is
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never exhibited individually should be investigated. I believe that this dissertation
has the capacity to influence different surveys on audience perception and
experience. Influence of olfactory art on audience can be examined detailly.
I conclude that use of smell in contemporary art is artistically and
intellectually legitimate. Even smell is gaining power in artistic scene, the
dominance of sight continues. Olfactory cannot be considered as isolated from
visual components. Because use of smell in art is a recent development, this topic
needs to be further studied. The before and after of audience experiences may be
traced to better understand the effects of smell in artistic expression but I do believe
that scope of smell will be extended in the art world.
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