- Deconstructing Chanel No. 5 -

DATE: 15.03.2012 [preimer]
VENUE: V2_ Institute for Unstable Media
CONTEXT: event name: Smell This!

OLFACTO (= olfactory) SCAPE (= scenery)

OLFACTOSCAPE is an invisible panorama painting. It's a 3m diameter space created with a curtain. The walls are "painted" with smells.

Perfume is a composition of multiple ingredients, often more than a hundred. Making a perfume is like making a piece of music: creating a harmony with multiple tones. In this version of the OLFACTOSCAPE, independent components (aromatic ingredients) of Chanel No. 5 are separately placed (sprayed) at the different locations. If you stand in the middle point of the space, you would smell the "harmony." If you walk along the curtain, you would smell the "individual tones." The intention is thus, to deconstruct the Chanel No. 5, and to reconstruct it again.

Enter the space, close your eyes, walk and sniff like a dog. Some scents come closer to you, while others fade away. When do you smell the "harmony" and when do you smell the "individual tones?" Do the scents navigate you instead of you navigating yourself? Is there any scent that attracts you, or that makes you want to approach?

This project is supported by Omega Ingredients and inframince.jp.

A multi-sensorial perception of space - ‘Olfactoscape’ by Maki Ueda

A review by Caro Verbeek, an art historian

(cited from http://www.olfactoryart.net/index.php/olfactory-news/14-olfactory-news/109)

‘Because we have two nostrils and because we can move, we are able to perceive smells in stereo and navigate through a space by inhaling’

DATE: 20.10.2011. - 12.11.2011.
PLACE: LUCENA (CORDOBA), SPAIN
CONTEXT: SENSXPERIMENT http://www.sensxperiment.es/

20th October – 12th November 2011. Lucena-Córdoba

After ten years of activity Sensxperiment International Creation Meeting will be organized in a triennial basis, so most activities of the current eleventh edition will take place in October and November 2011, mainly in Lucena and Cordoba, Spain.

The topic chosen for this edition is ‘Sensory Immersion’.

- a composition of smells in a space -

installation (2010)

CONCEPT

olfacto = olfactory, the sense of smellscape = denoting a specified type of scene

Olfactoscape is a 3m diameter space created with a curtain. The walls are invisiblly "painted" with smells.

OLFACTOSCAPE is a word that I made up, consisting of OLFACTO (= olfactory) and SCAPE (= scene). Let's observe an olfactory landscape with our nose, like a dog. Close your eyes, walk and sniff. Some scents come closer to you, while others fade away. Is there any scent that attracts you, or that makes you want to approach? This is a research project of searching for the boundaries and possibilities of our sense of smell.

Japanese people have a unique sense for the scents in nature. They appreciate the scents of the season as if viewing the landscape. They feel tipsy for the sweet scents under the cherry blossoms in the early spring night, and they feel the autumn for the scents of osmanthus. OLFACTOSCAPE is meant for experiencing such olfactory attitude. The selection of the scents illustrates this Japanese sensitivity to nature.

This work was initially developed with the support of INFRAMINCE, Inc (www.inframince.jp) and PANTALOON (www.pantaloon.jp).

DEVELOPMENT

- hinoki
- camphor
- lily of the valley
- cherry blossoms
- wild rose
- forest with fallen leaves
- ginger
- yuzu
- matsutake
- wild lily
- cinnamon
- grass
etc.

More documentations regarding its development:

http://scent-lab.blogspot.com/search/label/%5BOLFACTOSCAPE%5D

CREDITS

concept: Maki Ueda

installation developed by: Pantaloon & Maki Ueda

sponsored by: Yamamoto Perfumery Co. Ltd.

produced by: Inframince

OLFACTOSCAPE VER. 2