on Olfactory Art
“Olfactory Labyrinth ver. 5″ is a finalist for the Art and Olfaction Sadakichi Award for Experimental Work with Scent. The Art and Olfaction Awards celebrate excellence in global independent and artisan perfumery, and experimental work with scent.
[Story]
Olfactory Labyrinth is a series of space installation for researching space exploration navigated by the sense of smell.
As I walk a dog daily, I noticed that dogs live on the totally different layer than us: on the layer of smell. They play power game or attract each other by leaving footsteps, pees and poops: they communicate each other with smell for the purpose of protecting territories and reproduction. The scent includes abundant information identifying its sex, age, and size.
Compared to them we human beings can communicate very little with the sense of smell. This installation questions us about the scent-driven communication.
The stamp pad is self designed, and the solvent is also self composed accustomed to the behavior of the clay.
OLFACTOSCAPE is a series of works researching scent-driven space exploration with the focus on how scents mix in the air. How do fragrances travel in space, how do they mix, what can we distinguish and what not?
[Experience]
A cylindrically shaped space is made to create a distinct space, safe enough to close your eyes and focus on smelling. As you walk along the circular curtain, new scents appears one by one:
The scent of the rose flower consists of hundreds of chemical components. The eight components above are the most relevant ones. When you stand in the middle, what you smell is the mixture of them: the scent of rose flower. When moving closer to the curtain you “zoom in” to the individual components.
In comparison to music, the single scent is like “note” and the total scent is like “harmony”.
[Story]
The work prior to this work is “DECONSTRUCTING CHANEL NO.5”, with a prototype to proof the concept in 2012. This work is hardly shown public because of trademark issues.
This new work, “DECONSTRUCTING A ROSE”, inherits the same principle of that work. I chose the scent of rose as a theme, because it’s universal, being loved in any culture beyond gender and generation. The scent of rose is the perfect concept for education, because there are a lot of different versions of this scent on the market.
[Technical Prouction]
The fact that scents mix in the air makes it difficult for us to control them in olfactory art. However, it is this behavior that became a challenge for me and an important inspiration for making my work.
The level of intensity and the speed of vaporizing are controlled by calibrating the solvent for each scent. For example, Aldehyde C9 is long lasting, so I diluted it and used a vapor-accelerating solvent.