Tracing Smell in Art

In the context of upcoming research on the sense of smell in contemporary art practice, Ashraf Osman recently conducted interviews with two key players in the realm: Brian Goeltzenleuchter, an artist based in San Diego, CA, and Robert Blackson, a curator based in Philadelphia, PA. The interviews focused on the norms, processes, and institutions that promote or hinder the use of the sense of smell in art. Continue reading Tracing Smell in Art

Partnering with the Art and Olfaction Awards

The 2014 Art and Olfaction Awards initiated by the Institute for Art and Olfaction (IAO) in 2013 have been a major step for the development of artistic perfumery. For its second round, the Los Angeles based institute has teamed up with the research group on scent culture at Bern University of Applied Sciences. Continue reading Partnering with the Art and Olfaction Awards

The Art of Scent 2.0

“The Art of Scent 1889 – 2014” curated by Chandler Burr presents perfume makers as artists and places their olfactory works as creations of art, literature and music, identifying them with the aesthetic movements to which they belong.  Continue reading The Art of Scent 2.0

Scent in New Materialism

New Materialism is a growing movement rooted in neo-disciplines such as gender studies or science & technology studies. It challenges contemporary discourse as Karen Barad points out: “Language matters. Discourse matters. Culture matters. There is an important sense in which the only thing that does not seem to matter anymore is matter.” Continue reading Scent in New Materialism

Video on Scent Culture Research

“Interdisciplinarity” is the common theme of three videos Bern University of Applied Sciences recently posted on YouTube. One of the videos features scent culture and related research projects based at Bern University of the Arts and the Business School, two departments at Bern University of Applied Sciences. So far, the interdisciplinary approach has brought together professionals from diverse disciplines including social science, media art, visual communication, management research, psychology and curating.  Continue reading Video on Scent Culture Research

UBS Arts Forum: Expanding the Notion of Sculpture

This fall, the UBS Arts Forum was devoted to contemporary sculpture. In this context, the program featured a lecture by Claus Noppeney on Expanding the Notion of Sculpture: “Mit der Nase in die Skulptur” and three scent sculptures by Christophe Laudamiel and Christoph Hornetz were exhibited at the Seepark Thun. Continue reading UBS Arts Forum: Expanding the Notion of Sculpture

Olfactory spaces: Smell in design education

On the 19th of September, Claus Noppeney and Ashraf Osman of SCI conducted a class for the Signaletik CAS program (context building), part of the Signaletik MAS (Environmental Information Design) at the Bern University of the Arts, under the supervision of Jimmy Schmid. Continue reading Olfactory spaces: Smell in design education

Dressing for success – and scent?

The common slogan “dress for success” underlines the wide-held view that what you wear matters in everyday life. It originates in Erving Goffman’s studies on the social world as a stage. Accordingly, individuals interact as performers. In the context of management and organization studies this mode of interaction has later been labeled as “impression management”. It is obvious that workplace attire is used to manage the impressions of others. Studies show that women are more interested in clothing and experience more “appearance labor” when compared to men.*

Continue reading Dressing for success – and scent?

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