The Story of Ferdinand also has a remarkable cinematic history: This post revisits the short animated film adapted by Walt Disney 1938 and reveals its craftmanship in showing olfactory practices.
Tag Archives: visualizing scent
Ferdinand & the pleasures of olfactory perception (1)
The Story of Ferdinand is a much acclaimed classic children book written by American author Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson. This post reveals the fragrant (and so far widely ignored) message of the plot. It is the first chapter in a new series Ferdinand& of Scent Culture Comment & Review.
Continue reading Ferdinand & the pleasures of olfactory perception (1)
Exhibition in Berlin: “It smells like… flowers & fragrances”
The exhibition ‘It smells like… flowers & fragrances’, on view at me Collectors Room in Berlin from 14 April to 1 July 2018, reveals the undiminished potential of the visually rich subject of depictions of flowers and the subversive olfactory power of fragrances in contemporary art. The curator is Dr Heike Fuhlbrügge. Continue reading Exhibition in Berlin: “It smells like… flowers & fragrances”
He suffered death and was buried
The entombment of Christ is one of several standard representations of Jesus’s suffering and death at the hands of the Romans. According to the Christian tradition Pontius Pilate granted Joseph of Arimathea permission to take Christ’s body down from the cross for burial. In addition, the gospel according to John mentions Nicodemus who brings a mixture of myrrh and aloes—about 100 Roman pounds (33 kg)—for embalming Jesus’ body according to Jewish custom.
This detail is part of the piece by Adriaen van der Werff that is on display the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.
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Sensory typography: How does your letter smell?
Graphic designer Sarah Hyndman thinks that the shape of a letter can impact the way stuff tastes, smells, and sounds. To her, typefaces are multi-sensory experiences that affect the way we interact with the world around us. Continue reading Sensory typography: How does your letter smell?
Olfaction is the message
There are different ways how to address smell in advertizing. Campaigns in perfumery are an obvious case. Moreover, we recently discussed how even negative feedback on the olfactory quality of a product is used in advertizing. The example of today stands out in a different way. Continue reading Olfaction is the message
Do the captives actually smell the fire?
A few days ago, I happened to come across this visualization of Plato’s thought provoking Allegory of the Cave. What the captives see and hear are shadows cast be objects they do not see. But what about the fire? Continue reading Do the captives actually smell the fire?
Smelly wheels: In search of alternatives
Visual representations of smell are one of the core themes of our presence on Instagram: Wheel, circle, and pie have recently appeared as recurring and influential visual metaphors. The fragrance wheel created by Michael Edwards is perhaps the most prominent example these days. But the history of visualizations demonstrates that this is only one example out of many. The visual metaphor of the circle or the wheel has been used to classify urine smells. The colour, smell, and even taste of urine was used to both identify particular illnesses and provide patient prognoses, from Hippocrates to the Victorian era. The practice, called uroscopy or uromancy, was, according to the Doctor’s Review, “once the number-one way to diagnose disease — and predict the future”.
How do you see scents?
The ephemeral materiality of scent eludes the conventions of visual representation. Instead, the specific sensory qualities of the sense of smell remind us of the many constraints of our snapshot society. Thus, one of the more recent projects initiated by Scent Culture Institute is an open collection of visual material that addresses the visual challenges of scent culture: How are scents rendered visual? This is the unterlying question of the insights (e.g. images, scetches, logos, posters, ads, snapshots, clips and pictures etc.) that we share on Instagram. Continue reading How do you see scents?
Narratives describing smells
“The idea was to create simple still lives looking at the memory and history of different perfumes and creating a narrative to describe their smell through vessels, subtle textures and the balance of notes.â€