Art Basel offers a premier platform for renowned artists and galleries. The 49th edition brings together about 290 galleries from 35 countries and opened earlier this week. In fact, “art is now absolutely a consumer product, and that’s the huge difference. It’s a whole different world”, as Paula Cooper recently noted...
“The future will be like perfume”
Brian Eno altered the course of both pop and experimental music. He is now 70 years old. After leaving Roxy Music in 1973, he went on to become one of the most widely extolled producers of the late 20th century. He’s also become a legendary solo artist in his own right...
“Scent Culturalizing” the end of an industrial era
Germany will shut down its remaining black coal mines by the end of this year. This plan seals the fate of the sector that powered the country’s industrial revolution and post-war economic miracle. Since its early beginnings in the early 1970s this fundamental shift has had widespread implications the former...
Rotten eggs on the road?
A car is a means of transportation. This is obvious. What is less obvious however is that the car shows specific sensory or even olfactory qualities: A car uses smelly petrol or diesel. Driving a car even turns the vehicle into an openair-design machine. At the end of the day...
A sociology of smell
Smell is in the nose of the smeller, but also in the culture of the smeller. – Antony Synnott
Designing products for a new scent culture
The ongoing normalization of ambient scent creates a growing need for diffusers. In most cases diffusers convey some distinct atmosphere: it might be somehow esoteric or rather technical. But there are very few products we have seen so far that seem to resonate with current design culture.
When will there be a professor for olfaction & space? And where?
The University of Applied Sciences & Arts Hildesheim is looking for a new professor for “light & space” for its department of lighting design. Reflecting on the olfactory turn we slightly rewrote the official job opening:
Odorama on car smells at Mediamatic
We have been looking at cars as “olfactory artifact” for quite a while. In fact, the automobile sector is part of a larger interest in the aesthetic and experience economy.
Scents beyond conventional perfumery
There is a long lasting history of dealing with scent in pop music. More recently, Jeans for Jesus, a widely known player in the local pop music scene in Switzerland, made an interesting move:
Smelly theory of private property
The genesis of private property has been a recurring theme in political philosophy since ancient times. In his essays on the five senses the French philosopher Michel Serres proposes a “smelly theory of private property”:
Scent design influences the behaviour of people in crowds at Eindhoven
In addition to light, sound, color and other design dimensions scent is increasingly used to influence human emotions and behavior. Aromatherapy is the discipline that has developed this expertise and knowledge of centuries. Scent Marketing is currently an obvious case. But there are also non-commercial contexts as this story from...
Smithsonian Design Museum: Design Beyond Vision!
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum will present “The Senses: Design Beyond Vision” . In the 1980s the Swiss design thinker Lucius Burckhardt coined: “Design is invisible“.
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