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 typography
Can letters smell? How can typography smell? This school project experiments with smelly materials – in this case onions. Interestingly, there is even an economic layer of meaning: Apparently, onions are expensive in India! Sneha Keshav: “An experimental type done as a school project. Seems apt right now, given the...
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“.
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.
Collector at Art Basel: “You have buried the smell of the oilstick…”
In today’s art world the sensorium is focused on the visual. A closer look however reveals that the sense of smell should no longer be neglected. Here is an ethnographic story from hanging out with art collectors at a recent edition of Art Basel that might be more telling and...
Fragrant patterns in big data !
The web facility Google Trends shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. The horizontal axis of the main graph represents time (starting from 2004), and the vertical is how often selected terms are searched for...
Niche & mainstream consumer culture
It is holiday season. This is the time of the year to feature perfumery on the front page. One would expect a portrait of one of the big brands, a review of celebrities, some sort of general interest.
“I sense therefore I am”
Cogito ergo sum is often regarded as the fundamental element of Western thought that laid the grounds for rationalism, scientific progress and modern dichotomies: I think, therefore I am. The title of this post is less well known: I sense therefore I am.
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?
Creating applications for little trees
Little Trees seem to be ubiquitous these days.
Olfactory demonstration
Tobacco smell is pretty marginalized these days. In many professions smokers are stigmatized. Public health is certainly an argument. Culturally, it is an extreme change compared to previous times. The new smoke-free is normalized.
Scent masquerade!
This iconic narrative from the Judeo-Christian tradition is full of olfactory references that are topical today:
New product scents
The Swiss retailer www.digitec.ch is currently running a thought provoking advertizing campaign. It is basically broadcasting what customers wrote about a product on the retailer’s website. This feedback needn’t be positive. It can be devastating. But it must be interesting. And in fact, the product scent – intended or accidental...
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