Category Archives: Scent Culture Monitor

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The Smells of Summer - The New York Times

“On certain days in July and August, simply walking down a New York City block means being assaulted by smells: garbage, sweat, cigarettes, food carts and the hard-to-classify odors that come blasting on waves of hot air out of subway grates and building vents. How, we wondered, would a true expert describe the scents of summer in the city?”

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Meet the Scent Designer Who Wants to Train–and Delight–Your Nose | AIGA Eye on Design

“If you’ve ever embraced a fragrance just because it reminded you of someone, or dabbed on a perfume reminiscent of a particular vacation, French designer Charline Ronzon-Jaricot knows just how you feel. She is all about making products that explore the uncanny connection between the nose and the heart.”

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Morgan Wong, That’s How I Used to Know I Have In Fact Crossed This River, 2015

Even after reunification, it is not only physical boundaries that still set apart Hong Kong and China; there is also the invisible separation between the two places through scent. Lowu Bridge is one of the most prominent connection-division junctions between Hong Kong and Shenzhen where one can immediately sense the distinction in scent beyond the border controls. 

For this new commission, Wong worked closely with a senior perfumer from International Flavors & Fragrances, a leading company in the design of synthetic scents, to create a scent of the memory of arriving onto the other side of the Lowu Bridge (including the “scent of human oil, sweat, metal, grass, fuel etc.”). 

Apart from scent, the work also includes a sculpture in the form of a pavilion referencing a historical image. The work is currently on show until 6th Sept 2015 at Para/Site Art Space, an internationally acclaimed non-profit art space in Hong Kong. You can read and see more here.

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Popular lower senses at Tate

The new exhibition at Tate Britain bringing in a master chocolatier, a scent expert and an audio specialist wants to change the way people interact with the paintings. Once again the new sensorium is widely covered by the media. It seems as if the cultural domain is deeply longing for this sensorial opening. Continue reading Popular lower senses at Tate →

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Smell-O-Vision Is Back (And Possibly the Future of Storytelling) | The Creators Project

Queens’ Museum of the Moving Image is hosting Future of Storytelling’s new exhibit, Sensory Stories, an amalgam of immersive artworks from creators like Chris Milk, Vincent Morisset, and Google Creative Lab, spanning virtual reality, experimental film, interface design, gaming, and other delightfully wacky ideas (like a children’s book that can shoot delicious scents directly into your face)