“We thought it necessary to begin with the sense of smell, because of all the senses it is the one which appears to contribute least to the knowledge of the human mind.” – Etienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714-1780)
Seasonal Greetings!
“B. O.” is the indispensable Other of the perfume and fragrance industry, despised and feared at the same time; to be eradicated, yet its raison d’etre. – Hans Rindisbacher
Olfactory language in British fiction
Scent has so far remained largely sidelined into the context of the eighteenth-century novel. Reading Smell by Emily Friedman and published in 2016 provides models for how to incorporate olfactory knowledge into new readings of the literary form central to our understanding of the eighteenth century and modernity in general: the...
Scent Verse: Muse Booze
Scent Verse is a inspiring poetry project on Basenotes curated by writer Eddie Bulliqi.
“The Smell of Loss” – NY Times
The English author and critic Julie Myerson explores in her fictional piece the smell of a loss. It is amazing how many different associations and aspects are covered in this short piece in the New York Times.
Turn scent into a stimulus for critical reflection!
Umberto Eco, the Italian cultural theorist and novelist who became the author of best-selling novels, notably the blockbuster medieval mystery “The Name of the Rose,” died last week in Milan. Eco was a contributor to our thinking on scent culture.
Volatile!: A Poetry and Scent Exhibition
What if every poem had its own fragrance, beyond the literal smell of the materiality of the page? What if one could smell a poet’s imaginative, conceptual, intellectual world, the text unfurling into an aroma? In Volatile!, curator and design historian Debra Riley Parr presents a number of objects and...
100 Contemporary Poems about Perfume
The Book of Scented Things collects poems reflecting the experience of selected vials of perfume.
ODE: Scent inspired stories!
Artistic research is an increasingly popular term to conceptualize research activities in the world of art & design universities. The concept highlights the epistemic aspects of artistic practices. Accordingly, certain artistic practices are driven by questions and aim at generating knowledge. Iconic cases from art & design history (e.g. Bauhaus)...
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