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.
visualizing scent
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?
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”.
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.
“Constructing Meaning: Using Visual and Material Data” was the title of a Professional Development Workshop at the recent 76th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Anaheim.
Scents can be tough to describe in words, which makes them perfect for mood boards.
The multi-sense-installation “Identity Analysis” by German artist Helga Griffiths will be on view from October 3rd till December 6th at Oscar Niemeyer Museum as part of Curitiba Biennial 2015 with the theme “Luz Do Mundo” (World Light) curated by Teixeira Coelho.
The olfactory sense, though often forgotten, is a powerful connector to memory and emotions. Diary of Smells: Shards (Estilhaços) is an on-going multi-sensorial interactive & interdisciplinary project comprised of various stages of smell production, photographs and sound design.
On the 19th of September, Claus Noppeney and Ashraf Osman of SCI conducted a class for the Signaletik CAS program (context building), part of the Signaletik MAS (Environmental Information Design) at the Bern University of the Arts, under the supervision of Jimmy Schmid.
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) show that at least some artistic practices have been related to knowledge practices througout history. Thus, it might even be more a matter of terminology and explicit framing of that is a more recent phenomenon.