I am wondering how could i change the meaning of an image by including odour.
During the 1st block i was researching using different approaches: anthropological, philosophical and scientific to widen the ground of my research and get more aknowledgement about the role and the fonction of the smell.
I was focusing more in anthropological know-how of sensory, more precisely how the smell is related, directly or not, to certain trade (ref: Mémoires et expérience olfactives, anthropologie d’un savoir-faire sensoriel. Joël Candau)Putting my daily self-experience with smell on the side i wanted to know how nostrils can play a prior role in the professions that are directly linked or not with scent.For example where the perfumer will explore the whole olfactive space, the oenologist will interpretate the odour in order to get informations about the evolution of the wine and the fireman will select all smells that, in a short time, can be integrated in the global apprehension that he can have of a disaster.This knowledge and know-how are acquired most of the time without thinking about it, implicitly, just by doing daily cognitives tasks according to the job. The distinction between two poles of dealing with smells in professions emerge: on one part working with smells (perfumer, oenologist…) and on the other interpretate it (nurse, fireman…) In the second case the interactions created by sharing informations will help to define words and build a common vocabulary around this sense. The smell has the reputation to be discreditate also because we don’t have enough words, distinctions, language subtilities to share our perception without being too subjective or not understood.
Sharing smells, sensations would be a way to materialize molecules.
There is always more to smell than what comes in the nose, this “more” can be either associated to idiosyncratic reaction and social and cultural determinations.Working on the categorization of smells, sociological aspect of smells and also create a dictionnary that has to do with “smell in performance” are the points that i would like to develop in the next blocks…
In the video bellow i’ve edited a meeting with Corinne Caufriez that is assisting the director of groupe GENES. I’ve been doing olfactive tests that have been done last year during “ la fête de l’environnement” in Brussels and got to know more about the activities of this ASBL giving their olfactive abilities to help citizen….The second part of the video is the beginning of an experiment about the construction and the categorization of smell. I went on the street and i’ve asked to people 2 questions, giving them the video camera, living them free to focus and frame smells…