Platial | Who and What's Nearby
Platial | Who and What's Nearby
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Storefront Tour, Location 3
To whet the olfactory epithelium, we must perform the Smelling Committee Training Procedure. Release your vision’s grip on your attention, enabling you to cancel out undesired sensory information. Focus solely on what is flowing through your nostrils. This expedition is not for the timid at heart— there are odors offensive at every turn and scents that can be a struggle to sniff out. We will not be shying away from any of the nitty gritty.
Gently mingle with the bodies in the street. Make sure you are always within the crowd, touching elbows and toes with others. Broadway is an excellent place to trace intimate, fleeting encounters with human and commercial odors. Draw your attention to your nose, deliberately—but not forcefully—take in the air around you. An effective way to increase the potency of an odor is to pinch your nose for a while and then, suddenly open your nostrils wide, allowing the shock of no smell to sudden bombardment of smell strengthen the sensation.
Each one of us is born with a unique genetic scent, which we modify with perfumes, diet and our surrounding environs. Most of what comprises our “body odor” is secreted from our apocrine glands, located at the base of pubic hairs in the armpits, crotch, anus, chest and face, and mix with whatever bacteria and dirt we have hanging out there.
While we are often very familiar with the scent of our loved ones, it is only those infrequent occasions on a crowded subway car or cramming into an elevator that we get close enough to detect the odor of most strangers. To do so can be an intimate and unsettling experience—even if the stranger doesn’t smell bad.
Odor artist Sissel Tolaas, who works for the Berlin outpost of the perfume giant International Flavors and Fragrances, recently exhibited at M.I.T. a series of “rub and sniff” wall paints embedded with the unique body sweats of several men and animals. Tolaas conducts her own social experiments with the odors, applying a leathery, oniony man sweat to her own body on outings to fancy parties. The result was the utter confusion and disturbance of those around her.
Smell the microcosms on these other bodies around you. Can you identify brands of shampoo? Clothing fibers? The ingredients of a restricted diet on someone’s skin?
Storefront Tour, Location 3
To whet the olfactory epithelium, we must perform the Smelling Committee Training Procedure. Release your vision’s grip on your attention, enabling you to cancel out undesired sensory information. Focus solely on what is flowing through your nostrils. This expedition is not for the timid at heart— there are odors offensive at every turn and scents that can be a struggle to sniff out. We will not be shying away from any of the nitty gritty.
Gently mingle with the bodies in the street. Make sure you are always within the crowd, touching elbows and toes with others. Broadway is an excellent place to trace intimate, fleeting encounters with human and commercial odors. Draw your attention to your nose, deliberately—but not forcefully—take in the air around you. An effective way to increase the potency of an odor is to pinch your nose for a while and then, suddenly open your nostrils wide, allowing the shock of no smell to sudden bombardment of smell strengthen the sensation.
Each one of us is born with a unique genetic scent, which we modify with perfumes, diet and our surrounding environs. Most of what comprises our “body odor” is secreted from our apocrine glands, located at the base of pubic hairs in the armpits, crotch, anus, chest and face, and mix with whatever bacteria and dirt we have hanging out there.
While we are often very familiar with the scent of our loved ones, it is only those infrequent occasions on a crowded subway car or cramming into an elevator that we get close enough to detect the odor of most strangers. To do so can be an intimate and unsettling experience—even if the stranger doesn’t smell bad.
Odor artist Sissel Tolaas, who works for the Berlin outpost of the perfume giant International Flavors and Fragrances, recently exhibited at M.I.T. a series of “rub and sniff” wall paints embedded with the unique body sweats of several men and animals. Tolaas conducts her own social experiments with the odors, applying a leathery, oniony man sweat to her own body on outings to fancy parties. The result was the utter confusion and disturbance of those around her.
Smell the microcosms on these other bodies around you. Can you identify brands of shampoo? Clothing fibers? The ingredients of a restricted diet on someone’s skin?
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