human_senses

The same thing about not being able to lie with a touch I believe applies to smell. When you think about it, how big a percentage of all smells are we able to consciously smell? Well, I don't have that answer but by one scientific research humans can distinguish more than 1 trillion scents!
As we obviously are not aware of most of the hundreds of thousands of scents we smell on a daily basis, it is easy to wonder how much are they actually affecting our behaviours and decisions. One of the examples can be pheromones which are olfactory signals released to attract an individual of the opposite sex in order to mate and are highly affecting the way of interacting with a certain individual or a group of people. The other example, a bit different though, is memory.
At the very beginning of FMI, I went to an olfactory workshop in Amsterdam where I created my own perfume. While testing different scents several of them cut me and brought me to the places from my memory that I thought are permanently deleted. But it also works the other way around. While going through my memories of living in Germany there are two things I've noticed: One day after having a rainy morning I went for a walk. As I expected by the weather conditions and place I was in that moment, there was supposed to be a smell of wet asphalt. It wasn't there. I was trying to find it, or smell of the soil but nothing. Following that event, I've realised that I actually don't have many memories from the previous few months or that period of life, and as there are no intense smells there is nothing to create meaningful memory connected to space.

My interest in sense of touch started a few years ago. One afternoon I was sitting and talking with my mother where I asked her to try to tell me something just by touching my arm. To my big surprise, she didn't know how to interact with me. My mother and I are very close, we spend a lot of time together and often cuddle, but when she got a task to actually use touch as a tool, same one we huse hundreds of times during every day automatically, she didn't know how to do it. That made me question how much are we aware of touch or do we even know how to use it.

Trying to answer that question I made an experiment. I've sat on a king-size bed in a room with two more friends, a girl and a guy. Each of us had a blindfold on our heads and were not allowed to peek or to speak. We were supposed to interact with each other just by touching, without any other rules. At the same time, I left the camera on to film the whole experiment. As space was cosy, private and we were friends we started to tickle each other, make jokes and have fun. In my memory there was a lot of space around, the edge of the bed was quite far and they were close to me, we were entering each other's space. It was a lot of fun, you think you know where everything is but it's not, you expect the attack which you don't know where it will come from, but neither do they. You want to explore but you're not sure if you're allowed or not. Experience is intense.
After the experiment, I interviewed my friends to see how did they feel and to hear how did they experience that event. I didn't allow them to watch the video before the interview. Later on, I watched it myself and I was shocked. The video was completely different from what I had in my memory. The bed was quite small compared to us, or what I thought, we were actually quite still, only moving a bit to reach the others and we were a nit shy. From time to time someone would awkwardly enter someone else's personal space trying to be more open and play with the others. I felt uncomfortable watching that video.

Led by that experience I wanted to know how does environment affect behaviour of the participants. I repeated experiment in public spaces of several different cities, countries and exhibitions, trying to see patterns and differences depending on culture spaces and situations.

One thing that would fascinate, and amuse me every time performance is executed is relations between people. As much as I was expecting some kind of behaviour based on their relation (siblings, lovers, friends...) I was always wrong. Close family didn't know how to be close and strangers were sometimes very playful with each other. People I know as open, presented their inner personality and fear in certain situations... It is very interesting for me to observe these 'Meetings', in person, but also afterwards in a video.
Watching these meetings I realised that people can't lie with sense of touch. Touching and receiving touch is very subjective,it is matter of question and answer, a conversation. A very fast subconscious conversation. The way one will interpret certain touch by the way it perceives the other person and respond in way question is perceived by sending a new question. The observer, in the same time, can see how their body language speaks on its own about their feelings during these conversations. Confusion, stiffness, interaction only with nad or including other body parts (arm, leg, shoulder, foot...), turning towards someone or going further, but also pretending to be funny in order to get out of uncomfortable situation! Somehow people become transparent.

Being intrigued by how powerful smell is, I wanted to find out how can I play with it and use it in my art. As I wanted to be as subtle as possible, making an object which is consisting a certain smell inside of it seemed like the best way to approach it. At that time I found out about bioplastics and it seemed like a great way to play with both smell and texture, a full multisensory experience. By exploring the material, trying different recipes, ingredients and properties I was getting more insight on possibilities of the material and how can I apply it in my work. One great unplanned discovery was people's reactions to my fresh made bioplastics. Because of its slimy texture, I had many reactions of disgust and shock people would have when I would throw it as a surprise. To me, this was a beautiful scenario to watch. Automatic response, feeling of discomfort.

While experimenting with bioplastics at the same time I started learning the basics of electronics and creative coding. I was wondering if it would be possible to use bioplastic as a medium for electronics. At the first glance, it did work but only because of water presence inside of it, when it would get fully dry ability to conduct would disappear as well. I started researching more and found out that it is possible to use active carbon as an ingredient inside of bioplastics which would conduct the electricity. I started experimenting and after few trials, I succeeded, I made electroconductive bioplastic. It did conduct electricity even when it was fully dry.

After several months I started having an interest in my electroconductive bioplastics again and eventually came back to it again. This time I approach it conceptually. I got the idea of creating an interactive work that would create a holistic multisensory experience.
I wanted, and still do, to make a big 2-3m high bioplastics in organic shape which would hang from the ceiling. Ideally, they would do their job and conduct electricity therefore I would be able to attach or build in sensors. The room work will be placed in would be as dark as possible, pitch black, with giant black bioplastics hanging, 3-4 of them each between two to three meters high. The size of the room would be able to fit bioplastics in but still small enough to feel a bit claustrophobic, as there wouldn't have any other choice but to touch the objects. It would be very hard to see inside, especially at the beginning, and that sensorial input as a touch from the objects and smell which I would implement is the only thing that is guiding you. I still haven't decided what would sensors exectly do but the idea is that you don't know what to expect when you enter the room and those sensorial triggers would make you act automatically or trigger your self defence mechanism. That is only my hypothesis, how it actually works I don't know yet.