ARTICLES
SMELL OF MEMORY
Have you ever noticed that random smells on the street make you turn around and go back to any situation of your past? The smell of vanilla makes numerous Western people go back to the time of their childhood, while Asian people start to feel calm when a rose scent is hovering in the room. Actually, it’s not coming from special genes, but is related to them.
For example, the same odor can provoke different reactions in different people. This phenomenon shows us how neurons and nose receptors are working together differently in the sense of another person. However, one smell could work differently even with one person.
Why is this happening? In terms of biology, we have receptors in the upper part of the nose. They react to an odor and give an impulse to a specific pattern in our brain. As these receptors can respond differently to smells, we could describe it in a wider way. This is connected with the emotional vision of situations and specific genes that make you react or not to certain molecules. That part of the brain which manages all the odors is also placed near our memory section, so we react to them like a pattern of the person’s behaviour.
Since ancient times our ancestors used this skill to easily navigate and recognise harmless, edible objects. Their memory of pleasant things or bad experiences stayed in their minds from very childhood times until the end. Modern people haven’t lost this ability, so we use it every day widely. This ancient sense of danger or safeness follows us everywhere at any time.
Current art and fashion ideas put this fact as their muse and made a masterpiece for our nose. Artists started to make whole stories and landscapes from aromas.
Installations like «The Odoratorium» by Sissel Tolaas give us an example of how a spot like a city provokes us to different emotions related to a familiar, or not, place only by using its smell. Emotions can be complicated or even confusing.
At the installation «The Smell of War» a number of videos were shown, considering an absolutely peaceful world. While looking at the screen, the audience felt a disgusting and uncomfortable smell of war. That made the picture of how cruel war is even more vibrant in the viewer’s minds. Each of the odors made them see the real picture with their nose, not their eyes.
The «Parfum River» for the YSL museum by Asymptote Architecture gave a fully shrouding scene for every odor there. In contrast with the previous example, this time visitors admired fashion design in a dark room accompanied by pleasant images and light, noticeable perfume. This made people go far more in their minds, where any of the scents reminded them of special occasions.
There are a lot of aspects of our smelling systems that make us feel something ,unique, make us go back to times where we experienced the hardest emotions.
For example, the same odor can provoke different reactions in different people. This phenomenon shows us how neurons and nose receptors are working together differently in the sense of another person. However, one smell could work differently even with one person.
Why is this happening? In terms of biology, we have receptors in the upper part of the nose. They react to an odor and give an impulse to a specific pattern in our brain. As these receptors can respond differently to smells, we could describe it in a wider way. This is connected with the emotional vision of situations and specific genes that make you react or not to certain molecules. That part of the brain which manages all the odors is also placed near our memory section, so we react to them like a pattern of the person’s behaviour.
Since ancient times our ancestors used this skill to easily navigate and recognise harmless, edible objects. Their memory of pleasant things or bad experiences stayed in their minds from very childhood times until the end. Modern people haven’t lost this ability, so we use it every day widely. This ancient sense of danger or safeness follows us everywhere at any time.
Current art and fashion ideas put this fact as their muse and made a masterpiece for our nose. Artists started to make whole stories and landscapes from aromas.
Installations like «The Odoratorium» by Sissel Tolaas give us an example of how a spot like a city provokes us to different emotions related to a familiar, or not, place only by using its smell. Emotions can be complicated or even confusing.
At the installation «The Smell of War» a number of videos were shown, considering an absolutely peaceful world. While looking at the screen, the audience felt a disgusting and uncomfortable smell of war. That made the picture of how cruel war is even more vibrant in the viewer’s minds. Each of the odors made them see the real picture with their nose, not their eyes.
The «Parfum River» for the YSL museum by Asymptote Architecture gave a fully shrouding scene for every odor there. In contrast with the previous example, this time visitors admired fashion design in a dark room accompanied by pleasant images and light, noticeable perfume. This made people go far more in their minds, where any of the scents reminded them of special occasions.
There are a lot of aspects of our smelling systems that make us feel something ,unique, make us go back to times where we experienced the hardest emotions.
