The digital realm promises to give us just about anything we want…knowledge, social interaction / friendship, love / online dating, etc. But, are there pure truths that can only exist within an analog world? The Smells Archive piece deals with scents in a digital mode. It poses an argument that we can evoke scents without smelling something at all since our memory will fill in the gap if we're triggered with a visual clue.
The digital Smells Archive is a work in progress, consisting of 45 collected smells at the moment. Each container has been “pervaded” with a scent and labeled with the memory that it inspired. Placing the mouse over the image of the container, the spectator can see the source of the smell. The archive is accompanied by real-time tweets that contain “smells like” or “smelled like” descriptions. The piece’s intent is to trigger spectator’s “memory-olfactory” sense and generate thought about sensory experiences in the digital realm.
Moreover, the physical part of the archive is made putting objects into containers for a few days until the smell impregnates the container. Then the object is removed and the container kept. That is the principle of the dry martini cocktail and many truffle-scented dishes. Truffle risotto, for example, doesn’t have truffle, the rice is putted in contact with a truffle for a few days and the aroma sticks to the rice.
About the artist:Marianna De Nadal is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker interested in making visible the invisible. She holds a BFA from the University of Barcelona and an MFA in cinema directing from Ramon Llull University (Spain). After having visited the US in 2008 for a granted exchange program at the Massachusetts Boston College of Art and Design she started her artistic practice in this country and is currently enrolled in the Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice (DIAP) program at CUNY. Among her most relevant works are the documentary Where does the music go when it stops playing?, 2013” and the video-piece Concerto in No Minor, 2009”.
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