SmellSCAPES performance by Klara Ravat

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Amsterdam, art, blog, distillation, experience, fragrance, Franziska Josteit, In-Imitable, Klara Ravat, Mediamatic, multi-sensory, Odorama, perfume, perfumery, scent, smell

In line with last weeks post, I went to the Odorama session called Art + Distillation, and one of the speakers was Klara Ravat with an impressive olfactory performance.

2 women were laying on a podium, when an electronic voice told the audience to gather 11 people around each of the laying woman. “Go on your knees. Take the perfume that is standing in front of you and spray/ drop it on the closest skin-point. Smell. Come closer and smell again. What do you feel? What do you smell?”

I observed the audience and found some puzzled faces… quite funny… e.g. on the foot, on the hair etc. Btw: the perfums were distallation works from Klara, whereas one was the Scent of Amsterdam that we distilled last Saturday in the workshop (see previous post).

The intention of Klara was to break that barrier of personal contact and to actually come closer to each other.

Nice message for a sunny start of the week! Yours, Fran

PS: Photos by Stichting Mediamatics

The Scent of Amsterdam – Distillation Workshop

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Amsterdam, art, artworks, blog, distillation, fragrance, Franziska Josteit, In-Imitable, Klara Ravat, Mediamatic, perfume, scent

Past Saturday, olfactory artist and performer Klara Ravat gave a workshop called The Scent of Amsterdam: Distilling Odors of an Urban Landscape. Over the course of 6 hours 12 participants (incl. me) collectively explored the neighbourhood of Mediamatic Biotoop, visited aromatic urban spaces and learned how to distill a scented memory of Amsterdam.

Those were our findings from the Scentwalk…

…cut into little pieces in order to give most scent once distilled. And then we set up the distiller:

Personally i thought the workshop was interesting for the connections plus for the experience. The participants came from multiple disciplines, and Klara Ravat creates media and odour artworks, installations and experimental films, which is also great to listen to!

Yours, Fran

Inhaling history and smelling the future

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Amsterdam, aroma, blog, Caro Verbeek, fragrance, Franziska Josteit, history, In-Imitable, Mediamatic, Odorama, perfume, PhD, Royal Academy of Arts, scent, smell, TED

Caro Verbeek is an art and smell historian, curator and author with a focus on modern, olfactory and tactile art. She is currently a PhD candidate at VU University with the project ‘In Search of Scents Lost – Reconstructing the Aromatic Heritage of the Avant-garde’. She teaches the course ‘The Other Senses’ at the Royal Academy of Arts (The Hague) and moderates the monthly ‘Odorama’-platform at Mediamatic Amsterdam.

Here is her TED talk about historical and futuristic smelling:

A picture says a thousand words, but maybe a smell holds a thousand images… Let’s stay curious! Yours, Fran

Odorama and other smelly stories !?!

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Amsterdam, art, blog, Caro Verbeek, fragrance, Franziska Josteit, In-Imitable, Marit Mihklepp, Mediamatic, Odorama, olfactory, perfume, Peter De Cupere, scent

Last week i attended a smelly evening organized by Mediamatic Amsterdam. Odorama is a new program by Mediamatic in collaboration with Caro Verbeek, an art historian who is especially interested in the sense of smell. Odorama concerns everything that reaches and effects the nose. The program will explore olfactory art and design that is experimental and challenging, sometimes known and sometimes unknown.

Speakers of that evening: Peter de Cupere, Caro Verbeek, Marit Mihklepp

A very inspirational concept with interesting people in a cool atmosphere!

Next event to come (and join)! Yours, Fran