A.M. Salad>>Amish Macaroni Salad>>>Keith Childress

Moldy tomato sauce recovered from the depths of my refrigerator:


I'm sure you've encountered the sensory experience of smelling a familiar smell that triggers a memory of a moment in time or a feeling once felt. Maybe its that combination of cigarette smoke hidden amongst potpourri and aerosols, and blended with the ever strengthening aroma of traditional Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine that was present at grandma and grandpa's house when you were a child. You never encounter this exact fragrant combination anymore, but its almost like you can remember the smell though you haven't really smelled it in many years. The smell is in your head without first going through your nostrils. And then there is the inverse, like smelling the familiar smell of freshly fired firecrackers, and remembering how people of small town Arkansas used to convene in the middle of the road and make their own drunken firecracker show for the neighborhood kids. And going home with your cloths completely infused with the smell of gunpowder, extending the feel of the holiday well through the afternoon of July 5Th until the cloths were washed. The nose triggering the brain to think. And not just to think about the smell, but more so a feeling or memory tied to that smell. Maybe its a good odor that recalls a bad memory or vice versa. It happens with our other senses, like when you hear a terrible song over the speakers at the grocery store, and though it completely sucks shit, it still brings a smile to your face as you recall a neighborhood girl from your youth who put it on a mix tape for you and you used to fast forward through it every time while shaking your head, or that time you saw some funny old guy do karaoke to the song while drunk off his ass at Red Lobster.

But unlike the other senses, we can't accurately document an odor so that it can be smelled again... especially if this is a unique combination of various odors. We can take a photograph or paint a picture of a moment or subject... we can record a song, soundscape, or act of nature... we can write a poem or novel. But an odor is of the moment, and then gone... unless you are some fancy scientist who could possibly take some molecular samples of the odor causing agents. Maybe we can describe an odor from the past by comparing it to common place odors, but how accurate is this? And even within common smells, are they all the same? Does every apple pie really smell the same? When two different artists paint a painting of the same subject matter, say a red tailed hawk, does each painting look exactly the same? Does each real red tailed hawk look exactly the same? Maybe we smell something that is similar enough to the odor of old, enough so for it to spark a thought or memory. But how similar are these odors really? As similar as looking at your bearded landlord, and then remembering that bearded Philosopher you once saw speaking on the ethics of cloning humans for medical purposes? What if you could somehow document odors in the way we record music or take a picture, so that the memory, thought, or feeling would come to the brain via stimulus to the olfactory senses? You could "smell the blues" instead of listening to it. Our cat has oral cancer, and will probably be dead soon. I tend to prefer the company of animals more than the company of humans, so needless to say, the whole thing saddens me. But tied in with the whole unfortunate situation is the fucking horrible stench that fumes from her tumorous bottom jaw. A smell though disgusting, is still quite unique and unlike anything else my nose has had been unfortunate enough to come in contact with. As I was working on some art bullshit the other night, I started smelling the foul stench of the cat's inflicted mouth, and my mood suddenly began to change eventhough the cat wasn't even visible as she napped under the couch. If there was a way to document this horrible foul odor, I'm certain I could smell it years from now and be saddened by what will turn out to be the final stages of my feline comrade's life.

What if you could document the smell of that perfect spring day, in the middle of the forest in rural Virgina when that unique mixture of pollen is in the air. That smell could be tucked away in a time capsule, saved for those to experience in the distant or not too distant future when forests on the east coast could be virtually gone. And what would this do to our abilities to learn or to remember or retain information, if we could combine images, textures, sounds, and smells of a moment in time all at once? Could this familiar sensory package of sight, sound, touch, smell, and even taste help people with Alzheimer's Disease recall lost memory? Just some thoughts...

Will we ever be able to enhance our sense of smell such as the way we enhance our sense of sight with binoculars or a microscope; or as we do with our sense of hearing by amplification devices? Is the creation of abstract smells possible? We have abstract visual art, and 3 dimensional art can involve abstracting our sense of touch via textures. And we can create abstract music. Are some perfumes, colognes, incense, etc. abstract odors? What about an abstract bad odor? What about a confused assault of odors to the senses to bring about a feeling of fear, confusion, or paranoia? Or an art project combining pleasant images with horrible smells? Kinda like one of those beautiful flowers that when in full bloom, smells like rotting flesh. I need to explore this further in an art project...

Ever heard of Smell-O-Vision, or any of the other attempts at combining odors with the visual and aural experience of the movie theater? Odors in conjunction with film actually predates the use of sound in films. John Waters toyed with smells in cinema in the mid 80s, but not much else has been attempted in recent times, that I know of.

According to Wikipedia:

"Smell-O-Vision was a system that released odors during the projection of a film so that the viewer could "smell" what was happening in the movie. The technique was created by Hans Laube and made its only appearance in the 1960 film Scent of Mystery, produced by Mike Todd, Jr., son of film producer Mike Todd. The process injected 30 different smells into a movie theater's seats when triggered by the film's soundtrack. The use of scents in conjunction with film dates back to 1916, before the introduction of sound. In this first instance, the Family Theatre in Forest City, Pennsylvania, placed a wad of cotton wool that had been soaked in rose oil in front of an electric fan during a newsreel about the Rose Bowl Game. In 1929, during the showing of The Broadway Melody, a New York City theater sprayed perfume from the ceiling. Further attempts with releasing scents timed to key points in a film happened at a Detroit, Michigan theater with The Sea Hawk and Boom Town. The 1959 film, Behind the Great Wall, used a process called Aroma-Rama to send scents through the air-conditioning system of a theater."

"However, these early attempts were made by theater owners, and not part of the films themselves, and thus were seen as an offense to film aesthetics, as the audience could be distracted by the scents instead of focusing on what the film director intended. Furthermore, because of the size of the theaters, large amounts of perfume had to be released in order to reach all members of the audience. This caused another problem: The human nose has a difficult time transitioning between smells until the molecules that triggered one smell are completely cleared from the nose, and with that volume of perfume, the scents would mix together, becoming muddled."

"Laube's technique, which he dubbed "Scentovision", was to connect pipes to individual seats in theaters, so that the timing and amount could be carefully controlled by the projectionist using a control board. He introduced this system in the 1939 New York World's Fair. The New York Times reported in 1943 that Scentovision "is said to have produced odors as quickly and easily as the soundtrack of a film produces sound."'



I guess I haven't really touched on taste as it relates to documentation. The taste of a particular food item can certainly spark a thought or memory. And taste of the moment, as with odors, can not really be documented so to stimulate the senses directly in the future, without attempting to replicate the source of the taste by use of a recipe or cooking technique. And when I mean "stimulating the senses directly in the future", I mean directly through the taste buds, not merely a written description of the taste. And are there abstract tastes? Or just complex combinations? Can you design something to be tasted, that is unique in itself, and not intended to be eaten... or not intended to taste good or bad? Without veering into synesthesia, could something taste scary or depressing? Hmmm, I think I've accidentally cooked a few meals like that before...

Of course the obvious obstacle for documentation of both smell and taste lies in the fact that we are speaking in molecular terms, as in when you smell something you are coming in direct contact with molecules in the air which have entered the nose. So sampling an odor would have to involve talking a physical sample of the molecules involved in the odor, or combination of odors. But it just makes me ponder the future in a sorta dorky sci-fi way... like consumer products sold at K-Mart for capturing a sample of the odor emitting molecules in a room, and then enhancing them greatly the way you would amply a sound. Who cares right? Big deal, its just an odor... what could be so important about an odor? Well, its a product of our senses, and we've found with the visual arts and music, a lot can be communicated and stimulated through these forms... often in a much more uniquely powerful way than that of words. SNIFFF, snnnniiifffff... yeah man, that smell says it all...