Drought Atmosphere

2023
Plexiglass, perfume of alpha-pinene, beta-pinene, and limonene

Exhibited at:
Uncommon Senses, Center for Sensory Studies, Montreal, CA, 2022
b-priori, Collar Works, Troy, NY 2022

This piece is based on research done by environmental scientists at the University of Arizona’s Biosphere2 Earth System Science research facility. Biosphere’s analog rainforest was subjected to stress from drought, and researchers found that the trees produced more volatile chemicals associated with increased smell (alpha-pinene and beta-pinene),. These scents are reproduced in this aromatorium. The study authors suggested this may be due to the chemicals ability to help with cloud formation.

The research behind this artwork comes from conversations with Laura Meredith at Arizona State University, and the authors of: Byron, J, J Kreuzwieser, G Purser, J van Haren, SN Ladd, LK Meredith, C Werner and J Williams. “Chiral Monoterpenes Reveal Forest Emission Mechanisms and Drought Responses.” Nature 609, no. 7926 (2022 Sep): 307–12. Diagrams are credit Byron et al. Read more about their work here.

This work engages the sensory body, instead of communicating environmental information at a remove through data. It asks participatnes to sense changes happening to the environment as a result of climate change, resisting ocular-centric representations at a distant “God’s eye view.” Olfactory artifacts interrupt the alienation of planetary-wide discourse and invite subjective, corporeal experiences of change to shifting ecological landscapes.

This olfactory artifact is part of my ongoing “anarchive” of transcorporeal Anthropocene phenomena.