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 aromatorium presents a future smellscape of a forest in distress from repeated drought. In a gallery setting, guests are invited to raise their head into the cube to experience the olfactory artifact. Based on research done by environmental scientists at the University of Arizona’s Biosphere2 , forests subjected to stress from drought produce more volatile chemicals associated with increased smell (alpha-pinene, beta-pinene and, to a lesser extent, limonene), which are reproduced in this artifact. The study authors suggested this may be due to the chemicals ability to help with cloud formation.

The research behind this work comes from conversations with Laura Meredith at Arizona State University, and the authors of: Horton, B.P. et al. (2020) Estimating Global Mean Sea-Level Rise and Its Uncertainties By 2100 and 2300 From an Expert Survey. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, 3(1), pp. 18. Diagrams are credit Horton et al.

This work engages bodies 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 ecological landscape assemblages.

This Olfactory artifact is part of my ongoing "anarchive" project for the postnatural.