Cloud Conjure, et al.
2026
An experimental drought perfume and room spray
5 ML, $55
Somewhere, trees are trying to make their own rain. This is what it smells like. Cloud Conjure, et al. is an ephemeral atmospheric sculpture you can only smell and not see, based on the chemistry of distressed plants. The top notes, alpha- and beta-pinene, are what trees emit under repeated drought: a chemical bid to seed the clouds they need. Funky and verdant notes evoking plants in the Brassica family layer underneath, as these plants smell more loudly as temperatures rise. Base notes of birch tar, Texas cedarwood, and sulfur represent the lingering char and sour atmosphere after a wildfire, as drought conditions produce longer and more frequent fire seasons.
Spray generously in your own atmosphere, or on yourself, to sense changes to distant landscapes viscerally. Invite a corporeal experience of shifting ecologies.
This experimental scent is made from notes evoking three different phenomena related to prolonged drought, higher average temperatures, and desertification:
⇝ the perfume’s top notes are alpha-pinene and beta-pinene, which represent a smellscape of a forest under stress from repeated drought. It is a kind of chemical distress signal that may function as an attempt to seed cloud formation, as the trees labor to produce the very moisture they lack. Researchers1 at University of Arizona’s Biosphere2 earth system science facility subjected their analog rainforest to repeated, controlled drought, and found that trees released more monoterpenes, specifically α-pinene and β-pinene. The study authors believe that this phenomenon may relate to the compounds’ role in facilitating cloud formation. In this perfume, they become an olfactory register of that reaching: a forest trying to conjure its own rain.
⇝ the middle notes of verdant mustard greens and cabbage oil are realted to research2 demonstrating heightened volatile output of plants in the brassicaceae family in hotter conditions. As average temperatures rise, increased VOCs are released into the atmosphere due to mechanisms based on plant defense and stress responses. Some of these VOCs translate to increased smell. Plants smelling more strongly in higher average temperautres, thus, may smell more strongly in a warmer future.
⇝ the smokey base note represents the sour atmosphere lingering after a wildfire, as fire seasons become longer and more frequent3 as drought compounds onto itself.
Smell is an embodied form of listening to distant landscapes as they change—a visceral kind of “knowing” based on the corporeal experience of the material residues of shifting ecologies.
Research behind this artwork comes from personal communications with Dr. Laura Meredith at Arizona State University and Dr. Jarmo Holopainen in the Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, in addition to sources below.
1. 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. (Read more about their work here.)
2. Adedayo O. Mofikoya, et al., “Foliar Behaviour of Biogenic Semi-Volatiles: Potential Applications in Sustainable Pest Management,” Arthropod-Plant Interactions 13, no. 2 (2019)
JS Yuan, et al., “Smelling Global Climate Change: Mitigation of Function for Plant Volatile Organic Compounds.,” Trends Ecol Evol 24, no. 6 (2009).
3. Richardson, D., Black, A.S., Irving, D. et al., “Global Increase in Wildfire Potential from Compound Fire Weather and Drought.” npj Climate and Atmospheric Science volume 5, 23 (2022).