Current & Past Events
The Art and Science of Air Tasting
Olfactory phenomena can be highly ephemeral and often refuse to be captured in language. They are psychologically potent yet rarely artiiculated. Vision has enjoyed a dominant status in Western cultures, being linguistically associated with knowledge, truth and reason. In English, we commonly conflate sight with understanding, saying “I see your point,” or “it has become clear to me.” To privilege vision is to give precedence a particular kind of knowledge. Sight fosters a sensation of distance from its object, giving the viewer an impression of separation and mastery. Olfaction, in contrast, necessarily internalizes what is perceived. Anthropologist Constance Classen observes that “…odours cannot be readily contained, they escape and cross boundaries, blending different entities into olfactory wholes.” The practice of air tasting is a collective endeavour that aims to further an exploration of this elusive territory.
Since 2002 the GarudaRoom Institute has been conducting research into the nature of olfaction and building an archive of air tasting data. GarudaRoom members Alex Grunenfelder and Janine Macleod will present an introduction to the practice and then invite visitors to participate in an air tasting session.
- hosts:
- Alex Grunenfelder and Janine MacLeod
- date & time:
- January 23rd, 2008 at 7 pm
- location:
- IDS building, ECIAD,1399 Johnston Street, Vancouver
- contact:
- [info@colourschool.org]
Host Biographies
Alex Grunenfelder currently resides in Vancouver where he has been commissioned by Mayor Sam Sullivan to perform an exhaustive investigation into the smell of ecodensity.
Janine MacLeod is an olfactory gourmand who likes to wander the neighbourhoods of East Vancouver by night, sticking her nose into cedar hedges and rose bushes. She is currently writing a cultural history of water, in which human body odour plays a cameo role.
Event Images & Documentation
Courtesy of Alex Grunenfelder