RE/SENSE: The Smell of Place
BURGOYNE & TURNER 2010
Re-Sense at MiC, Auckland , NZ in 2010
RE/SENSE: The Smell of Place—BURGOYNE & TURNER 2010
The work examines synthetic synaesthesia (the smell of green) and anaesthesia of place ( feeling numb to its history and changes).
This interactive exhibit utilizes video, smell, sound, electronics and digital media in a collaborative process between two cultures and two communities, New Zealand and Canada.
ReSense utilizes a selection of synthetic fragrances relating synaesthetically to the colours of green. We have utilized a sensor that is sensitive to variations in the tone and intensity within the colour palette of greens found in natural environments in both New Zealand and Canada to create a responsive frequency generator creating sounds corresponding to the differing greens. The result is an audio-visual sketch of the colour green. With the participation of international commercial perfumer, Louise Crouch, NZ, we used 20 of her commercial perfume fragrances ( for example cleaners, dishwasher powders, toilet paper, engine oil, paints, fabrics, skin products etc etc), which Louise chose to synaesthetically match the visual green sequences. These fragrance beads were agitated by the sound frequencies that were responding to the light frequencies of the greens, and produced corresponding smells.
Our collaboration began in New Plymouth at SCANZ 2005 where we discovered a mutual interest in integrating cross-sensory experience into artwork. Our initial inquiry centred around whether we could consider the landscape as a map of smell and sound?
We began with Raewyn’s project initially called Green. Raewyn collected photographs of different greens in New Plymouth: plants, ground and objects. The earth's green cloak is analogous to our skin covering subterranean layers of feeling. This digital photo collection was used to create a computerized colour palette, which was then made into a quick time video.
Diana utilized a sensor that is sensitive to variations in the tone and intensity within the colour palette to create a responsive frequency generator. She attached her circuit sensor to the computer screen while it displayed the quick time video thereby creating sounds corresponding to the differing greens. The result is an audio/visual sketch of the colour green.
In 2009, we met together again this time in Banff as part of Diana’s Fleck Fellowship . We again photographed greens in the environment –this time in Banff National Park and inner city Vancouver. We used this material to make a second video of Canadian greens with the idea of projecting both videos on opposite walls, each with its own sensor and audio frequency generator.
We added smell to the installation as a cross-sensory indicator of information about physical states and environment. Both animated pallets were then shown to the commercial perfumer, Louise Crouch. Louise uses a sophisticated system of number-letter combinations to support her memory of 200-300 perfumery materials. Louise provided us with 20 commercial fragrances-- synthetic green nature fragrances-- which synaesthetically matched the two visual green sequences.
We exhibited both FLAP and Re-Sense at MiC, Auckland , NZ in 2010, and later ReSense at the NZ Academy of Arts, Wellington, NZ, 2012. Both works are explorations of the olfactory sense and its place in our landscapes and in our everyday lives. These works grew out of a notion that, like the bandwidths of light and sound that are beyond unaided human perception, many olfactory signals presented to our senses remain mainly beyond comprehension.
Documentation of ReSense and FLAP at MiC by Christoph Kirchner
FLAP features fifty jars with authentic human odours inside (courtesy of socks that have been well worn by New Zealanders and Canadians). With flapping lids, the jars create a variable rhythm while sporadically releasing the scents of New Zealanders and Canadians.
ReSense Diana Burgoyne and Raewyn Turner Installation at The NZ Academy of Fine Arts Wellington, New Zealand 2012. Review http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/news/columns/mark-amery-visual-arts/2011/mar/82936-new-noises-from-the-academy
ReSense at the Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington 2012. Thanks to Brian Harris for his help with the installation.
Re/sense was Co-Produced with the Banff New Media Institute 2009
Exhibited and presented in MuVi2 2009 and Third Congress 2009 Synaesthesia: Science & Art, Granada, Spain;
Interactive Futures : Stereo, Vancouver 2009
MiC Moving Image Centre Auckland, NZ 2010
New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, Then, Now, When. NZAFA summer art show, Wellington, 2012
Review: When Art, Smell and Technology Collide Mark Webster
Sweatshirt
Diana Burgoyne and Raewyn Turner. 2011
Sweatshirt is a work in progress which we developed during Diana’s residency at Co-Lab NZ in 2010 when we were developing and preparing both ReSense and FLAP for exhibition at MiC Moving Image Centre, Auckland . We performed the work at AUT Auckland Institute of Technology..
Sweatshirt questions the effect of fine perfumes made for love and happiness on human behaviour, and the cyphers of perfumes created for love since 2001.
We created a veil of fragrance that is emitted via electronic circuitry and that will be sequentially added to over the course of a choregraphed walk through the space.
Each of the perfumes are added sequentially to a specially created fragrance- emitting costume. The dancer/performer becomes a transport for the 35 categorised perfumes.
The whole of nature is communicating, exchanging information with smell and chemical compounds, constituting an ocean of olfactory information. Could we better understand our times if we could navigate the past 8 years by smell?
Sweatshirt Diana Burgoyne and raewyn Turner. 2010
Bios
Diana Burgoyne refers to herself as an electronic folk artist. Her performances and installations have been exhibited in Montreal, Toronto, New York, France, Holland, and Estonia. She was commissioned by Telus Science World to collaborate on a permanent piece which is exhibited as part of Contraption Corner. She has been the artist in residence at the Surrey Art Gallery’s Tech Lab, participated in SCANZ in New Zealand and has just finished working on a work entitled “Audio Quilt” as artist in residence at the Roundhouse Community Centre. “Audio Quilt” is an interactive installation that reflects the sounds and voices of the Roundhouse community by utilizing one hundred audio chips, each recording 10 seconds of sound. She was awarded the 2009 Fleck Fellowship by the Banff Centre for the Arts and has taught a class entitled “Creative Electronics” at Emily Carr University of Art and Design since 1998. www.ecuad.ca/~dburg/main.htm
Raewyn Turner is an interdisciplinary artist investigating cross-sensory perception and the uncharted territories of the senses. Her multi-sensory works have been shown in exhibitions and performances, including MOCA LA, Spain, Prague, Argentina, Georges Pompidou Center, and Te Papa NZ and published in ‘Art of the Biotech Era’, International Congress Synaesthesia, Art and Science 2009, 2007, Generative Art 2006, 2004, Performance Research ‘On Smell’. She has an extensive background in working with coloured light and contemporary music with orchestras, experimental music, dance, and theatre, beginning in 1975 with Split Enz (for eight years) on international tours working in Britain, USA, Canada, and Europe, working in major performance theatres, arenas and stadiums. Her writing has been published in 'Art of the Biotech Era', International Congress Synaesthesia, Art and Science 2009, 2007, Generative Art 2006, 2004, and Performance Research 2003 'On Smell'.She is currently working on PLUME in collaboration with molecular biologist Richard Newcombe, exploring olfactory sensing.