The Green Scent of Pink

Installation with flourescent lights, vinyl sheeting, assorted building materials, video projection, soundtrack, perfume. 2005, Fashion District Arts Festival, NY, NY. Sponsored by Chashama.

“We tend to think of our experiences, and especially the visual system, as being bottom-up. But there are many instances where meaning goes back down and influences our lower-order perception of the world. Synesthesia is just one very rare and exceptional example of that.” Mike Dixon, PhD. University of Waterloo

In this project, the pinkness of the room sets up an expectation. The smell of the room, a grass scent that is strongly associated with the color green, belies this expectation. By setting up a disjuncture between the expectations created by our visual sense and what is experienced through our least mediated sense, that of smell, this space temporarily alters the relationship between expectation, intention, and perception.

There is also a portable version version done for the show “Scent is Life” at the Klein Gallery.

Scent provided by Christopher Brosius, CB I Hate Perfume.