My artistic research project began with the exploration of translating specific scents into sound using infrared spectroscopy. IR spectroscopy is a scientific method applied to analyse the vibrational patterns of odorants. The data that was derived through this method has been mathematically translated into audible frequencies. 

The topic that is central to my research, however, is not about the creation of a sound in relation to a scent that is representative but about revealing through the practice of translation what is lost, distorted, or transformed.  What emerges instead is the gap between objective data and phenomenological experience. In doing so, it reveals how various media are intersecting: the body, the spectrometer and the frequency generator. It is precisely in the moment when distortion and friction occur that the medium reveals itself. The raw scientific translation becomes a membrane between data and body. This membrane creates tension as media continuously mediate one another in a feedback loop. The medium is the message (Joseph Vogl); the medium is leading – the difference remains inaudible.

​

Lateral currents, graduation exhibition of the Artistic Research Master’s of UvA, Loods 6, Amsterdam

 

MATERIALS: Aluminum, Fragrance, Paint, Rubber, Glass, RVS, MDF

​

Special thanks to my collaborators: composer Johan Kooi and chemist Denise Vonck.

​

Photos: Matija Stojanovic

​

​