Diary Interface Fiction

Epicurean Heterotopia

1st day

11am: setting up.

2nd day

4am: 1st painting, yellow.

Overestimation of the time needed to paint the whole room.

1.30pm: We placed a bowl in front of the board and broke 12 eggs in it and left the shells. We expected that the eggs would free their smell progressively until the next day but we surestimate the strenght of the molecules to persist in the room and the gallery or even liberate an odour to be perceived. The odour  would have been a bitter smell, the choice of this element was to reinforce the colour of the room but to give at the same time a second layer, a new information ,in the relation with the space by smelling a reek.

3rd day

4 am: 2nd painting, blue.

The practice as religion. The action is framed on time and space and give a structure that we follow without letting us taken by the routine. Even if we are repeating the same procedure the fact that each action is counted in time allow us to practice the score observing the differences from the day before and let us live the present time. The freezing as mirror gives back the past action, the present time and as a minute is long for the brain to keep focused on one thought, it then make us look to the future, to the next action.

The surprise: As Gabriel took the board off the room to start painting he discovered Manne crouched behind the board with crazy eyes,a wig and a knife in his hand. The joke made us briefly laugh but we didn’t let it interfere as we were really focused and sensitive to the incorporation of the score.

1.30pm: As the first element didn’t smell and was, because of this lack of odour, just decorative we react in opposition by substituting the eggs by a scented non visible element, a perfume that we could characterized as a perverse smell. We choose “Serge Noire” from Serge Lutens and did the profile of this perfume. Strong notes of camphre, pepper, incense, it leaves a smoked impression. The image of someone that wears suits, smoke cigars and have a certain financial position, or try to appear as. This perfume was making a contrepoint to the reconforting feeling that the colour was giving to the eyes, by suggesting a “script” through the smell.

4th day

4am: 3rd painting, green.

Challenging ourselves by detailing the action more precisely, trying to stick to the score and being more attentive to the frame of the camera that capture and document the practice. By wondering of being exactly in time we were somehow confronted… The movements start to be integrated in mind and body but, still, not yet timewise. As we depend on the strenght of the color that cover the layer that has been done the day before we can not let oursleves flow by only “listening” to our “natural” rythm. The rolls are loosing their quality as we are using it everyday. The tools used for the painting disturb the continuity of the action. The tireness doesn’t help too although the timeframe that we define, 90minutes, give us us the strenght to carry on in a good dynamic as we know and feel that the action has a precise lenght. We go then over exhaustion and do the action meticulously, influenced by the fact that the score push us to live in the present time the action.

The surprise: Manne prepared a breakfast table for us. That create a really nice and relaxed atmosphere.

1.30pm: The element of the previous day has been noticed in the following hours after we put it. But it didn’t last in the manner we expected it. Molecules are volatile and need to be reactivated by breath of air to be able to smell them. As i was cleaning the floor after the morning practice i could smell the perfume and awaked it by scrubbing. The material lightness of the perfume influence its life span by depositing its scent after being blown. Rather than suggesting a script through the perfume, forcing the inhabitants of the gallery or the passers by to embodied a certain posture to awake their sagacity, we decided to project out the room its content by placing a small fan under the board facing the entrance of the room.

5th day

4am: 4th painting, brown.

Timewise to score is totally incorporated. We didn’t need to stick to the clock after each action although the tireness can be perceived in the in and out the frame of the camera. We could observe tensions toward each other and with people out of our score time. It’s getting harder to be able to follow our daytime tasks. The choice of activating a space inside the gallery in hours that are not expected push us away from the regulated social time. We had until now defined specific actions for each of us: at 4.14am Gabriel tiny jump, at 4.17am David start painting the sidewall after Gabriel started painting the ceiling, and some more general tasks: finishing the corners+2nd layer. The score at some point seems to be done for one personn, that allow us to change from one day to the other (Gabriel did the finishing one day and the 2nd layer the next one) but not for one personn as 1 individual but as a symbiotic relation between the two. We realized that the score is expending by itself, setting up our way back and our entrance. It is ponctuating us before and after the score.

The surprise: Manne hid a recording of his voice wishing us a good practice and played 2 Lady Gaga’s songs. That influenced our painting, hard to admit, but it seems that we enjoyed it and it gave us a lot of energy, we had to slow the rythm as we were going to finish 10 minutes before we were supposed to.

1.30pm: The brightness of the green was calling the eyes but nobody was going inside the room, we had practically no visitors since we all started.Therefore we wanted to create a path that would appeal to the people to come inside the gallery. As the fan was projecting the room by spreading its particules out of it we inverted the force . We used chocolate candy that we spread from outside the main door of the gallery to the inside of the room.

6th day

4am: 5th painting, white.

The surpise: we were totally unestablished and lost timewise the tasks during the painting. We first get affected by the fact that Elke was missing in her bed, then after switching on the light we discovered that Manne painted the room and the board in white with two layers but left the finishing for us to do. We got lost in time and were10 minutes in late, but, weirdly, we managed to freeze on time and finished the practice as defined in the score.

1.30pm: We placed 2 protection masks (the kind that workers use to protect from dust) in the holes of the board in the manner that it would force people to fit there face inside. In the masks we applied our sweat that we collected through the practice. In that way we could display our labor through the week.

Here the video documentation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9C4E5uSC6g

I am wondering how could i change the meaning of an image by including odour.

 During the 1st block i was researching using different approaches: anthropological, philosophical and scientific to widen the ground of my research and get more aknowledgement  about the role and the fonction of the smell.

 I was  focusing more in anthropological know-how  of sensory, more precisely how the smell is related, directly or not, to certain trade (ref: Mémoires et expérience olfactives, anthropologie d’un savoir-faire sensoriel. Joël Candau)Putting my daily self-experience with smell on the side i wanted to know how nostrils can play a prior role in the professions that are directly linked or not with scent.For example where the perfumer will explore the whole olfactive space, the oenologist will interpretate the odour in order to get informations about the evolution of the wine and the fireman will select all smells that, in a short time, can be integrated in the global apprehension that he can have of a disaster.This knowledge and know-how are acquired most of the time without thinking about it, implicitly, just by doing daily cognitives tasks according to the job. The distinction between two poles of dealing with smells in professions emerge: on one part working with smells (perfumer, oenologist…) and on the other interpretate it (nurse, fireman…) In the second case the interactions created by sharing informations will help to define words and build a common vocabulary around this sense. The smell has the reputation to be discreditate also because we don’t have enough words, distinctions, language subtilities to share our perception without being too subjective or not understood.

 Sharing smells, sensations would be a way to materialize molecules.

 There is always more to smell than what comes in the nose, this “more” can be either associated to idiosyncratic reaction and social and cultural determinations.Working on the categorization of smells, sociological aspect of smells and also create a dictionnary that has to do with “smell in performance” are the points that i would like to develop in the next blocks…

 In the video bellow i’ve edited a meeting with Corinne Caufriez that is assisting the director of  groupe GENES. I’ve been doing olfactive tests that have been done last year during “ la fête de l’environnement” in Brussels and got to know more about the activities of this ASBL giving their olfactive abilities to help citizen….The second part of the video is the beginning of an experiment about the construction and the categorization of smell. I went on the street and i’ve asked to people 2 questions, giving them the video camera, living them free to focus and frame smells…