Smell
stands in the middle of the five senses in terms of the degree of immediacy to
humans. We can see things far away as a
result of the transmission of electromagnetic waves. Sound is also transmitted through waves and
can also be heard far away, although not as far as the things we see. We can see the sun, but we can’t hear it, at
least with our naked ears. Taste is
transmitted by different chemical molecules that touch taste receptors in our
mouths. Taste stimuli have to be right
next to a part of human anatomy to be perceived. And yet we don’t taste the whole food itself,
but rather chemical molecules that are released from the physical solid or
liquid. Actually, most of what we call
taste actually comes from the sense of smell.
But that is beyond the scope of this paper. With touch, we experience directly the
immediate contact with the object or mass being experienced. No mediating waves or molecules standing
between the human and the phenomenon being experienced.
Like
taste, smell is transmitted through chemical molecules. But unlike taste, smell is carried through
the air. So it can travel over a greater
distance than taste. But not so far as
sight and sound. A smell can come from a
gas (hydrogen sulfide), a liquid (a perfume) or a solid (a soap or a food or a
forest). Because it is airborne, it is
mediated like light or sound, but it is more like taste and touch in terms of
the immediate contact by humans with some airborne substance. We can say that, generally speaking, sight
and sound are based more on defined discrete stimuli, taste and touch are based
more on flowing blendable continual stimuli and smell is based on a combination
of the two.
Nevertheless,
there are people who want to use modern technology as a vehicle for being able
to precisely measure and control the sensations emanating from smell stimuli
and to turn smell into almost exclusively a defined discrete stimulus. The inventors of the Moodo smart home aroma
diffuser hope to replace scented candles and scented sticks by allowing people
to mix fragrances together from different capsules to create “endless” new
scents and thus to be able to precisely calibrate how a room is going to
smell. Furthermore, all of this can be
done from an iPhone or some other smart device.
Not only can one calibrate the proportions of different foundation
aromas to create a smell that is just right for one’s mood, but one can set it
up in such a way that the aromas is released only during the period that we
want to smell it. Supposed perfect
control over something that is as nebulous and amorphous as a fragrance. One can turn it off when one is ready to go
to bed and doesn’t want the olfactory stimulation to keep him awake. Moodo says a person can “DJ” his aroma from
a smart device. I’ve got an idea. Why not create smellathons, where people can
go and experience a series of different aromas created by a real smell DJ?
Now
we are going to have the opportunity to do what, at one point, would have
seemed impossible: turn a more immediate sensation like smell into a highly mediated
experience. We will focus on artificially
controlled fragrances instead of aromas that we find coming from more natural
sources in the external world. Now, you
will say that perfumes and colognes are contrived fragrances. This is true.
However, they are made by professional fragrance makers who mix together
lots of different chemicals to create truly unique perfumes and colognes. These professional fragrance makers are
olfactory artists, unlike people who create their “unique aromas” from
combining 3 fragrance capsules in different proportions. The latter are like fragrance engineers
controlling the situation basically from their I Phones.
No
matter how many different aromas can be created by mixing together powders from
their three basic capsules, there is not going to be the variety or complexity
of smells available from the oils, perfumes, colognes and air fresheners on the
market. But using Moodo with its
apparent variety is going to displace, in many cases, these other sources of
fragrances and is going to constrict the world of aromas for the people who use
it.
Some
will say that using Moodo is better than no fragrance at all. Perhaps.
But must we always find technological solutions for all our experiential
needs? The moment we do that, we
mechanize and routinize the solution and suck some of the flavor out of the
experience. Particularly is this true
with a world of experience that is so immediate as the world of smell. Are we then going to develop a taste Moodo or
a touch Moodo? Will there be any aspects
of our world of experience not tainted by technological manipulation?
Another
perspective from which to look at this is that of making imprints. It is impossible to preserve an imprint using
a fragrance within a life experience except as a memory, but a fragrance
certainly is an effective way to make an imprint on oneself and on the external
world. Picking an independent fragrance
for a room represents making a far more meaningful imprint than trying to mix
together “unique” fragrances from three basic scent capsules. Maybe one can create many fragrances from all
the different combinations of the scent capsules, but there are so many
uniquely different scents outside of these three scent capsule that aren’t
being covered by the mixtures from the three scent capsules. Will people become dependent on Moodo or
similar inventions for their smell environment?
Will it displace an appreciation for fragrances like the smells of
nature or like perfumes and colognes? In
the desire of so many people today to control as many aspects of their living
environment through technology as possible, are they, in some cases, creating
drab trivialized choices like from capsule-based smells, making trivialized
mechanistic imprints, in order to feel that they are truly in charge of their
living environments. Something is being
lost in the process of humans trying to gain control of so much. It’s called life.
(c) 2019 Laurence Mesirow
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