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 Sydney College of the Arts
The University of Sydney

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
2012

THESIS

Osmologies: tow ards arom a com position

David Haines
May 2012
Osmologies: towards aroma composition

Table of contents

Acknowledgments.

List of Illustrations and Tables. 3.

Abstract. 4.

Introduction: Osmologies 1.

Chapter 1: Carnival of Networks 23.

1.1 Individuals on the same footing 30

1.2 Language 40.

1.3 Congregation of worlds 42.

1.4 Compositional Battlefields 44.

1.5 Heterogeneity 55.

Discussion. 67.

Chapter 2: Signals & Modes 75.

2.1 Noise Clouds 76.

2.2 Atmospherics 89.

2.3 Transductions 106.

Chapter 3: Substances 116.

3.1 Notes 116.

3.2 Accords 129.

3.3 Fragrant Time 130.

3.4 Seasonal Time 134.

3.5 Thresholds 135.

3.6 Formulas 137.

Discussion. 140.

Conclusion 147.

Bibliography. 155.

I
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professor Brad Buckley for his most generous supervision, support
and patience throughout my canditure. I would also like to thank John Conomos in his
role as my secondary supervisor. I would like to acknowledge the help and support of
the following people: Dr Peter Blarney for his wonderful comments and editorial work.
Professor Douglas Kahn and Dr Fran Dyson, Dr Anne Finegan, Dr Julie Rrap, Dr Debra
Dawes, Kathryn Ryan, Mark Shorter, Dr Peter Charuk, Anne Feran, Mark Shorter, Clare
Milledge and Noel Peters.

I would like to acknowledge all of the people who gave the art works produced
throughout this research a platform in which they could reach a public, especially Sally
Breen, Anthony Whelan, Nick Chambers, Jonathon Holmes, Lucy Bleach and Tia
Macintyre. I would also like to thank my family, especially John and Kerrie Haines for
their support and encouragement and also give the greatest thankyou to my wonderful
partner in crime, Joyce Hinterding.

ii
List of Illustrations and Tables

Fig 1: Aroma Studio: Blue Mountains NSW, 21.

Fig 2: Earthstar: Installation detail, Haines & Hinterding 2008-2009, 74.

Fig 3: Working as an assistant to Hermann Nitsch in the 1988 Bicentennial Biennale, 84.

Fig 4: The Phantom Leaves: First iteration of the work: Plimsoll Gallery Hobart, 101.

Fig 5: Kirlian Image of Mint from the Garden. The Phantom Leaves. 2010, 105.

Fig 6: Images of "Smell Blind Date" copyright James Auger, 109.

Fig 7: Earth Star Haines and Hinterding 2008-2009. Installation detail of smell station at Gallery Of
Modern Art, Queensland Art Gallery 119.

Fig8: Earth Star Haines and Hinterding 2008-2009. Installation View: GOMA, Queensland Art Gallery
121 .

Fig 9: Self Portrait in Scent: Sketch #1 (1994) Clara Ursitti, 121.

Fig 10: Typical GC analysis of Jasmine absolute, 123.

Table 1.0: Perfume in the style of Chanel Number 5, 138.

Table 2.0: Formula for Phantom Leaves 005: Violets on Fire, 139.

Fig 11: Page from notebook during the creation of "Ionisation and Terrestrial", the aroma
components of Earthstar, Haines and Hinterding 2008-2009. 146.

iii
ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate aroma and how it might become a medium of
composition for artists. Olfaction thus far, has been an underutilized sensation in Contemporary
Art. Within this study there is the intention to try to think through the problems of a praxis that
brings with it a critical engagement on the topic of olfaction, while also questioning how aroma
might enter the culture of art more intensively than it has before. The objective was to think
about aroma in its widest sense, in a way that does justice to its dynamics. On one side, aromas
arrive as manifestations of the senses from our contact with chemicals in the world; on the
other side, there is the idea of composing with aroma that brings us into the dimension of
aesthetics and practice as they belong to art making. What develops from this study are wider
questions about the compositional intensities that make up the open systems of life, as a
complex network of relations between human and nonhuman dimensions and the role in this of
information and expression, as synthesiser and conjoiner? Things coming in and being received
by the senses, and things composed into the world as new entities; this is because everything
about the olfactory is pointed towards an intertwining of these perspectives - between a world
given to consciousness and an outside that belongs to the molecules that are carriers of aroma.
In between these inward and outward flows, arises the phenomenological productivity of
representations. Throughout the period of this study there has been an intensive engagement
with aroma chemistry and undergoing the practice of smell training, along with the first steps in
composing artistically from a library of aroma molecules in the studio. The works that have
occurred along the way are discussed within the paper. These are the two perfumes that form
part of the collaborative installation "Earthstar," with Joyce Hinterding in 2008 that premiered
at the Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland Art Gallery and also seen at Ars Electrónica in Linz,
Austria, in 2010, winning an Award of Distinction in the Hybrid Arts category. Various iterations
of the "Phantom Leaves" are discussed, the first version of which was shown at Plimsoll Gallery
in Hobart and eventually extended as part of the solo exhibition, "Cosmic Vapour" exhibited at
Breenspace, Sydney in 2010. The two perfumes in the collaborative work "The Immaterials:
Language-Molecules-Vibrations" are also discussed. Additional works of contemporary art that
have broached the Olfactory also appear, however, it has not been the intention of this study to
provide a comprehensive overview of all that has been done in regards to the olfactory within
the field, but instead, I have chosen to use particular examples where appropriate throughout
the text.

IV
 INTRODUCTION: OSMOLOGIES

By convention there is sw eet and bitter, hot and cold, by convention there is colour;
but in truth there are atom s and the void

-Democritus, Fragm ent 9.

Aroma is generally ill considered within the Western theoretical cannon. It is

underutilized as a medium in contemporary art and its biology is not yet fully
understood by science.1 This surprising lack that appears across all of these areas,
presents an opportunity for a constructivist-style theoretical investigation that becomes
a starting point for a wide-field investigation, representative of both theory and
practice. The use of the term osm ologies in the title of this chapter, is an attempt to find
a word to encompass a vast topic that is seemingly open enough to capture the
speculative nature of this approach, one that entails a compositional bricolage of
research interests around the topic that affirms the way many artists inhabit the studio,
with receptive openness to materials, subjects and ideas. The intention is to extend this
term within this study, beyond its use within certain contexts to describe how some
cultures place the olfactory as central to their understanding of the cosmos.2 This is not
to exclude that particular meaning but instead to capture some of the spirit of such a
total encompassing. Within this study there is the intention to try to think through the
problems of a praxis that brings with it a critical engagement of olfaction, while also
questioning how aroma might enter the culture of art more intensively than it has
before.

By thinking about a "bi-directionality of things as they are in the world and their
relationship to being, by entering into a relationship between the partially concealed
and the de-concealing of human and non-human forces of the aromatic exchange at its
simplest level, an interaction between molecules and perceptions, we need to think
about aroma in a way that does justice to this dynamic state that gives us a sense of the

1 See - Jim Drobnick, Introduction: Olfactocentrism in The Smell Culture reader. (Oxford, New York: Berg
Publishing, 2006), 3.
2 The word is found in the context described in Chapter 3- Constance Classen, David Howes and Anthony
Synnott, Universes of Odour In the book, aroma, and the cultural history of smell (London and New York:
Routledge, 1994), 95.

1
intermingling "anticipated and unanticipated" nature of this flow. These intermingling's

arise from the underpinnings of what Maria L. Assad identifies as Michel Serres's central

concern in his book Genesis, in which he outlines "a new object for philosophy"

belonging to the multiple and multiplicity:3

A flight of screaming birds, a school o f herring tearing through the water like a

silken sheet, a cloud of chirping crickets, a booming whirlwind of mosquitos...

crowds, packs, hordes on the move, and filling with their clamour, space...4

Serres's text which circulates around the concept o f the aggregate as ever-changing

material has been influential in this study of proposing in the first instance of aroma as

belonging to 'clouds of noise’, a theme developed more fully in Chapter 2: Signals and

Modes. By approaching the task from an interdisciplinary perspective, and by

complicating this initial thought of this back and forth away from a bias that puts

everything on the side of perception, sensation and its transmissions and instead puts

the material dimension of olfaction on par with perception as part o f a narrative of

compositional multiplicity, the olfactory will hopefully become like a star radiating in

many directions.

Within this thesis there are two basic poles that are like the resonating prongs of a

tuning fork. On one side, aromas arrive as manifestations o f the senses from chemicals

in the world; on the other, there is the idea of composing with aroma that brings us into

the dimension of aesthetics and practice as they belong to art making. What develops

from this study and what aroma brings to the table are w ider questions about the

compositional intensities that make up the open systems o f life. Things coming in and

being received by the senses and things going out into the world as new entities; it

seems impossible to try to develop the second, without making an attempt to know

more about the first. In between these inward and outward movements arises the

phenomenological productivity of representations.

The olfactory in its pervasiveness in all aspects of life, always seems to be pushing us

into deeper waters and sending us off into strange lands. Along the way we are

introduced to a horde of 'jack-in-the-box'-like characters. These actants, a term that

3 Maria L Assad, Reading with Michel Serres, an encounter with time, New York State University press 1999)
4 Michel Serres, Genesis (Ann Arbour, The University of Michigan Press 1995), 2.

2
comes from anthropologist and philosopher Bruno Latour and taken up within Actor
Network Theory, exist on many levels including the material, the social, perceptual and
the virtual and it is within the intersection of these categories that incredible new
figurations are born..

Within this thesis we shall explore some of the extra-intensive aromatic territories that
exemplify a mediation, translation, or transduction of one thing into another, by tracing
the contours outlined by simple circuits, leading to more complex ensembles. These will
serve as both a focal point and as a genuine reflection of somehow being indicative for
how things in the world might operate within ever more complex systems. American
cultural theorist and author Steven Shaviro makes the point, when discussing Kant in a
recent text, that:

Cognition and desire go out from the subject to the world, while the pleasure of
beauty comes into it, from elsewhere. In desire as in cognition, experience begins
with the subject; in aesthetic feeling, experience begins outside, and culminates,
or eventuates, in the subject .5

The notion of beauty in the quote above is interpreted in this thesis in the widest
possible sense, as a ‘catch all' for everything that comes to us from the multiplicity of
outpourings that make up the aromatic realm. The intention is to break the barrier of
revulsion posited by Kant in his turning away from the sense of smell, because in the
early twenty first century, our notion of beauty has become far more complicated. In
this thesis, we are trying to get to know more about the nature of this "outside" that
Shaviro refers to. Similarly, we are also trying to apprehend the inner world of aroma
through its transmissions, networks and circuits, in order to prize open the aesthetic
moments that would potentially make a new kind of practice possible.

True to the nature of aromatic emanations this ‘carnival universe', although filled to the
brim with concrete entities, is also as diffuse and uncontainable as the aromatic vapours
that make up its kingdom. This realm not only includes what happens when we are
trundling through the landscape randomly bumping into clouds of aromatic molecules,
it also encompasses humankind's longstanding urge to invent with fragrance, which

5 Steven Shaviro, Without Criteria, Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze and Aesthetics (Cambridge Massachusetts, the
MIT Press, 2009), 54.

3
brings the psyche into the fold of the activity. It is as much about the Proustian moment
of intense recall, as it is about the mental visions that form out of aromatic intoxications.
6 All of this occurs alongside the dark recesses of the chemical and the sub-atomic that
are realized in the molecular and its entanglement with the receptors in the nose .6
7

Throughout out this thesis, there is a blurring of boundaries between materialist

tendencies of thought and questions that are more naturally at home within
metaphysics and phenomenology. This is because everything about the olfactory is
pointed towards an intertwining of these perspectives, between a world given to
consciousness and an outside that belongs to the molecules that are carriers of aroma.
The place where these things intertwine, presents the vibrancy of an extraordinary
exchange of aromatic information that leads to composition.

It becomes difficult to accept some of the anti-realist enthusiasms since Kant from the
vast nexus of what is described as 'continental philosophy', as displayed most radically
in George Berkley's subjective idealism that sets up a divide between objects on one
side and subjects on the other. As Gilles Deleuze reminds us:

The first thing the Copernican Revolution teaches us is that it is we who are
giving the orders. There is here an inversion of the ancient conception of
Wisdom: the sage was defined partly by his own submission, partly by his "final"
accord with Nature. Kant sets up the critical image in opposition to wisdom: we
are the legislators of Nature. 8

When working with a library of olfactory materials on a daily basis, one gains a deep
appreciation of each molecule's distinctive qualities and one comes to know more
about the possibility of producing remarkable perfumes that generate such interesting
and powerful responses from people. For the artist or perfumer exploring this world, a

6 Marcel Proust's famous passage involving lime blossom tea and eating a Madeleine that sparks a vivid
memory from "In search of lost time."
7 Physical Sciences - Chemistry - Biological Sciences - Neurobiology: Wenge Zhong, Justin P. Gallivan, Yinong
Zhang, Lintong Li, Henry A. Lester, and Dennis A. Dougherty From a-b initio quantum mechanics to molecular
neurobiology: A cation-n binding site in the nicotinic receptor PNAS 1998 95 (21) 12088-12093;
doi:10.1073/pnas.95.21.12088
8 Lee Braver quoting Deleuze in A thing of this World: A history of continental anti-realism.(Illinois:
Northwestern University Press, 2007), 38. The quote comes from Kant's Critical Philosophy. (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1984)

4
'vibrant materiality’9 becomes apparent that changes the relationship one has with
aroma forever. Most strikingly, aroma now becomes a whole lot more than serendipity
and instead becomes not only a force one is highly sensitive to, it becomes a medium to
be manipulated and crafted into something tangible that resides in a bottle or deployed
within a gallery, as an artwork.

Experimental work in science has shown how one molecule will smell different to
another, where a discussion is ongoing about whether this is due to its shape, or its spin
frequency. Biophysicist and author Luca Turin, a Professor at the Centre for Olfaction at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in his book The Secret o f Scent: Adventures
in Perfume and the Science o f Smell, explains some of the basic criteria required for
molecules to be smelly, and these are outlined in Chapter 3, Substances, under the
heading Transductions.10

Our knowledge of olfaction which biologically speaking, is the sense of smell mediated
by sensory cells in the nasal cavity of vertebrates and sensory cells on the antennae of
invertebrates, is drawn from science as much as it is from philosophy, history and
aesthetics, the perfume industry and the world of marketing and communications. The
new discipline of arom achology is dedicated to the psychology of smell.

The word ’object' is used here in the widest possible way and at times will become
interchangeable with other terminology for the same thing. This is to allow the
definition of an object to expand into a complex form that comes from thinking about
perfumes and other types of aroma compositions as a multiplicity and yet at the same
time, remaining distinguishable from other assemblages. In this study we encounter a
spectrum of objects from substances to mental objects, operating in a process of
exchange. Informing this approach is the work of sociologist and philosopher Bruno
Latour and to a lesser extent we can sense in the background something that is of the
flavour of the intriguing work of philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead. Along the way,
we can expect to meet a diverse cast of characters coming from a broad range of
disciplines. Informing this investigation to a greater or lesser extent is the work of

9 A play on the title of Jane Bennett's book Vibrant Matter, a political ecology of things (Durham, Duke
University Press, 2010).
10 Luca Turin. The Secret of Scent, adventures in perfume and the science of smell (New York, Harper Perennial
2006), 34 -36

5
contemporary philosophers such as Michel Serres, Graham Harman, Levi Bryant,
Manuel De Landa, and jane Bennett and behind these are historical figures such as
Aristotle, Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant and Deleuze. It is not my intention to provide a detailed
analysis of such a huge body of work but to acknowledge this lineage of historically
important thinkers and their varying focus on issues to do with materialism that have
had an impact on the orientation of this text.

The attention on olfaction and fragrance in this research, attempts to be critically

responsive to developments in scholarly knowledge across a multiplicity of disciplines,
as well as knowledge's that are less official and perhaps less well circumscribed. The
world of perfumery has operated as a kind of secret guild and yet, this is where nearly
all of the rigorous work has been done on the compositional side of the olfactory since
ancient times. We might also acknowledge aspects of the culinary in this equation,
although this will not be a focus of this thesis. Cooking does however, represent a model
of practice after all, the kitchen/shelter may have been humankind's first laboratory,
and the sensory aspects of taste and flavour are intrinsically bound up with the
olfactory on many levels.11

These sensory practices unlike those in the fine arts, are often thought about as being of
a lower order, given the ocular-centric nature of Western discourse. There was a
turning point in the theorization of beauty in Western culture that reinforced a
hierarchy of the senses towards sight and hearing. Certainly, one of the forefathers of
modern thought, Immanuel Kant didn't think much of smell:

Which organic sense is the most ungrateful and also seems to be the most
dispensable? The sense of smell. It does not pay to cultivate it or refine it at all in
order to enjoy; for there are more disgusting objects than pleasant ones
(especially in crowded places), and even when we come across something
fragrant, the pleasure coming from the sense of smell is always fleeting and
transient.12

11 Perfumery and the culinary belong as much to the comings and goings of everyday life as they do to deeper
conscious and unconscious institutional processes. By using fire to cook meat, digestion became more
efficient, increasing the size of the human brain. See Richard Wrangham. "Reason in the Roasting of Eggs"
(United Kingdom: Collapse VII), 331.
12lmmanuel Kant - Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. Trans. Robert. B. Louden (United Kingdom,
Cambridge University Press 2006), 50.

6
In author Richard T. Gray's essay titled "The Dialectic of "Enscentment," a close reading
of Patrick Susskind's novel Perfume (which he interprets as representing "a critical
history of enlightenment culture”) he highlights how in Kant’s Anthology there is
genuine anxiety around olfaction:

In his Anthropology from a pragm atic point o f view, Kant registers the
inescapability of smells and condemns olfaction as "opposed freedom” and hence
unworthy of cultivation. (1977a:452-3)13

Jim Drobnick in the preface to the chapter "Scentuality" in The Smell Culture Reader,
points out that:

One hundred years ago, individuals expressing more than a passing interest in
smell would have been diagnosed with "Octophillia" -a term that I take liberty to
rehabilitate here. For Richard von Krafft-Ebbing ([1866] 1965), a pronounced
interest in odours, especially in regards to any kind of sexual behaviour, was a
sign of dementia, disease or moral degeneration. Havelock Ellis14 furthered the
regulation of olfactory pleasure by concluding that olfaction plays a role for
neurasthenics, "inverts" and "primitives". Should any of the presumably Euro-
American and bourgeois readers identify with one of the plethora of examples of
scentsuality described in his research, Ellis reassured that "refined and
educated" people did not fit the profile of "olfactory type," even if they fell under
the infatuation of odours from time to time. (Ellis [1905]1942:111) While Kraft-
Ebbing and Ellis stigmatized olfactophilia through appeals to sexual, class and
cultural deviancy, it was Sigmund Freud (1961) who raised the stakes to the
ultimate level - the survival of the human species. Smell was too powerful a
sense, because of its close link to animality and sexuality, and needed to be
sacrificed as a precondition for civilization itself.

Within all of this damning resistance, Drobnick goes on to point out that:

given the predominance of a multi-billion dollar fragrance industry and the

pervasiveness of its marketing, could it not be the case that it is the majority of

13 Richard T Gray, "The Dialectic of Enscentment" in The Olfactory Reader, ed. Jim Drobnick. (Oxford, New
York: Berg, 2006), 239.
14 Refers to the famous sexologist.

7
 the population, by virtue of perfume and cologne consumption alone, are
practicing (but unacknowledged ) olfactophilliacs.

Even though activities of perfumery and the culinary might be considered by some at
least in more recent times to be highly creative and artful, except in limited instances
and at certain odd moments in Western history, both have sat firmly on the outside of
belonging in any meaningful way within 'high culture.' These activities certainly haven't
been thought about as distinctive mediums of art in their own right. We certainly
haven’t come to think about them in the same way that we have come to distinguish
other media within art making, such as painting, photography, or even sound. It is true
that perfumery and the culinary have been utilized within contemporary artworks since
Duchamp. Nevertheless, why have these activities and the senses they engage with
been relegated as minor bit players in the scheme of things? Why has one of our major
sensory organs located smack bang in the middle of the face, gone mostly missing in
action within art?

Michel Serres laments the gulf between wisdom that comes from the everyday:

1 have known so many things without texts, so many people without grammar,
children without lexicon, the elderly without vocabulary; I have lived so much in
foreign lands, mute, terrified behind the curtain of languages, would I have really
tasted life if all I had done was listen and speak? The most precious things I know
are embedded in silence. No, neither the world nor experience nor philosophy
nor death will allow itself to be locked up in a theatre, or a tribunal or in a
lesson.15

The above statement seems rather apt for an activity that will straddle so many areas
unofficially, resist unification into an essence and that requires focused concentration
and contemplation on aroma. Perfumery occupies a place that is closer to remaining in
its roots as artisanal proto-chemistry, though once it enters commercial production it
dovetails perfectly into the industrial-chemical complex as an important client of its
services and as a product of mass consumption. Perfumery's lineage as chemistry is
validated in Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Isabelle Stengers important book, A
History of Chemistry" through their critically incisive lens, we come to know of

15 Michel Serres, The Five Senses: a philosophy of mingled bodies (London: Continuum 2008), 105.

8
chemistry not as a discipline that emerged at a particular point in time, but as an
evolving fluidic multiplicity, responsive to the times in which certain events emerged
that continually reshaped it. The approach taken within A History o f Chemistry, teases
out the networked relationships between the politics and the culture that affected the
discoveries made in the laboratory, therefore chemistry, seemingly one of the most
concrete of the sciences proves to be a continuum.

Sociologist and philosopher Bruno Latour, in just a few words, paints a remarkably
complex picture of Modernity that further complicates and vitalizes this situation:

Solidly grounded in the certainty that humans make their own destiny, the
modern man or women can criticize and unveil, express indignation at and
denounce irrational beliefs, the biases of ideologies, and the unjustified
domination of the experts who claim to have staked out the limits of action and
freedom. The exclusive transcendence of Nature that is not our doing, and the
exclusive immanence of a Society that we create through and through, would
nevertheless paralyse the moderns, who would appear to be impotent in the face
of things and too powerful within society. What an enormous advantage to be
able to reverse the principles without even the appearance of contradiction. In
spite of its transcendence, Nature remains mobilizable, humanizible, and
socializable. Every day, laboratories, collections, centres of calculation and of
profit, research bureaus and scientific institutions blend it with the multiple
destinies of social groups. Conversely, even though we construct society through
and through, it lasts, it surpasses us, it dominates us, it has its own iaws, and it is
as transcendent as nature. For every day, laboratories, collections, centres of
calculation and of profit, research bureaus and scientific institutions stake out
the limits of social groups, and transform human relations into durable objects
that no one has made... they can mobilize Nature at the heart of social
relationships, even as they leave Nature infinitely remote from human beings;
they are free to make and unmake society, even as they render its laws
ineluctable, necessary and absolute . 16

16 Bruno Latour, We have never been Modern. (Cambridge Massachusetts Harvard University Press.1993), 36-
37.

9
What is needed for aroma composition to become a medium in its own right, is a
change of heart towards our view of aroma as some kind of ‘uncontainable other' and to
mobilize all of the semiotic, material and nonmaterial forces that make up its complex,
ever-changing orbit, by thinking about it as a powerful way to make new kinds of art.
Surely as a form, it could reach out into all kinds of extended social dimensions 17 and
become something more interesting than a new age product, or to simply exist as the
commercial quasi art form of fine fragrance, something that is proving more and more
reductive as time goes on .18 After all, given there is approximately ten thousand
industrially-derived olfactory notes, there must be an astonishing primary new pallet
for artists to explore. It is noted that smell graffiti has become a tool for environmental
activists and aroma has also been used subversively by Sea Shepard against Japanese
Whalers in the form of foul smelling butyric acid 19 thrown onto the decks of the whaling
ships, not to mention that the smell of gasoline served as an inspiration to the Futurists.
Artists of course, have explored olfactory qualities in their work in the past but this is
certainly not a common pursuit. Many people outside of industry would not be familiar
with such an array of aroma chemistry, nor see it as a potential palette of materials.

The interwoven condition of the olfactory, continually presents by way of its ranging
effusive networks 'whiffs' of particular figurative and expressive moments that are
distinctive in their passing and this informational dynamic wholeheartedly captures our
attention. This is what is going on when we suddenly catch the allure of a beautiful
woody violet aroma (methyl ionone) wafting over the concourse and insinuating itself
into our noses, even when on a crowded footbridge in Kyoto and some distance away,
connecting itself to a flash of somebody's skin perhaps in the glare of the midday sun . 20
This particular constellation requires the underpinning of specific circuits in order to
uphold its particular distinctive moment. This 'conjuring' of the constellation of methyl

17 Mitchell Hienrich, an activist artist, has recently developed a smell graffiti project that has garnered some
attention on the internet. He even provides a step by step how-to guide on the popular website
instructibles.com
18 Fine perfumery is limited by budget in the fragrance industry and some 400 new perfumes are released
every year.pp - source, Luca Turin, The Secret of Scent (New York Harper Perennial 2006), 54.
19 Butyric acid smells like vomit and rancid butter.
20 The ionones are the chemicals that make up a violet accord, lonones are actually found in violet leaf and
violet flowers. Violet absolute has only been rarely extracted. Violet leaf absolute is more common though
very expensive. The construction of a violet aroma involves more than mixing together a number of ionone
chemicals. The basic formula involves Methyl Ionone and Alpha Ionone, Phenyl ethyl alcohol, Methyl Octine
Carbonate, Anise aldehyde, heliotropin, Violet Leaf absolute, amyl cinnamic Aldehyde and Benzyl Benzoate.

10
ionone and a nose in the crowd, reflects the complexity of the intermingling of'real'
material circuits with ‘imaginary’ ones, as an evocative composite.

Chapter 1 titled "Carnival of Networks" not only draws on intuitions that have come
from working in the studio/laboratory directly with arom a, it presents an approach to
the problem of how these olfactory circuits and networks might come together, through
the prism of a remarkable passage of writing from Bruno Latour. This text is found in
the second half of his book The Pasteurization of France. Subtitled "Irreductions,” this
passage of writing both exceeds and aligns most closely with those intuitive and
primary thoughts that arrive with the day-to-day practice of working with and thinking
about the mixtures of aroma chemistry. This has been a realm of activity that has taken
place throughout the course of this research. Latour is a thinker who is sensitive to
transformations of subtle relationships within delicate networks: aggregates that are
alive with energy that are plugged in across the borders, forming all manner of hybrids,
complicating and analysing our notion of separations between nature and culture, mind
and body, technology and the social.

The complexity of the mixture in perfumery, continually challenges the problem of all
kinds of divisions. Latour shows a possible way to think through these problems, by way
of conceptualizing modes that encompass both large and small scale entities as
actants.21 It is from the thinking that comes with the working up of fragrant mixtures,
the modes and signals that are brought to attention that brings along with it a more
acute awareness of resonance, transduction, vibration, transmutation, noise and
frequency - specific mechanisms that belong to the more general categories of
transportation, mediation and translation that Latour describes so passionately and
poetically throughout his work.

Throughout this thesis, the work of physicist Paul Davies, and his compendium of
essays by a range of leading physicists, Information and the Nature of Reality from
Physics to Metaphysics, has been helpful in forming a bridge between the vibrational
frequencies of aroma molecules introduced to us by the work of Luca Turin and Wright,
and the compositional metaphysics of the work done by Latour and the inspiration and

21 Manuel De Landa does it with his rigorous interrogation of emergence; he is using knowledge from science
to inform his philosophical thinking. Nietzsche does it with ideas about becoming and the pre-Socratics before
that.

11
work of others that belong within the realms of being interested in realism and
materialism.

The section titled "Heterogeneity” in Chapter 1, traces the trajectory of ambergris as a

complex ensemble, forming a bridge between the first half of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.
The tale told under this sub-heading has been written, as a journey from matter
haphazardly discovered through to its manifestation as transmuted synthetic molecules
converted from pandanus sap and coal tar. It was written about in this way, rather like a
sequential sketch, in order to highlight the leaps through various causal modes in the
genesis of a material with a long history. The means of linking these things together in
this way, with all of its bias towards the interests of the writer and its subsequent gaps,
is the very act of translation that Latour is describing in "Irreductions”: what he
describes elsewhere as a veritable "following of imbroglios wherever they take
us."22The purpose of this approach is that although the path that is traced may be
scatological, we learn much about the relationships formed between the various actants
in any network, a term he uses for any of the players in a particular system. We see how
our assumptions about things can be challenged, when we approach a subject as a
mapping of connections across any dimension that asserts itself, or is detected
somehow. The story of musk, a material so important to the world of fragrance, is
treated in a similar way in Chapter 3. All of this emersion and confabulation within the
aromatic is representative of compositional synthesis found in art and in life. This
complex aether23 will be presented as something of a spiralling swirl of turbulent
energy, not only as a carrier of information but as a nexus that takes on the status of a
collective subject. Aroma tells our noses not only about what is good or bad but also
confronts us with all kinds of hybrid forms that exist between all of the categories
plants, animals, places and desires, and all manner of abstractions that coalesce into a
multi-headed genie flying out of a bottle.

22 Bruno Latour, We have never been Modern (Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Pressl993), 3.
23 Taken here to mean - all entities in the Olfactory circuit (also aether) 3. Physics, archaic a very rarefied and
highly elastic substance formerly believed to permeate all space, including the interstices between the
particles of matter, and to be the medium whose vibrations constituted light and other electromagnetic
radiation. Which in turn includes all the entities as well since everything is made up from atomic forces down
to the level of quantum forces.

12
Chapter 2: "Signals & Modes" and Chapter 3 “Substances", attempts under a number of
headings to trace in more detail, some of the modes operating within the olfactory in
light of thinking about how it might be composed.

The passage "Noise Clouds" in Chapter 2, meditates on aroma as clouds of molecules

circulating in the air, as a manifestation of noise. French philosopher of science Michel
Serres in his book Genesis, and in the remarkable writing of Hillel Schwartz in his vast
compendium on the subject Making Noise, are key influences in the direction of this part
of the chapter. Another bridge between information, chaos theory and physics, was
found in the work of Russian Nobel prize winner Ilya Prigogine, specifically in his “Being
and Becoming in Physics" and from reading more widely in the area of complex systems
and chaos theory.

"Atmospherics" in Chapter 2, speculates on aspects of our relationship to the

atmospheric as expressive conjoiners that like noise, slip between the subject and the
object. Atmosphere is dealt with as an aesthetic occult category within the olfactory
network, and also as a powerfully productive force in its own right regardless of its
ephemeral nature.

The section in Chapter 3 devoted to transductions, affirms the role of energy conversion
in the production of compositional networks and assemblages. Part of this section deals
with the role of transducers as 'secret mechanisms' of translation in the passage of
many things, including those belonging to the body and that which comes in contact
with it.

The question of how the receptors in the nose receive the molecule in relation to the
olfactory system, still an unresolved question in biology, is central to the work done by
biophysicist and perfume critic, Luca Turin. According to Turin, each molecule has a
unique harmonic tone, a quantum level ringing in the far infrared part of the spectrum,
and shows how the body might be physically capable of detecting these frequencies.
Turin presents a theory of how this process works within the pathway of transduction
of the ion channels that turn chemical signals into electrical patterns of neural activity.
There are interesting implications that come from this theory from a compositional
perspective. Although a highly speculative proposition, it is easy to imagine the
possibility o f ‘olfactory tunings', similar to musical scales and its logics of composition.

13
Substances, notes, accords and mixtures, the things we have come to think of as
specifically belonging to the history and craft of fragrance composition are dealt with in
more detail in Chapter 3. The information that informs this part of the chapter comes
from self-taught research, applying knowledge from a variety of sources as diverse as
internet mailing lists, the writings of perfume historians and its aficionados and also
from the advice o f ‘niche perfumers’ along with reference to a range of classic texts
belonging to the perfume industry.

One of the key methods of aroma composition belongs to the foundational role played
by accords that are formed when mixtures are blended together in very particular
ratios. An accord appears when the materials that have been blended together smell
least like what they do when smelt in isolation, allowing for new aromas to come into
existence. The famous perfumer jean Carles systematized and wrote a methodology for
building accords; to my knowledge there has not been a comprehensive index of
fragrance accords publically written.24 The information that does exist is scattered and
rather scant and in the papers written by Carles that are used as a methodology within
this research, the discovery of unique accords by the student is always encouraged, over
and above an encyclopaedia of formulas.25

Complete perfume formulas are not generally published, nor are there a great deal of
literature on the subject considering the sheer numbers of perfumes that have been
made throughout history. There are two sources that have been continually referred to
throughout this research which are considered to be major texts of perfumery:
Perfumery Practice and Principles, by Robert R. Calkin and J. Stephen jellenek, and
Perfumery Techniques in Evolution, by Arcadi Boix Camps. Both have been invaluable
resources in the studio in the making of aroma compositions.26 The other source of
formulas has been garnered from scattered information found on the internet and

24 And perhaps never will be.

25 It would be possible with a lot of work and very little knowledge to build up a pallet of unique accords by
following the methodology that he provides.
26 Note: Neither of these contains complete formulas, though the former, Perfumery Practice and Principles
gives an outline of the major floral reconstructions. The later Perfumery Techniques in Evolution is a
passionate expose of various aroma chemicals and their qualities with evaluative commentary on their
potential uses in formulas. A lot of the information imparted relies on a careful reading of these passages that
contain a wealth of useful information.

14
within trade documents. Interestingly, formulas for cheap knock-off versions of famous
perfumes can be found on websites.27

"Fragrant time," in chapter 3, discusses time as it relates to change within an aroma

composition, drawing on the foundations of perfumery. It also deals discursively with
issues of time, drawing on the inspirational work of Michel Serres and others that
conceive of time as belonging to dynamic open systems, topologies, as the product of
entropy, all of which are themes that run throughout this study. Serres reminds us of
the complexity of the terroir of the vineyard in the unique circuit formed between the
climate and the earth and the conditions for making wine and of the laboratory world of
the kitchen. One of the few philosophers to even mention smell, he attempts to think of
time rising from things, time that might for example be stored in the earth and within
the circuit of growth and then expressing itself. This brewing relational time belongs
very much to the problems we are now facing with carbon and its liberation from
storage, and yet Serres manages to capture the allure, mystery and poetry of the
mixture as it makes contact with our senses. Serres outlines a notion of time that
becomes present when the wine is opened and reaches the tongue in 'the second form
of smelling.'28 Welling up in the bouquet, are the moments of a particular season,
expressed by interacting with the fermented grape and the slower tonalities of the earth
that arises from a celestial and earthly laboratory of conversion; marking out a process
of growth. One can only extrapolate from this that time is an expressive force of change,
a constellation of interactions: change is time.

Osmologies, as much as they belong to expressive language can also be thought of as an

analogue of how an artist engages with the practice of making, by allowing for all kinds
of materials and information into the work. Artists in their diverse activities often seem
like they are working within a kind of deformalized science. Similarly, artists are often

271am not suggesting that all artists must learn classical formulas but in my practice I have found this to be
very useful in understanding balance in the composition that suits the type of work I am interested in with
aroma. Also this kind of knowledge may be useful if an artist was working with a professional perfumer.
28"W hen we sense the flavour of the food in our mouths, it is not by sniffing in, which we usually associate
with smelling something like an aroma, but by breathing out, when we send little puffs of smell from our food
and drink out the back of our mouths and backward up through our nasal passages as we chew and swallow.
This back door approach is called retronasal smell (retro=backward); we can also call it mouth-smell. It
contrasts with orthonasal smell (ortho = forward), which is what we call the common sniffing-smell." Gordon
Shepard, Neurogastronomy (Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition), 3.

15
the generators of 'dirty' alliances between matter and ideas, similar to the unholy
intermingling of the animal and the flower in perfumery.

Artists, like perfumers, chemists and cooks, are first and foremost crafters of materials
(mental and physical), and are willing recipients and enablers of the necessary types of
chance operations and happy accidents that come from the unpredictability of working
with materials, all of which are subject to fundamental forces that produce accidents
and random results, held up by whatever acts as a support, both literally and
metaphorically, given the myriad of forms that art can encompass. Artists are always in
a boxing match with improvisations and other aleatory forces that appear in the process
of making .29 Artists are also dealing with the tensions of consciousness - its union with
aesthetics and sensation, in order to form new kinds of empowered subjectivities,
including political actions and aesthetic worlds. Artists are always responding to the
impulse of desire. Artists are one type of people, who have been able to wrestle these
things into poetic language. Artists produce concrete treasures out of the churning
factory of the psyche, and they configure this tangible material into new forms, by way
of vigorous multiple logics. It's not that artists have exclusive rights on creative powers,
but as a discipline, we make these things stand up. For example, James Turrell
empowers light as colour; Hermann Nitsch empowers blood as pigment, and so on. If
ever there was a magician capable of joining the modes that launch us beyond
established categories, it has to be something like the figure of an artist.

This research arises from a bricolage that must become a necessary compositional force
in its own right, built from a critical and pragmatically curious exchange with whatever
is needed to make it work. In this way, the investigation slowly accumulates a necessary
language that arrives from an interdisciplinary 'witches brew' of research. It is brought
into the frame, like an artist bringing things into the studio, in an attempt to lay down a
lively laboratorial form of thinking, in sympathy with the way artists have always
worked. The proposition then, is one of artistic Osmologies, in order to enter a
pluralistic space, a hallucinatory praxis similar to the workings of an old style
perfumery, with bottle after bottle of strange liquids pouring one into the other, forming
new hybrid compositions of thought at the perfumer's organ.

29 These could be algorithmic taking a cue from computer music and more generally generative computations
that use the computer as the genesis of works, or even other forms of data such as social information, as seen
in relational aesthetics.

16
Through this approach, could we not conceptualize new categories that come to
represent a Vibrant redefinition of materialism’ that conceive of'm aterial' as resonating
regardless of whether we are referring to a mental abstract process, or physical matter
as vibrating energy? As Diana Cool and Samantha Frost point out in their book, New
Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics

For materiality is always something more than "mere” matter: an excess, force,
vitality, relationality, or difference that renders matter active, self-creative,
productive, unpredictable...to recognize that phenomena are caught in a
multitude of interlocking systems and forces and to consider anew the location
and nature of capacities for agency .30

Emanating from the present and the past and riddled throughout, we find these
exemplary and strange heretical alliances that challenge the powerful persuaders that
put matter on one side and being on the other. From our new perspective, the most
seemingly modest change in any matrix will have an impact on how it manifests, and in
this replacement, melding, or displacement through translation and mediation, we will
come to know of the struggle of these forces as agents of composition and
decomposition, as 'ensembles of composition'.

On the question of the olfactory, there is a dynamic of events occurring between matter
and representations, the sensorium and politics, between idea and world, experience
and invention, discovery and industry, time and space, the actual and the imagination.
’Poison’, ’Garage’, ’Obsession’, ’Fracas’, ’Miracle Forever’, ’Muse Raveguer’, ’Carnal
Flower’, ’Purple Light’ - one gets the feeling all these names of perfumes, if taken at face
value might have been concocted in order to provide cover for all of the alien entities
trapped inside the bottle. Perhaps these alien entities belong to the logic of marketing as
much as they belong to any free form creative logic of the perfumer, as contemporary
designer or artist? If perfumery could be thought of as one indicator for the future of
our inventions to come, given its ties to so many domains, what this confabulation and
creativity with materials and language may show us is how any assemblage with
enough work done to it, is able to transmute from a collection of loosely connected
elements, into highly coherent forms.

30 Diana Cool and Samantha Frost. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics. (Duke University Press
2010), 20.

17
There is always a leap of faith in regards to what it is we smell when we encounter an
aroma. Part of what is foregrounded is an emotional response, rather than one of
intellectual capacity since in the act of smelling, aroma travels a pathway from the
receptor in the epithelium, reaching out to the emotional centre of the limbic system
prior to engaging with the language centre in the brain and so on. This is only one part
of the chain of enigmas that our relationship to aroma conjures. The creations we make
with composed aroma also have powerful agency in the world. It will be argued within
this thesis that all of the olfactory dimensions are caught up in all kinds of negotiations
that pass between the physical and the mental. Perfumes are hybrid mixtures of novel
accords, all of which belong to the logics of invention. Smells in themselves, the ones we
think of as belonging to a particular plant such as jasmine or rose, are in fact
combinatory mixtures of many hundreds of molecules. So-called single molecules of
aroma chemistry are complicated by impurities that are sometimes critical to how we
perceive them, or to how they perform in a formula. What was once a mixture of
molecules coming from a whale for example, has now been split into individual facets,
forming a family of odour types.

The aromatic has always been about an alliance with animals and plants, not only in
relationship to ourselves as sniffing animals in the evolutionary sense but also
compositionally, by forming a sexualized and territorial alliance, as in the case of the
animal line with musk from the dear, ambergris from the whale, castoreum from the
beaver, and civetone from the cat. Many animals secrete their own perfume
combinations in the creation of compositional territories. These four animals have
become dispersed through the world in bizarre contexts through the olfactory, far from
their life in the forest or sea, now that their scents have become distilled carriers of
information in contexts that are almost beyond imagining, far from home in the world of
perfumery.

Perhaps we need to reflect on these types of relationships, by putting ourselves on the

same plane as a cat that has forged an alliance with us, via its emanations. We need at
the very least, to tickle the civet cats arse gland in order to get at the perfume, rather
than cut off the glands with a knife and keep him entrapped in a gridded cage, as has

18
occurred in the past, or perhaps we should leave him in peace altogether.31 We need to
act more like shamans, if we want to care for our resources and perhaps make a model
of living from some kind of animism, where all things inherit the dynamics and status of
subjectivity and being. This is what is meant when we talk about a less grounded form
of materialism, one that might also contain enough sensitivity and emotional depth to
allow us to feel empathy for things like civet cats that have been unwittingly caught in
this bizarre chain of events. If we are able to put ourselves in the position of the civet
cat we realize that there are always these sly unknown forces waiting around the
corner, some of these will be good forces and some of these will be sad and unpleasant.
Even though it might be outside of the civet cats comprehension, his secretion into an
oriental perfume in waiting, in order for that perfume entity to come into existence,
there will undoubtedly be insertions from the outside that are not only completely alien
to the civet but at the same time, aspects of this process will be utterly tangible to its
feelings and consciousness. This is why we need to think carefully about our actions in
relationship to all of these causal links in these networks that are energized and
erupting from every pore at every given moment and that are also hiding away in
chambers of subterfuge that despite such concealment, form clandestine powers far
away from the awareness of any consciousness that is swept up within it.

And so we enter the space of the olfactory circuit filled with a myriad of interacting
entities that form a precarious network of hybrids, some of which are of singular
beauty, some that are repulsive and some that are great combinatory entities of all of
these qualities. A space of effervescent aromatic processes and representations
entwined and swept up that somehow are able to coalesce for a time and 'zing' in the
body. Within this ‘dirty funk' of the olfactory that bypasses language in the first
instance, we see the appearance of a wondrous Klein bottle that dissolves natural laws
and laws of representations in an energetic flow that is like excited gas, an eruption of
things in intimate contact: the perfume is coming out of the bottle.32 The olfactory is
that resistant spectre that congeals as a fleeting molecular cloud that dances on the back

31 D.A Van Dorp, R Klok and D.H Nugtren, New Macrocylic Compounds from the Secretions of the Civet Cat and
Musk Rat. (Vlaardingen, Netherlands, Unilever Research), 1973.
32 A Klein bottle is a surface on which one can move seamlessly from the inside to the outside. See
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/KleinBottle.html for a comprehensive explanation^

19
of the tongue, or that turns the nose into a spectral probe, this union of matter and flesh
as vibratory field.

Incorporeal and corporeal elements rub up against each other in every which way in
perception and impersonally as events of a world outside, the coupling of these
forming circuits that are switched on in the head, they belong to the cosmos as much as
they do to the human and the flower. Trying to think within the frame of cosmology
becomes an enabler and conjoiner that helps us to avoid regarding these two poles of
sentience and incorporeal matter as an incommensurable divide, since we are now
attuned to the molecule and its energetic vibrations as a composite in common with
everything.

Kant proclaimed that:

Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the
objects; but... let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of
metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition .33

How would Kant deal with the primordial elements now rising out of Fukishima that
will kill, or make ill any living creature that it contacts, regardless of how one chooses to
cognize it? 34 Energy impinges itself on other entities, and in the case of radioactive
substances, we feel the full force of its dramatic and crushing emanations. Radiation was
unknown until Röntgen noticed the effects of the material sprinkled onto a
photosensitive plate that hadn't been exposed to light. The formerly hidden emanations
revealed themselves:

With Rontgen's discovery of the phenomenon of radioactivity, in which solid

objects gradually convert themselves into radioactive waves, physicists began to
realize that there is no fundamental ontological division between matter and
energy .35

33 Preface to Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason B/XVI

34 Refers to the Fukishima Nuclear power plant disaster that took place on the 20th of March 2011 that
involved meltdowns and release of radioactive materials following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
35 Ernan Mcmullin in the chapter "Unsolved dilemmas: the concept of matter in the history of philosophy and
in contemporary physics" Ed Paul Davies; Niels Gregersen, Niels Henrik (2011-03-01, in Information and the

20
Even as solid objects are melting away, they still hold their identity for a period of time,
over and against all of this change. In plutonium, we have an object that consists of its
essential qualities, found in trace amounts in the earth, that tarnishes when oxidizes,
that can spontaneously ignite, could be mechanically shaped and formed because it is a
metal, has a measurable radioactive energy that endures beyond human time scales
straddling both the deep past and the distant future, is poisonous, is a subject of
politics, an object of desire, a commodity, a component of machinery, an object of fear,
horror and fascination. The product of industrialization and a shaper of economies,
plutonium is a powerful object that mobilizes untold armies of things. 36

For the anti-realist there is the interminable distraction of how one can know a thing
prior to it being given to consciousness. Unlike the immaterial rays of light cast onto the
retina that can so easily be given over to the 'knowing subject,” the olfactory places
consciousness, even from a pre-enlightenment perspective, firmly in the realm of
particles that come from the most visceral sources that drag us back to confronting

Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition),
54 .
36 After writing the section on Plutonium above inspired by Harman, I see that Plutonium has also been of
interest to Timothy Morton in regards to the power of object hood.

21
encounters with the actual. This is precisely the opposite of where the anti-realist felt
we should be heading where we could be bathed in an enlightened transcendental truth
based on human finitude. Once matter is encountered by consciousness, it becomes a
composite of idealized forms embroiled with the bundle of qualities that make up its
existence. Extinct objects retain their idealization as transcendent forms, as an image of
thought, figments of the imagination.

22
CHAPTER 1. CARNIVAL OF NETWORKS.

The metaphysicians of Tlon do not seek for truth or even for verisimilitude but
rather for the astounding. They judge that metaphysics is a branch of fantastic
literature. Jorge Luis Borges.37

A black box is a convention amongst scientists to stop trying to explain things

after a certain point. G Bateson - Steps to an Ecology of Mind.38

Aroma compositions and odours themselves manifest as complex ensembles, arising not
from perception alone, not exclusively from the outside world, not totally from the
kingdoms of the virtual and not only from the industrial but from the intersection of
many different dimensions.

Aroma - physical matter in relationship to a perceiving body that it enters and the
quality and intensity of that intimacy - a simple formula of n + 1. The circumstances of
all the days and years of what lead to this occasion, is passing through multiple entities
that are like sieves grabbing hold of things and letting others pass by, forming an
intensive territory of olfaction. There is within this seemingly simple situation, a
multitude of events that carry with them intensities that stretch far back in time, there
are also potentials that may be present but have not yet reached certain thresholds, or
have amassed enough energy to swamp the system. Other qualities will be acted on over
others, because our response is reactive to stronger forces over weak.

When working closely with aroma, one is always thinking about the life of the molecule
and the receiver as first point of contact and then of all of the things that flow into this
moment, and the consequences that arise from our contact with these chemical signals
as affectations sensuality, mental figures, all the cultural reactions and manifestations
and the semiotic and the ghostly images that appear. One is continually stimulated by
vague synaesthesias, and all manner of unnameable pleasurable sensations, along with
many repulsive reactions. One is brought into the frame of time in the events that are
set in motion - the places and former times that are conjured and in the memories that
seemingly come out of nowhere that conjure the feeling that what is actually recalled in

37 Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths (United Kingdom: New Directions, 2007) 10,
38 As quoted by Maria L Assad, Reading with Michel Serres, an encounter with time (State University of New
York press), 49.

23
smelling, is really a fabrication: in other words, all of the inputs and outputs that arise
from the aromatic.

Is there a way of conceiving of this multiplicity, not as a definitive totality or a reduced

unity that instead seeks to get to know more about the territory of olfaction as an
unreduced power and mystery? The following adopts a constructivist approach in
respect to the complex filigree of networks found both within olfaction and in everyday
life that point toward an abiding relationship with energy, information and expression
through experimentation with the experience of actual aroma molecules and from a
bricolage approach across many fields, with an emphasis on the networks that are
formed.

One is struck by the prolific number and variety of territories that aroma both
participates in and is evocative of. An awareness of which has been greatly enhanced
throughout the period of this study, both from the heightened state that comes with the
practice of smell training and from the first steps in composing with aromatic chemicals.
For example, on smelling a sample of a complex perfume in the studio, first mint is
smelled, then not long after, the memory of a patch of mint in the garden and in the next
moment as the smell changes - a vision of waxy claws of the succulent plant 'pig wort'
pronging out of sandy soil and then another picture appears in the mind, of frothy
waves crashing on the beach - the smell has taken us on a journey. All of this, from a
'green' smell that is now starting to change into peppermint, not the herbaceous version
that was so prominent at the start, one of crushed stems and leaves from the actual
plant, instead the confectionary version of minty-ness that is stripped of its vegeto-
greenness and is somehow luminous and ghostly, as if the earth had been drained out of
the smell. Once the technical memory kicks in the smell is broken down into
corresponding chemicals such as Stemone ,39 hydroxy citronellal, and delta demascone,
along with peppermint oil. These experiences are diffuse, contemplative, intense,
volatile, vaporous and variegated; as we shall see later, aroma literally enters the head

39 Stemone from Givaudan - 5-Methyl-3-heptanone oxime. Described on their website

http://www.givaudan.com/ as imparting a natural and fresh nuance to fragrance notes such as lily-of-the-
valley, narcissus, mandarin, fig leaves, grapefruit, black currant and tomato. It is an excellent modifier that
strengthens and modernises green notes. I once spilled a large amount of this substance onto a bench and the
whole room was filled with the strangest aroma of minty green coolness for days. This coolness seems to be
due to trigeminal nerve stimulation which is separate to olfactory epithelium.

24
and brain, and when it does so, our experience becomes a constellation of all kinds of

impressions of free associations, sparked by our contact with chemicals.

It matters not on which side of the olfactory circuit one begins, although if the literature

is anything to go by the starting point is often with the sniffer and what she perceives.

From Marcel Proust to Gale Largey and Rod Watson's "The Sociology of Odours",

countless numbers of writings on the psychology and perception o f olfaction such as "I

Know what I Like: Understanding Odour Preferences" by smell scientist Rachel S. Herz

and essays with titles such as Alan Hyde's "Offensive Bodies," or David Shulman's "The

Scent of Memory in Hindu South India," we have just a tiny sample of the diversity of

work that covers the human side of the smell circuit.40The literature that belongs to

anthropology and history, traces the use of aroma within the context of cultural

practices and diverse cultural assemblages that include the social and political, religious

practices and other cartographies o f urbanism. Alain Corbin's The Foul and the

Fragrant: Odour and the French Social Imagination , is exemplary in this genre. Another
important text is Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell by Constance Classen, David

Howes and Anthony Synnott written in 1994.

As they point out:

Smell is a highly elusive phenomenon. Odours, unlike colours, for instance,

cannot be named - at least not in European languages. 'It smells like...,' we have

to say when describing an odour, groping to express our olfactory experience by

means of metaphors... Smell is not simply a biological and psychological

phenomenon, though. Smell is cultural, hence a social and historical

phenomenon. Odours are invested with cultural values and employed by

societies as a means of and model for defining and interacting with the world.41

The research on the physiological aspects of olfaction is vast across the sciences,

penetrating many disciplines within the field, because odour is important throughout

biology as a chemical signalling system that spans the plant and animal kingdom.

40 A cross section of essay titles and articles from a recent compendium,

41 Constance Classen, David Howes and Anthony Synnott Aroma - The cultural History of Smell (London and
New York: Rutledge 1994), 3.

25
We see a divergence from the above, in the writings that focus on another territory
altogether, found in the manuals and guides of the technical side of perfumery. These
document the vast contribution of industry to our fragrant world, by focussing on
aroma chemistry. The literature is of a technical persuasion - lengthy lists of some ten
thousand manufactured odorants with cursory information provided in just a line or
two, often in index format, about facts that deal with the practical performance of these
chemicals and often with only a few words that describe a particular molecules
olfactory quality. Here odorants are treated like data. The collectively authored
Givaudan Index: Specifications o f Synthetics and Isolates fo r Perfumery, is a good example
of this type of literature .42 These are effectively reference manuals to be consulted by
specialists who already know something about the field and are perhaps looking for a
variation of some particular odorant molecule, or looking to replace an odorant with
one that has better performance or stability.

Articles or books written by perfumers, nearly always include aesthetic concerns

alongside the technical and they form somewhat of a bridge between the two poles
described above. A good example can be found in the writings of Arcadi Boix Camps that
join together his interests in developing a relationship between materials of perfumery
and the aesthetic and perceptual side of scent.43 44 These are the sorts of things that
concern most artists, and as creators, one would expect to see a crossover of interests
appear between technical performance and the aesthetic effects brought to an aroma
composition.

It is within the spectre of all of these different orientations that one comes to think
about aroma and its composition as belonging to a vast network of interests, a veritable
'palace of things.' There is certainly a rightful place for specializations of knowledge
within such a complex field, however, since our task in this study is to try to think about

42 The copy I have is dated 1961 and most of this information now belongs on the aroma chemical company
websites. As for authorship, it says on the opening page -"This work has been made possible through the
collective experience and contribution of the research and production chemists, analysts, perfumers, and
other members of THE GIVAUDAN ORGRANIZATION". An extensive index with comprehensive information can
be found on the Good Scents company website. IFF and Givaudan both have a great deal of information
publically available on the web. Auth unknown. The Givaudan Index: specifications of Synthetics and Isolates
for Perfumery Second Edition. (New York, N.Y: Givaudan-Delawanna 1961).
43 Arcadi Boix Camps, Perfumery Techniques in Evolution 2nd Edition (Carol Stream, Illinois: Allured Books 2009)
covers articles that the author has been writing from 1978 -1999.
44 The famous Hermes perfumer Jean Claude Elena writes more generally on the broad subject of perfumery in
his book, Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent, (New York, NY Arcade Publishing Books 2011).

26
aroma through the prism of a wide view that leads to artistic practice, as well as
wanting to try to understand more about the ontology of aroma,45 our concerns need to
be widened towards a genesis of sorts; not as a search for essence and truth as such but
as a 'generative' and dynamic system.

The inner and the outer might be thought of instead as folded territories, ridden with
tunnels as access points, rather than having impenetrable borders. The approach is to
try to work with appearances, not only as illusions and phantom chimeras, but as
animated figures and events that can be crafted in order to try to bring about a
speculative creative milieu, for the creation of new artistic smell worlds. In the spirit
that all of the inputs and outputs within the olfactory count for something, a closer
reading within this chapter of what constitutes the wider aspects of a network will be
explored. By adopting an approach of reading these connections within the olfactory as
flows of information, translating and mediating substances, experience, memory and
time and taken as a dynamic whole, this chapter attempts to develop our understanding
of the wider situation of mediation, transportation and translation of energies. Even
though in the context of this chapter we shall be taking a more general view on the
workings of these network ensembles, this premise is underpinned by bearing in mind
that it has been written with the basic olfactory circuit that is formed between aroma
molecules and humans, and humans and aroma molecules, along with a wider sense of
compositional intensity within reality.

This chapter will perhaps a little unconventionally, go some way towards placing Bruno
Latour's "Irreductions,” found within the 90 page passage of compact aphorisms that
appear in the second half of his book, The Pasteurization of France46 close to the centre
of the text. Latour has been chosen for this focus because throughout this research, his
ideas aligned sympathetically with the style of empirical study and thought that goes
hand in hand with the practice of working in a studio filled with a large library of aroma
molecules that continually conjure strange relationships between things. As a result,
even the relationship to the traditional atelier changes somewhat into a broader frame

45 Philosopher Graham Harman in the preface of his book Towards Speculative Realism (Winchester, UK: Zero
Books, 2009) makes a plea for the ontology of objects of all kinds...for there to be ontology of wood or of
stones, etc.
46 Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France. Translated by Alan Sheridan and John Law. (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University press, 1988).

27
as a place that houses a laboratory, a library of molecules, and a digital production
facility, along with all of the paraphernalia of more traditional methods of art making.

The huge number of aroma chemicals that make up this creative work space signal with
so much individuality, and yet, these powerful intoxicants are continually being
reshaped and reappraised by the act of mixing them together with other aromas. They
form these complex homogenous looking fluids and yet they are heterogeneous. Once
the connections are established between these substances by mixing them together in
precise proportions, they start to radiate in many directions. They distinguish
themselves as balanced and completed formulas, and yet each time one comes back to
smell them, something about them has also subtly changed. This is not so much to do
with the stability of the chemistry (although this can play a role) one assumes it is more
to do with the productive nature of perception.47 As much as one can master a simple
accord by mixing things together in the correct amount, one never feels in total control.
Each time an aroma is placed under the nose, regardless of how familiar one is with it,
there is always something more to discover in its depth in addition new figures appear
from the effervescent nature of its dynamic emissions. On the other side of the equation,
it's as if more language and feelings are being given over to the smell and that
knowledge about it is increasing, even if that knowledge belongs to a realisation that
these things are never singular, rather they are working within a gradient or bandwidth
of the particular that is variable.

This type of knowledge investment and this fascinating variability is a huge part of the
charm of the practice. As an artist now working with a medium of continuous variation,
is to gain the discovery that by working with aroma and such an incredible new palette
of materials, one is actually working with a small-scale continually volatising dynamic
universe.

The intention in this chapter is not to attempt to adopt Latour's 'experimental

metaphysics' as a definitive blueprint for what constitutes the networks and
assemblages of olfaction per se but to use the ideas he raises as a springboard for the
basis of a set of ongoing transformations, in how these ideas may or may apply in

47 Light and oxidation is the enemy of aroma chemistry hence it is mostly stored in amber bottles. Stability of
the materials is a concern on the technical side of perfumery. Temperature increases chemical reactions.
Perfumes are longer lasting than people think. See Robert.R.Calkin and J. Stephen Jellinek, Perfumery Practice
and Principles (New York: A WILEY INTERSCIENCE PUBLICATION, 1994), 167 -169.

28
respect of the olfactory. The approach within this chapter is also influenced by thinkers
such as Alfred North Whitehead, Michel Serres, Manuel Delanda, Levi Bryant, Jane
Bennett and Graham Harman, particularly in Harman's brilliant unpacking of Bruno
Latour's work on networks and his own ongoing attempts to come to grips with objects.
In doing so, we enter a general territory that has been of interest to a litany of
important philosophers such as Henri Bergson, William James, Gilles Deleuze, Michel
Serres, Gilbert Simondon, Gabrielle Tarde, Etienne Souriau, and Isabelle Stengers.48
These eminent philosophical practitioners can be characterised as thinkers who lean
towards the pragmatic side of philosophy and who are interested in rewriting the map
on process and materiality, expressionism and difference.

Gilbert Simondon’s recently translated work, is said to be an important though not well
known influence on thinkers such as Deleuze and Latour in the development of
concepts of individuation and difference, concrescence and assemblage. These concepts
underpin the approach taken here towards aroma, as not only a simple encounter with
an aggregate but also as a shaper of a complex multiplicity that extends far beyond its
physicality. Simondon's writings on technology have been described anecdotally as a
secret password to the idea of the machinic, pivotal in the work of Deleuze and Guattari.
His short series of lectures, "Two Lessons on Humans and Animals," although not
quoted directly within this text, provides a concise overview of the various attitudes
within the history of western philosophy to the categories of animal, human and
vegetable, the interrelations of which play a critical part in olfaction.

The critical terms that emerge from "Irreductions" and later developed by Bruno Latour
and others in Actor Network Theory, mediation, translation and transportation, will be
engaged with prior to the presentation of how these qualities manifest, more
specifically within the olfactory in Chapter 2, Signals& Modes and in Chapter 3
Substances.

48pp Graham Harman, Prince of Networks, Bruno Latour and Metaphysics. (Melbourne: Repress 2009)

29
1.1 Individuals on the same footing

Bruno Latour tells us in "Irreductions" o f ‘actors' or 'actants' engaged in some kind of

struggle or trial. Everything is swept up into a boiling pot of negotiations, turning

everything into a kind of energetic enterprise. Actants can be transported from one

network to another and what enable these transportations are acts of mediation and

translation, through actants that are a "source of action."

What Latour is describing is reality made up of a trial between things, all of whom are

negotiating in their own style. Everything is on the same footing but not everything is

equally strong. These ‘actors' can be animate or inanimate, organic or inorganic, mental

or physical. Latour does not draw any distinction between what things are made of.

Instead, he is far more concerned about the alliances on which this crowd can draw

upon, generate or resist.

The Australian-born, nineteenth century British philosopher Samuel Alexander asserts:

Prima facie there is no warrant for the assumption, still less for the dogma that,
because all experience implies a mind, that which is experienced owes its being
and its qualities to mind. Minds are but the most gifted members known to us in
a democracy of things. In respect of being or reality all existences are on an equal
footing. They vary in eminence; as in a democracy, where talent has an open
career, the most gifted rise to influence and authority.49

This equivalence is certainly not an appeal for a reductive kind of equality, since

everything is undergoing tests of strength; the implications though are astounding

because suddenly, things in themselves become as real as anything else:

Things-in-themselves? But they're fine, thank you very much. And how are you?

You complain about things that have not been honoured by your vision? You feel

that these things are lacking the illumination of your consciousness? But if you

missed the galloping freedom of the zebras in the savannah this morning, then so

much the worse for you; the zebras will not be sorry that you were not there, and

in any case you would have tamed, killed, photographed, or studied them. Things

49 Samuel Alexander, Space, Time and Deity vol 1-1920 (London: Adamant Media Corporation, 2007), 7.

30
 in themselves lack nothing, just as Africa did not lack whites before their
arrival .50

What Latour is referring to when he uses the term 'things in themselves/ is Kant's use of
this phrase to refer to things that exist prior to their being accessed by the senses as
phenomena. 'Things in themselves' belong to the noumenal, where Kant creates a logical
division within reality between our knowledge of things that exist prior to
consciousness and things that are accessed by our consciousness. This has big
implications for how the world is viewed, because it places our senses and experience at
the centre of knowledge: we become active organizers of reality. The downside of this is
that our view of the world becomes increasingly anthropocentric.

This distinction forms what has been described by philosopher Levi Bryant and
others ,51 as a 'correlationist circle' between subjects and objects. In Latour's
metaphysics we see a strident reply to the Kantian view that has been foundational to so
much thinking in the West, particularly in terms of how Kant's thought was embraced
within enlightenment critique. However, Latour starts with everything on the same
footing. Therefore, instead of getting bogged down in refuting this split, when we enter
the Latourian universe, everything takes on the status of a 'thing in itself because
everything is real and comes with agency.

One of Latour's important insights has been to show how divisions of many kinds,
including the subject/object distinction, distinctions between nature and culture, mind
and body, form part of the make-up of the way we think, whilst at the same time, there
is a proliferation of all kinds of hybrids that lead to the situation we are in today,
heading full steam into a ’post-human' world. On the one hand, it is our separation from
nature that allows us to be so cavalier with inanimate matter that at the same time
produces hybrid after hybrid that comes from our deep relationship with it as workable
material. All kinds of entities coalesce in synthesis, as we trace our way through a world
where everything has agency and certain purifications become powerful political or
ideological agents in heterogeneous networks.

50 Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988),
193.
51Quentin Meillassoux outlines correlationism in his book, After Finitude - An Essay on the Necessity of
Contingency. (United Kingdom: Continuum, 2010)

31
As Harman points out in a Latourian world:

Things in themselves lack nothing [...]' the same could be said not only of Zebras,
but of plastic and stars as well. Things themselves are actants -not signifieds,
phenomena, or tools for human praxis.

Change is produced by the alliances things are capable of gathering or resisting, rather
than being derived from any essence or inner kernel. All the powers that things are
capable of have everything they need, through modes of action .52 One is reminded of a
famous principle of Spinoza from the ethics, so fondly quoted by Deleuze, "nobody
knows what a body is, because nobody knows what a body can do.”53

These irreducible actors paradoxically do contain what at first might seem to be at the
least a kind of compression, rather than any significant level of reduction, namely, the
locating of individuals onto a ground of negotiation. Because differences and powers are
negotiated through processes of all kinds - physical, mental, political and technical - this
flatness empowers everything to count for something, rather than dividing reality into
what we have access to through the senses and on what happens to turn up at the time.

The experience of smell manifests in perception, however any one working closely with
aroma understands that each individual molecule carries characteristics that are as
much to do with its molecular structure, as with the receptors that have evolved to
allow a smell to be experienced. It is salient to remember that not all molecules are
smelly. Thinking about a molecules status prior to its arrival in perception leads to
interesting questions about how things are in the world, prior to our experience of
them.

Latour highlights rather wittily, some of the limitations of the divisions set in play by
Kant and the crowd of negotiators that make up "the modern constitution54” and in the

52 There are only 93 elements that make up everything in existence; given the sheer variety of things in the
world this small number of elements seems rather surprising.
53 Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics, Translated from the Latin by R.H.M Elwes (1883)
54 Latour begins Chapter 2 of We hove never been Modern by describing the modern constitution as such
"Modernity is often defined in terms of humanism, either as a way of saluting the birth of 'man' or as a way of
announcing his death. But this habit itself is modern, because it remains asymmetrical. It overlooks the
simultaneous birth of 'non-humanity' -things, or objects, or beasts - and the equally strange beginning of a
crossed out God, relegated to the sidelines. Modernity arises first from the conjoined creation of those three
entities, and then from the masking of the conjoined birth and the separate treatment of the three
communities while, underneath, hybrids continue to multiply as an effect of this separate treatment. Pg.13

32
same breath he reminds us of the power of relational time, which is an active and
productive force of change. Time has agency in these negotiations - time is an actant as
much as an object, or a person, and change is time:

Without you "the world”, as you put it, would be reduced to nothing. You are the
Zorros, the Tarzans, the Kants, the guardians of the widowed, and the protectors
of orphaned things... It is certainly hard work to have to extract the world from
nothing every morning, aided only by the biceps and the transcendental ego.
Crusoe gets bored and lonely on his island because of this drudgery. And at night
when you sleep, what becomes of the things that you have abandoned? You soon
lose yourself in the jungle of the unconscious. Thus are your heroes doubly
unhappy. Things-in-themselves muted and empty, expect from them their daily
bread, while at night your heroes are powerless supermen who devour their own
liver and leave their tasks undone. What would happen if we were to assume
instead that things left to themselves are lacking nothing? For instance, what
about this tree, those others call Wellingtonia? Its strength and its opinions
extend only as far as it does itself. It fills its world with gods of bark and demons
of sap. If it is lacking anything, then it is most unlikely to be you. You who cut
down woods are not the god of trees. The tree shows what it can do, and as it
does so, it discovers what all the forces it welcomed can do. You laugh because I
attribute too much cunning to it? Because you can fell it in five minutes with a
chain saw? But don't laugh too soon. It is older than you. Your fathers made it
speak long before you silenced it. Soon you may have no more fuel for your saw.
Then the tree with its carboniferous allies may be able to sap your strength. So
far it has neither lost nor won, for each defines the game and time span in which
its gain or loss is to be measured . 55

In these heterogeneous networks that arise across the divide, strange marriages are
betrothed across seemingly forbidden borders. Alliances take place between a
multitude of species - the animate and the inanimate, between animal and vegetable,
and between vegetable and mineral. New nation states are always on the rise and dying
out, made up of corporeal and incorporeal elements. This gathering implies a dynamic

55 Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988),
193.

33
"movement during a process of assembling ."56 New species and new substances
resisting each other and coalescing in what Latour describes as a 'parliament of things'
in counterpoint to what philosopher Levi Bryant refers to as the "monarchy of the
human." 57 58 This remark is seemingly aimed straight at Kant, for whom "objects must
conform to our cognition," and similarly squarely in the eye of the subjective idealism of
Berkeley’s radical empiricism, where "To be means to perceive," as explicated in his
"Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Understanding."

Latour states:

All things that exist now, and not just potentially, are beings-at-work, and all of
them have a tendency towards being-at-work in a particular way that would be
their proper and "complete" way.

In effect, these "beings-at-work” are objects of some sort in the broadest sense, and they
also assemble into systems through mediators. The shock of Latour's line of thinking
can be found in the tale he tells of the first time he was struck by a most remarkable
idea:

I knew nothing, then, of what I am writing now but simply repeated to myself:
'Nothing can be reduced to anything else, nothing can be deduced from anything
else, and everything may be allied to everything else'. This was like an exorcism
that defeated demons one by one. It was a wintry sky, and a very blue. I no longer
needed to prop it up with a cosmology, put it in a picture, render it in writing,
measure it in a meteorological article, or place it on a Titan to prevent it falling
on my head [...]. It and me, them and us, we mutually defined ourselves. And for
the first time in my life I saw things unreduced and set free . 59

Latour's idea of an 'actant' or 'actor' bears some resemblance to Alfred North

Whitehead's 'actual entities' from his work, Process and Reality:

56 Bruno Latour. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Clarendon Lectures in

Management Studies), 1.
Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988), 22
58 Levi Bryant, The Democracy of Objects (Ann Arbor -University of Michigan Library, Open Humanities press,
2011), 26.
59 Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988),
163.

34
 ‘Actual entities'—also termed 'actual occasions’—are the final real things of
which the world is made up. There is no going behind actual entities to find
anything more real. They differ among themselves: God is an actual entity, and so
is the most trivial puff of existence in far-off empty space. But, though there are
gradations of importance, and diversities of function, yet in the principles which
actuality exemplifies all are on the same level. The final facts are, all alike, actual
entities; and these actual entities are drops of experience, complex and
interdependent. 60

Whitehead makes the link between subject and occasion. By making the terms actual
entity and actual occasion coalesce, we see more clearly not only his line of thought, but
also the superposition that makes an entity into both subject and event, human and
non-human. Further, he makes the explicit point that "The notion o f ‘substance’ is
transformed into that o f ‘actual entity."61

It is no coincidence that Whitehead was capable of conceptualizing such a

superposition, as Timothy E. Eastman remarks in his book, "Physics and Whitehead,
Quantum, Process and Experience":

Whitehead was well versed in relativity theory and recognized the need for such
frame dependence as early as 1905, independent of Einstein. Further,
Whitehead’s 1905 memoir "undertook the unification of geometry and physics
by means of... symbolic logic... Not until 1916, in the General Theory of
Relativity, did Einstein express the unification of geometry and physics.’’62

Gilbert Simondon outlines a similar formula for his analyses of the machinic in his essay
of 1958, "On the Mode of the Existence of Technical Objects," where he writes the
formula:

Element > Individual (arriving at] Ensemble

This looks like a perfume formula.

60 Whitehead, Alfred North (2010-05-11). Process and Reality (Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of
Edinburgh During the Session 1927-28) (Free Press), 18.
61 Whitehead, Alfred North (2010-05-11). Process and Reality (Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of
Edinburgh During the Session 1927-28) (Free Press), 18.
62 Timothy E. Eastman, Physics and Whitehead, Quantum, Process and Experience. (State University of New
York Press: 2003), 21.

35
Going back to Latour, Graham Harman in his erudite commentary on Latour's
metaphysics in his book, Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics63 makes the
point that what is enabled by the line of thought running through Latour's work, is the
possibility for things to be what they are, regardless of their relative weaknesses or
strengths:

Every human and nonhuman object now stands by itself as a force to reckon
with. No actor, however trivial, will be dismissed as mere noise in comparison
with its essence, its context, its physical body, or its conditions of possibility.
Everything will be absolutely concrete, all objects and modes will be on the same
footing. In Latour's new and unreduced cosmos, philosophy and physics both
come to grips with the forces of the world, but so do generals, nannies, surgeons,
writers, chefs, biologists, aeronautical engineers, and seducers. And though these
actors are human, they are no different in kind from the forces that draw objects
to the centre of the earth or repress desires in the unconscious."

Harman goes onto to show how active Latour's work is in making connections between
'actants,' whilst at the same time demolishing notions of first principles, such as
essences:

At no place in any of these couplings is it possible to point to a term that is purely

natural, since our access to the things-in-themselves is never direct, and since
the gateway to any piece of knowledge is often the locus of a rhetorical
competition or struggle. By the same token there is no point in any of the
connections that would be purely constructed or purely political. 64

Change any of the actors in the mix and completely new networks appear. One could say
every network is unique and even if it has a close relative lurking nearby, or belongs
within a family, every network is a variation that is also incommensurable because it is
capable of inheriting and discarding new actors. There are no limits to what can be
potentially inherited by a network, but this does not mean that networks are made up of
everything, or that everything is in one network. Some networks will never meet, just
like some parts of the ocean will never meet. Remarkably, this is not as fanciful as it

63 This text has acted as a guide through my readings of Bruno Latour's work.
64 Graham Harman, Chapter 5, "Bruno Latour, King of Networks" in Towards Speculative Realism - Essays and
Lectures, (Winchester, UK: Zero Books. 1999)

36
might sound such as in the case of recently discovered patches of water that travel from
Bass Straight into the Tasman Sea, and all the way over to the Indian Ocean without
intermixing.65 These are islands of stability within a churning sea:

Between one network and another, as between one force and another, nothing is
by itself either commensurable or incommensurable. Thus we never emerge
from a network no matter how far it extends.

What is a force? Who is it? What is it capable of? Is it a subject, text, object,
energy or thing? How many forces are there? Who is strong and who is weak? Is
this a battle? Is this a game? Is this a market? All of these questions are defined
and deformed only in further trials.

In place of "force" we may talk of "weaknesses", "entelechies”, "monads", or more simply

"actants"66

In "Irreductions 1.2.8" Latour claims that:

Every entelechy makes a whole world for itself. It locates itself and all the others;
it decides which forces it is composed of; it generates its own time; it designates
those who will be its principle of reality. It translates all the other forces on its
own behalf, and it seeks to make them accept the version of itself that it would
like them to translate. Nietzsche called this "evaluation," and Leibniz
"expression." 67

The use of the Aristotelian word 'entelechy' is interesting. Here it might be interpreted
that Latour is using it in the sense of a "self-moving self-realizing power." Jane Bennett
shows how the German biologist Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch in his use of the word
"retains Aristotle's idea that "there is at work, a something in life phenomena 'which

55 Dr Baird was the lead author of a paper published this week in Geophysical Research Letters. Dr Baird is a
Research Fellow with the UTS Plant Functional Biology and Climate Change Cluster and a member of the C3
Coastal Oceanography Team."In this case, we have seen for the first time a 200-metre tall, 40 kilometre wide
disc formed from water that originated in Bass Strait that amazingly remains undiluted as it travels hundreds
of kilometres," he said. Cited on the UTS science website http://datasearch2.uts.edu.au/science/news-
events/news-detail.cfm?ltemld=29899 on 25 feb 2012
65 Bruno Latour. The Pasteurization of France, trans by Alan Sheridan and John Law. (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University press. 1988), 169.
67 Bruno Latour. The Pasteurization of France, trans by Alan Sheridan and John Law. (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University press. 1988), 166.

37
bears an end in itself ."68 Latour uses this word interchangeably with others, but
eventually he settles on the word 'actant' or 'actor'. An 'actant' is not limited to being a
singularity (though it could be one), nor is it limited to being a property of a thing. The
interpretation in the context of the reading here, is that it is something more like a
container or a bounding box .69

One speculates about the extent of the boundaries of a network. Perhaps it is a question
of thresholds and energy. Actants, monads within monads, or entelechies, forming
networks - there may be a point where the energy of a gathering runs out. The actants
may simply lack relevancy to each other, or don't have enough energy to overcome each
other, or enough persuasive ability to join forces. Or they have left the scene altogether,
perhaps by having joined with other actants that are now circulating in territories that
are out of reach? A scheme like the one above becomes possible because we are dealing
with all kinds of actants translating and mediating each other that formerly were
housed in all kinds of exclusion zones of language, or laws of physics, notions of sub­
atomic structures, delegated as phenomena, epiphenomena, matter and substance.
Latour's mission is to try to reconstitute the relationships between all of these things, in
the same way that artists have always been conjoiners of seemingly incompatible
categories. Latour creates a compositional metaphysics of conjoiners, something that
Michel Serres, Latour's teacher and mentor, has continually brought to the table
throughout his own work, in one way or another. On the other hand, we are describing
coordinates that can exist locally or globally, based not only on proximity but relevancy
to each other or its context, all of which put relationships in one form or another at the
centre.

If the molecules of a compound are changed through decomposition, the atoms either
persist in new combinations, or return to their former life as individual elements .70

68 Jane Bennett. Vibrant Matter, A political Ecology of things. (Durham, London: Duke University press. 2010),
63.
69 Within 3d visualisation software we use the notion of a bounding box as a container of a set of co-ordinates
that can then hold all kinds of relevant abstractions including points, lines, vertices etc.
70 Neil D Jespersen, James E Brady and Alison Hyslop."1.3 Matter and its classifications," in Chemistry: The
Molecular nature of Matter, Sixth Edition (USA: john Wiley & Sons 2012), 5.
Chemistry is especially concerned with chemical reactions, which are transformations that alter the chemical
composition of substances. An important type of chemical reaction is decomposition, in which one substance
is changed into two or more others. For example, if we pass electricity through molten (melted) sodium
chloride (salt), the silvery metal sodium and the pale green gas, chlorine is formed. This change has
decomposed sodium chloride into two simpler substances. No matter how we try, however, sodium and

38
Mass is neither lost nor created in chemical reactions; this is described by the law of
conservation of mass. By the same token, it takes a certain amount of a chemical to
supersaturate water, or many numbers of people wearing red football jumpers to
eliminate the blue of the plastic seats in a football stadium. Things can be nearby and
yet completely far away from each other. Things can be touching and not touching at the
same time. Things can be producing without an awareness of what is being undertaken.
Things can be information without being coded by an alphabet or by abstract symbols
or icons.

In the passage below, Bruno Latour describes translation in action between actors, and
further shows in this poetic example how things remain irreducible, despite the
diversity of transforms that things produce and come into contact with:

There is room for the one who has lived, for the day of her death, for the bullet of
the killer, for the inquiry that leads to no conclusion, for the memory of those
who speak of the dead friend. Nothing sums up those places, nothing explains
them, and nothing justifies them. Innocent? No, since we have gone beyond the
distinction between the innocent and the guilty made by the erection of the
scaffold. Incomprehensible? No, since we are beyond operations that establish,
day after day, what we understand and what we do not know. The bird, far from
its name, flies from the name that I give it, but continues to fly in treatises on
zoology and the poems of St. John Perse. The gull is in its sky, irreducible to ours,
but the language of the taxonomists is in the books, itself irreducible to any gull
ever dreamed of living or dead. 71

chloride cannot be decomposed further by chemical reactions into still simpler substances that can be stored
and studied. In chemistry, substances that cannot be decomposed into simpler materials by chemical reactions
are called elements.
71 Bruno Latour. The Pasteurization of France, trans by Alan Sheridan and John Law. (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University press. 1988), 170.

39
1.2 Language

Word after word, one sentence finishes and another begins. Each word individual and
yet related by meaning in a series and sequence forming syntax - a syntax of expression
- a style.

For Latour the power of rhetoric looks like this:

All reasoning is of the same form: one sentence follows an-other. Then a third
asserts that these are identical even though they do not resemble one another.
Thenceforth the second is used in place of the first, and a fifth affirms that the
second and the fourth are identical, even though .. . and so on, until one sentence
is displaced while pretending not to have moved, and translated while
pretending to have stayed faithful.72

This styling of relationships and the collective kingdoms that are formed materialise in
the world like ghost ships appearing out of fog .73 Information can be both immaterial as
signifiers and found in physical forms as expressions of matter that hover between
virtual qualities and downright physical actions, and when these realms come together
as is the case with perfume, new compositional realities arise. Within this fusion of
immaterial and material realms of information, one is continually wondering about
what lies beyond the event horizon of these networked relationships? Aroma molecules
dance freely in the air. What is perceived as an odour for one being may simply be felt
in a different way, by another .74 The avowed realist philosopher and Deleuzian scholar,
Manuel De Landa describes an expressive principle that includes non-human entities as
much as it does sentient beings:

It is a well-known fact that a beam of white light is composed of many pure-

colour components, or wavelengths. In addition, like the pitches of musical
sounds, the different colour components have their own rate of vibration, or

72 Bruno Latour. The Pasteurization of France, trans by Alan Sheridan and John Law. (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University press. 1988), 176.
73 Terrance W. Deacon in his book Incomplete Nature, How Mind emerged from Matter (New York:
W.W.Norton and Company 2009), 20, writes "Similarly a written word is a placeholder. It is a pointer to a
space in a network of meanings, each also pointing to one another and to potential features of the world. But
a meaning is something virtual and potential."
74 Some of these molecules are highly effective insecticides; many are precursor molecules for many drugs.
Some are highly flammable. There are all kinds of agency for these molecules beyond aroma.

40
 frequency. These two characteristics allow both light and sound to produce
distinctive effects on animal and human brains, effects that may be used for
expressive purposes by territorial animals and human artists. But possession of a
nervous system is not necessary to make expressive use of colour or sound. Even
humble atoms can interact with light, or other forms of electromagnetic energy,
in a way that literally expresses their identity. Atoms in a gas, for example, if
energetically excited, will emit light with an arrangement of bright parallel lines,
each line corresponding to a single frequency and positioned relative to one
another according to their wavelength. Each atomic species, hydrogen, oxygen,
carbon, and so on, has its own characteristic pattern of lines, its own distinctive
"fingerprint" as it were. And much like fingerprints may be used to determine the
identity of humans, these line patterns can be used by spectroscopists to
determine the chemical identity of a given material. Born in the nineteenth
century, the science of spectroscopy has become quite complex, using a variety of
methods and devices to extract fingerprints from materials, but it ultimately
relies on the capacities of atoms themselves to produce expressive patterns,
through emission, absorption, or other processes.

The odour hasn't gone anywhere prior to it being received by the sniffer, its volatile
energy is still vibrating harmonically at the same rate; it has simply entered into some
other relationship elsewhere. Perhaps it is a relationship that is extremely discreet with
almost nothing going on, or perhaps it belongs to a violent acrobatics in the
thermodynamic currents of air on which it rides, and by the forces of gravity that shape
the universe.

41
1.3 Congregations of worlds

Every network obtains things it never knew it had and yet these things still remain
critical components in the dynamics of the network. Harman claims that:

Every actant can be viewed either as a black box or a multitudinous network,

depending on the situation. Actants can be either matter or form in different
respects: matter for larger assemblies that make use of them, form from the
tinier components they unite beneath its umbrella .75

Actants will always contain a deeper mystery that amounts to novelty. When the
constituent circuitry is unable to be observed, or goes unrecognized, or unfelt except
indirectly, we know that we are encountering a multiplicity, even though the nature of
these forces is unavailable (to us] they are still available to the system. For something to
be a black box it must function irrespective of any given entity's access to what is going
on inside. It seems that networks are full of these mysterious and far from benign
entities:

Leibniz was right to say that monads have neither doors nor windows, for they
never come out of themselves. However, they are sieves, for they endlessly
negotiate about their frontiers, about who the negotiators will be, and about
what they ought to do. As a result they end up like chimeras, unable to
determine which is the door and which the window, which is stage left and
which stage right. 76

The rose itself is a container filled with entities, and the aroma it emits is a force of
many. Different varieties of roses have different smells, but roses certainly don't smell
of lavender, nor do they smell of jasmine .77 There are hundreds of molecules that make

75 Graham Harman- Prince of Networks Bruno Lotour and Metaphysics (Melbourne: Repress 2009) 34.
76 Bruno Latour- The Pasteurization of France, 1.2.7 166
77 Musical Notation is a black box to someone who cannot read sheet music. If one undertakes lessons and
learns the code for musical translation from notation to the pressing of the correct keys on a Piano, the Black
Box is opened and becomes a Grey Box.77 A White box is said to occur when one is able to see inside the box
but not to be able to alter the code. The terms "black box" and "white box" are convenient and figurative
expressions of not very well determined usage. I shall understand by a black box a piece of apparatus, such as
four-terminal networks with two input and two output terminals, which performs a definite operation on the
present and past of the input potential, but for which we do not necessarily have any information of the
structure by which this operation is performed. On the other hand, a white box will be a similar network in

42
up the smell that reaches our nose. Every smell is a complex of actants intermingling
and volatizing, circulating within the realms of the network that they are destined (for a
time) to be housed within. The overall smell of rose is a complex enigma or object, until
we find a way to break that smell down through for example spectroscopy, or a
knowledgeable nose and see which characters form its constituent parts, each one
emitting a fragrance note towards a whole.

Rose aroma then, is a congregation of odorant molecules coalescing in a dynamic field.

The smell of a rose is the ability for the plant to assemble a perfume which becomes a
black box, because unless one holds a key to what it is made o f,(through whatever
means) it will be thought of as an individuated entity, rather than what it really is, a
mass of individual smelly molecules that has been assembled for noses to be sensitive
to. All of the entities of the plant are contributing to the composing of fragrance that
occurs within the kingdom of the plant species, and the sly forces of evolution has two
faces, one of outcome producing meaning, in spite of any intention towards meaning.

Back in the world of human perfumery, a perfume may be made up of hundreds of

molecules. Perfumes which utilize so-called natural materials add complexity to a
foundation of single molecule aroma chemicals, all of which play their part. Natural
materials such as absolutes and essential oils contain miniscule amounts of molecules
within them. Aroma chemicals as single molecules form the skeleton or the bones of a
fragrance, by providing single notes on which to build complexity that is found in the
natural materials.78

which we have built in the relation between input and output potentials in accordance with a definite
structural plan for securing a previously determined input-output relation.
78 So called single molecules are often isotopes in other words they are not pure. These impurities are thought
to have a not insignificant impact on aroma quality.

43
1.4 Compositional Battlefields

The following is a rhetorical passage that imagines these 'carnival networks' in action,
networks that belong to the compositional plane:

The battlefields contain so many characters. Some of them appear solid and some are
crumbling masses the size of mountains, others are free floating vibrating entities, much
smaller than ants or germs and even smaller than a pin head, for example,
approximately 500, million, million atoms would fit on a pin head. And yet these entities
are chimeras, even if they appear solid. Solidity is a function of observation and a
question of the scale of the observer. If the observer is gigantic like in the uncountable
number of electron bonds and the vast spaces that make up the folded topology of a
human, many objects will seem solid to our eyes. If we were able to shrink ourselves
down closer to the scale of a molecule, we would soon realise that there are vast gaps
and crevices between things and that things are held together, not because they are
solid as such, rather than actually touching, things are held together by a massless force
- the electrical force bonds that bind electrons in orbit.79

Once things are released from the viewpoint of solidity, they signal differently because
everything is vibrating with the energy of the electromagnetic spectrum and the other
three forces.80 Substance dissolves into gossamer threads:

Thus the famous French physicist Bernard d'Espagnat argues that it is no longer
accurate to understand objects as objects; they should really be understood as
properties of a field: ways in which the field is manifested at a particular place
and time.

According to d'Espagnat's controversial book, In Search o f Reality, the only

possible answer is that the quantum state vector expresses properties of some
deeper underlying reality. Since we know its manifestations to us - we know
what it is like when measured - and since quantum physics forbids us to speak
about what it is "really like" when not measured, d'Espagnat speaks of it as a

79 See the chapter 4- a life of metal, for a good explanation of the gaps between things on a molecular level.
Jane Bennett. Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things.(Durham, London: Duke University press. 2010) 52-
61
80 The four fundamental forces - electromagnetic, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force and gravity.

44
 "veiled reality." His is a sort of realism at a distance: we cannot say that reality is
"just this way or that," since our observations and what we observe are
intertwined; and yet we can say that the-world-as-observed is a manifestation of
the real; reality really takes this or that form in our observations. Unfortunately,
for traditional theories of matter, however, this "veiled reality" can be neither
mental nor material, in so far as it precedes the mind-matter distinction
altogether.81

Actants belong to the living and nonliving, the animate and the inanimate, and burrow
all the way down to the subatomic, which seems to be occulting itself depending on the
viewpoint and position of the observer. In the same way things that exist on the
terrestrial are also signalling variable qualities under particular circumstances, this
oscillation between solidity and field is like a pendulum between the horizon of
consciousness in the terrestrial and the celestial realms that exceed the human frame
and also encompass it.82

The symbolic is an intrinsic aspect of human consciousness that can be circumscribed

into concrete artefacts; this makes it as real as anything else. The symbolic surpasses
the human once it reaches the wall of the cave and then it enters other domains entirely:

2.5.6.2 Since whatever resists is real, there can be no "symbolic "to add to "the
real." Before having symbols "added" to them, actants lacked nothing. Thus, if we
stop reducing them, this superfluous addition, in turn, becomes nothing.

If only we were freed from the symbolic, the "real" would be returned to us. I am
prepared to accept that fish may be gods, stars, or food, that fish may make me ill
and play different roles in origin myths. They lead their lives, and we lead ours.
Indeed, our lives have overlapped and made use of one another for so long that
there are Jonah's in every whale, and whales in each of Melville's folios.

Who will stop the translations of fishing, oceanography, diving- of everything

that we and the fish use to take the measure of each other? That person is not yet

81 Ernan McMullan in the chapter "Unsolved dilemmas: the concept of matter In the history of philosophy
and in contemporary physics" ed, Paul Davies; Niels Henrik Gregersen (2011-03-01). Information and the
Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics.(Cambridge University Press.) Kindle Edition. 56
82 Superpositioning in Quantum theory.

45
 born. (Interlude IV). Those who wish to separate the "symbolic" fish from its

"real" counterpart should themselves be separated and confined (3.0.0).83

Memories exceed language and yet are bound up with it - memories are also sensory

pictures and are affective, forming sentences and songs that are sparked by all kinds of

triggers. An important one for Marcel Proust came from a taste that was so powerful it

became an entry in his great novel, In Search o f Lost Time.84 Memories, when they are

part of the flesh, are not stored like binary code etched in one place and then

transported as a copy. They are continually being rewoven as tendrils of fractal

zigzagging electrical energy.85

People have found the means to store things away as signs through collections of data.

This is because data is such an important tool in gathering allies and overcoming

enemies. These store houses are scrawled with complex interweaving's of marks often

over inanimate materials in the form of electrical signals in circuits. However, this

methodology can be as direct as cutting a notch into a tree, which is a kind of

mechanical marking, in combination with the energy it takes to make the inscription

and assign it with meaning.86 Sometimes data is painted on the skin permanently as a

tattoo and also painted onto stone with ochre, or stamped onto paper, or inscribed onto

highly polished platters from electrical charges that change the magnetic field on the

surface of disks. Within the brain, the energetic electrical struggle to deal with novel

experiences, according to neuroscientists, is a competitive one amongst the neurons and

also fractal.87

83 Bruno Latour. The Pasteurization of France, trans by Alan Sheridan and John Law. (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University press. 1988), 188.
84 The famous passage by Marcel Proust "Swann's Way" (New York: Modern Library 1928)
85 See - S.Van Toller, S.Hotson and M.Kendal-Reed "The Brain and the Sense of Smell "under the sub-heading
"Chaos and Olfaction in Fragrance" in The Psychology and Biology of Perfume. Ed. S.Van Toller, S.Hotson and
M.Kendal-Reed. (Elsevier Applied Sciences. 1991), 217-219.
86 The trees near the skate ramp in Lawson have markings and notches said to be made by the local indigenous
people from the Gunddungara/Durag nation. Interestingly the explorer's tree just outside Katoomba with the
names of Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth is said to be fake. There are many grinding grooves on rocks in the
local area these show where people would have made tools.
87 See - "Spontaneous Neural Activity Is Required for the Establishment and Maintenance of the Olfactory
Sensory Map." C. Ron Yu, Jennifer Power, Gilad Barnea, Sean O'donnell, Hannah E.V.Brown, Joseph Osborne,
Richard Axel and Joseph A. Gogos. See also - S.Van Toller, S.Hotson and M.Kendal-Reed. The Brain and the
Sense of S.Van Toller and G.H.Todd. Chaos and Olfaction in Fragrance-77?e Psychology and Biology of Perfume.
(London and New York: Elsevier Applied Sciences. 1991), 217 -218.

46
Things in themselves' don't arrive from anywhere, they are already here. Who knows
how they manage to survive this double life, or what it consists of. Physicists build giant
ring-shaped tunnels that belong to complex networks that make up devices such as the
Large Hadron Collider in order to try to reach what the senses alone cannot apprehend;
particles exceeding the speed of light, or verification of the Higgs boson .88 89

Cognition has evolved through the deep recesses of generations, giving us amongst
many things, a feel for an arrow of time. Circulating on the outside of consciousness,
time ceases to be a category and is merely the result of thermodynamic change, or
entropy. Evolutional change happens in each birth from the influence of generations
that are now well beyond living memory within the kingdom of representational ghosts.
One could say we mature and brew change in ourselves in the same way wine matures
in the bottle. This evolutionary impulse is as real as anything and yet it is unfelt, except
in what it brings to us through our genetic make-up. Evolution and the workings of the
genes are products of negotiations for the survival of the most worthy traits.

Weakness and strength can be found equally in an avalanche and in the bending of trees
on a windswept plateau, and also in the humble nature of the mixtures of perfumery,
where weaker smells are overcome by stronger ones. Modifiers are used to temper
overly strong accords into aromas that then become smoother. Remarkably, extreme
dilution can change the character of a material entirely, from harsh to multifaceted.

Perfumes are thermodynamic in their emanations, heading towards equilibrium into

the environment and as such are subject to entropy. According to classical physics it is
highly improbable, but not impossible, for the perfume to seep back into the bottle.
When the fluid is in the bottle, entropy is being momentarily arrested and in a low state,
and then enacted more dramatically into a high state by opening the bottle.

Revolutions happening on many scales are occurring everywhere and at all times. There
certainly seems to have been a significant change in the humble sphere of perfumery
when for example, the relatively discreet smelling amber velvety chemical ISO E Super
and methyl dihydrojasminate, a transparent ghostly facet of jasmine known as Hedione
appeared on the scene. The capability of these materials to act as modifiers of harsh

88 CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research that hosts the Large Hadron Collider- the tunnel is
27kms long and filled with magnets.
89 A hypothetical elementary particle, colloquially named "the god particle."

47
accords had a transformative effect on the creation of many modern perfumes. Soft
gourmand vanilla played its part prior to some of these modifiers appearing, helping to
unify and soften a formula and to bind up the lighter molecules that are relaxing into
equilibrium in its role as a fixative .90 There are all kinds of trials occurring in the
dynamic of the mixture. Perfumery as an art is the semi-controlled enactment of the
second law of thermodynamics as odiferous performance.

An arrival on the field involves multiple methods of crossings, because the paths of
transport are complex. Things come to the senses and the senses come to things. A
cloud of molecules hovers over a dead animal as an emanation of decomposition,
alerting carrion crows to food. A hungry person lost in the bush, smells the honey of a
beehive nearby that will provide vital nourishment. The aroma molecules come to us
and we come to them, they are arriving in the moments of their dispersal. When we
seek to create, we assemble, mobilize and draw these molecules into sympathetic
alliances by mediation, by putting things together. For example, the perfumer searches
for a composite set of images and materials and evokes some kind of mythology by
folding into the mix some kind of semiotic or symbolic layer, as with the perfume
'Timbuktu '.91 Each individual who wears it will have a different reaction and
interpretation to the proposition of its evocative title. This is how the perfume critic,
Luca Turin in his book with Tania Sanchez, Perfumes, the Guide, describes his reaction to
it:

Timbuktu has a tremendously melodious and affecting start of vetiver,

sandalwood, and incense that seems quiet until you realize that, like modern
sound systems that can pipe music into every room, one spritz fills a house with
an odd, distinctly perceptible, but almost infrared shimmer of woody freshness.
No perfume has ever privileged radiance impact quite to this extent. The central
accord in Timbuktu achieves what I thought impossible: a durable dry-woody
note without the electric dry down of modern synthetics. Bertrand Duchaufour
explained to me that part of this effect is due to the use of a rare essential oil
from India called Cypriol, extracted from the sedge Cyperus scariosus, and it is
quite something: no single raw material ever "made" a fragrance, and he should

90 Fixatives arrest the volatility of the perfume materials making them less evaporative and longer lasting.
91Produced by the French perfume house, Artisan Perfumes.

48
 take credit for a masterly composition. Timbuktu is the only modern fragrance
that replicates, albeit by a completely different route, the bracing, euphoric
freshness first bottled in 1888 by Paul Parquet as the defunct but immortal
Fougere Royale. 92

For Turin, the 'Timbuktu' of Dachaufour's perfume is the discovery of the lost Fougere
Royale, belonging to the so called fern family in perfumery. Timbuktu for Turin becomes
the mythical place embodied in the composite perfume of a plant. Like a magnet picking
up iron filings - as the filmmaker Jean Luc Godard wisely said, "Not a just image, just
images." When the molecules of perfumery meet with consciousness they make contact
with all kinds of mechanisms that mediate and translate these forces into all kinds of
outputs of perceptions in the form of feelings, images, idealizations and other mental
abstractions.

We are as entangled within history and politics and the social as we are inside nature -
so many bargains and negotiations are taking place. Non-corporeal actants enter into
relationship in the form of mental structures, through networks that are formed in
cognitions that are highly tuned to the incoming transmissions of individuals and
sensitive to the transmissions of objects - aroma is a transformer, an agent of transport,
a conjoiner.

This crossing over from one realm to another is exemplified in our contact with aroma.
These chemical signals convert into electrical energy as novel thought forms that arise
from its arousing evocations, many moments can be sprung from any point or node in
the network. Physiological networks are generative systems both for producing and for
processing. Instead of being a black hole of preordained autonomic reactions, they are
instead radiant fields that mediate and harness forces towards the compositional ends
of upholding our sense of self from chaos, through an entanglement of hard-wired and
novel reactions. How else could we deal with novelty, except in our ability to process
chaotic events through systems designed for chaos?

Art in its ideal form can be thought of as a civilizing force. Art that is considered poor in
its critical reception might be thought of as work that has not been able to draw enough
allies to its cause. This is a politics that draws along material allies as agents towards its

92 Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. Perfumes: The A-Z Guide (London Profile Books LTD 2008), 520.

49
ends, a politics of movement and translation. The old cliché goes, “art is what you can
get away with," shines under this model. There are secret powers lying beneath the
surface of any nexus that are collections of forces ready to mobilize and convince us to
join with them. If the logic holds up, the work has won something in the struggle for its
endurance, however ephemeral those actants might actually be, and we as a viewer
have now entered into a relationship with the work. Sometimes the key to overcoming
the battle can be as vulgar as the inscription of market value onto the work. In a
capitalist universe, a high price can be all that is needed to convince us of worth in an
artwork. By the same token, all of these logics are as variable as the weather. Things
become torn open and ruptured by the entities that have been lying in wait, the product
of tensions that have been building, ready to release from hidden realms like a summer
afternoon thunderstorm. Many entities are out of phase with the flow of information
that comes at any given moment, as Levi Bryant points out in his book The Democracy o f
Objects, and this affirms the turbulent cycle of the outside circulating on the inside as a
chaotic system. Climate is now thoroughly part of our subjectivity, as we have become
part of its subjectivity - both subjectivities have become entangled. When we mine coal
it is a 'rising of carbon from the dead.'

Externalizing the symbolic, produces a parade of apparitions that travel through the air
as broadcast energy, into receiving stations of radio, televisions and computers. Tall
towers on the mountain ranges surrounding cities send an uncountable number of
people's voices and images and an enormous plethora of sounds into other people's ears
and eyes over long distances, through high voltage energy. Air pressure allows for
vocalisation, speech and projection, air is a medium in which we pass through and meet
up with things, whereas electricity is a conjoiner between the biological realms and the
earth. Electricity is a fundamental force and is as pervasive as gravity. Aroma is a form
of transmission and our senses have evolved as the equipment of receiving.

As Jim Drobnick points out in the early pages of the Smell Culture Reader, "In short, no
act of perception is a pure or unmediated event; each society inflects and cultivates
sensory practices according to its needs and interests." Latent troughs and dramatic
peaks reach us with degrees of intensity, sometimes as a shock and sometimes as the
subtlest breeze depending on the nature of the forces driving the wave - the sad and
joyful in Spinoza. Who knows what it will be, love affairs or violent wars.

50
Latour, in "Irreductions" 1.1.5.1:

The real is not one thing among others but gradients o f resistance.93

W e cannot put all of our stock in the senses and its cognitions as George Berkeley did.94

This is not because of their capabilities or limitations, but simply because so many

processes that occur in the world and the wider cosmos do not require us, or our

involvement. We come in contact with networks that are made up of these "gradients of

resistance," inputs that are both in and out of phase with each other that are boiling

with change. Science continually uncovers these processes and then engages in a

rhetorical struggle to validate these appearances.

Kant gave us the philosophical equivalent of a Copernican Revolution that changed

many things and yet we are now, more than ever, open to the possibility o f making

sideways glances into things that exceed the human. Process reveals directly and

indirectly and can be out of phase with the present - we simply have to turn our head

towards the night sky to understand that what we are seeing in starlight belongs to the

past. The energy that finally reaches the chromosphere of the sun from its core is

already a hundred thousand years old; an entity that exceeds us as active shaper, this

ancient process forms our destiny. The present is an intermingling of the past. No one

has been able to see atoms and molecules directly because they are beyond the range of

normal seeing. Since 1986, molecules present to us, by way o f atomic force microscopes.

These instruments scribe across the surface of atoms and render this remarkable

contour to the screen as a visualisation. Transduction, in this case, is a relay between

the molecular landscape and the probe, the output of which becomes a representation

as pixels. Where is the line between the real and the representational in this particular

assemblage?

Trees crack and wither under the forces of wind that have come from far away.

Sometimes Antarctic winds are felt even in the Blue Mountains and the trees struggle

with it, but the hardy Eucalypt is king. It adapts by bending into streamlined curves and

drops its seeds when it is subject to fire. The tree has a different subjectivity and

93 Bruno Latour. The Pasteurization of France, trans by Alan Sheridan and John Law. (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University press. 1988), 174.
94 Bishop George Berkeley 1685 - 1873 Philosopher of Immaterialism that later became subjective idealism
that denies the existence of material substance.

51
constitution to us as humans and although we can never fully gain access to all of the
actants that make the tree what it is as a being, we just might be able to get an inkling of
who it is by getting to know more about its habits and its compositional actions.

There is nothing like the overwhelming smell that presences as we pass the bloated
road kill in the evening. For surely rocks do fall down from cliffs when we are not there
at night, and trees do make a sound in the forest when they fall, even if there is no one
there to hear them? If they don't make a sound, whoever builds a detector to reveal the
silence of this fall, will undoubtedly change the world.

There is a moment in time when the aroma molecule hasn't yet found its coupling with a
receptor. Lee Braver, in his tome A Thing o f this World: A History o f Continental Anti-
Realism, writes:

Kant's Revolution represents... the first serious attack on the traditional Plato-
Aristotle approach to insight in to the nature of things by focusing on what is to
be known." Instead of abandoning realism altogether, however, he retains two
important aspects of it: the mind - independent noumenal realm- and the realist
subject. Although he makes the phenomenal world mind dependent and changes
the passive substantial knower to an active organizer of experience, he must
keep the experience organizing structures universal and unchanging in order to
preserve the unique world. 95

When the perfume is still in the bottle a powerful 'genie' is waiting to get out, ready to
take our senses by surprise. Here, there is a kind of excess circulating within the
confines of the glass that will be let loose, once the lid has been opened. These are
storehouses of molecular ghosts in waiting acting as shape shifters in the form of all
manner of highly charged entities.

A particular odour of styrax - liquid amber oil may bring with it the intoxicating
association of the line of her thigh that is encased in sheer nylon and shadow and
reveals another contour, emerging in faint light, her legs ever so slightly apart and the
air gains the presence of an ever so subtle musty effusive signalling .96 The air is filled

95 Lee Braver, A Thing of this World: A History of Continental Anti-Realism, (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern
University Press, 2007), 33.
96 taken from studio notes of the smell association that goes with styrax.

52
with anticipation; a convincing erotic network on which life can hang.97 Or for Proust,
in that famous passage from Swann's Way, the interwoven fabric of memory arrives
suddenly, as if out of nowhere, on the basis of connection:

... and as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of Madeleine dipped in
lime-blossom tea that my aunt used to give me... immediately the old grey house
on the street, where her bedroom was, came like a stage set to attach itself to the
little wing opening onto a garden that had been built for my parents behind it...;
and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the
Square, where they sent me before lunch, the streets where I went on errands,
the paths we took if the weather was fine. And as in that game in which the
Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping
in the little pieces of paper until then undifferentiated which, the moment they
are immersed in it, stretch and bend, take colour and distinctive shape, turn into
flower, houses, human figures, firm and recognizable, so now all the flowers in
our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water lilies on the Vivonne, and the
good people of the village and their little dwellings and the church and all of
Combray and its surroundings, all of this, acquiring form and solidity, emerged,
town and gardens alike, from my tea cup.

In concrete assemblages of records, archives, repositories, libraries, tables of calculus,

rooms of statistics and other storehouses of knowledge, including cyberspace, when the
electrical current is not flowing, or things are behind a locked door, they too can be said
to be as inaccessible and yet as 'real' as Kant's 'things in themselves'. They could also be
said to be 'lying in wait,' to be discovered by a reader or viewer, the lock glistens
tempting us to open the door. The artwork requires a viewer in order to complete the
circuit that allows it to transmit.

We never see the full potential in anything, because we do not have access to all of its
powers. We can never fully grasp an entity; we are never able to access all of a things
qualities. We are never able to take in all of an object's dimensions and potentials and

97 An accord of diluted Styrax or Storax (from which we get polystyrene) and labdanum or Liquid Amber
Essential Oil and the aroma chemical hedione is the most sensual smell of sex - if one wanted to extend this
idea, a semen like nitrile might add well to the mix making it more diffusive and fresh air like and metallic. How
one adds the heat vapour of sex is another challenge altogether...instruction: to be worn only on a very hot
day or a perfume for the tropics might be an answer.

53
we are never the master of things that we encounter, since things are always being
mediated and transmitting in multiple directions at once, radiating before us. One may
choose to name this an "abyss at the heart of translation ”98 but one could also see this as
a kind of liberating moment of potential. A room filled with a beautiful smell, full of
actants with many inputs driving into the system. Temperature, air flows, turbulences
and gravity, quantum fluctuations of the membrane that binds the molecule onto the
receptor; by no means an exhaustive list, these are confluences of forces that affirm
olfaction as a multiplicity, unpredictable, variable, diffusive and surprising. This is how
Harman sees the power in things:

By sitting on the chair you're also not coming into contact with all the properties
of the chair. The chair has many different qualities that your sitting in it does not
exhaust any more than your looking at the chair does. There are tiny
electromagnetic vibrations coming off the chair that certain insects might be able
to perceive though you cannot, and they’re completely irrelevant to us as
humans. But the chair seems to have infinity of these qualities that no other
entity will ever unlock. And then you have to take a third step (and I got this from
Whitehead actually, even before I knew Bruno's work] and see that things do this
to each other as well. Things oversimplify each other just as much as we do. It's
not a special property of human consciousness to distort the world. Entities will
distort each other ipso facto by the mere fact that they relate. For fire to burn
cotton, which is the favourite Islamic example discussed in all those ancient
texts, fire does not need to react to most of the properties of the cotton: its smell
and its colour are irrelevant to the fire. The fire is going to burn the cotton based
on flammable properties, whatever those are .99

Processes and events distinguish themselves from other things even if it is by way of
showing themselves as a caricature. But this distinction is mobile and acts like an
occulting light. It's as if everything is pulsing by way of all the appearances and
vanishings of attributes. At times the world seems like a hallucinatory cartoon of real

98 Victoria Lynne and Nikos Papastergiadis in the exhibition notes for the exhibition of Eugenia Raskopolous's
exhibition footnotes 2011.
99 Latour, Bruno; Harman, Graham; Erdelyi, Peter (2011-07-29). The Prince and the Wolf: Latour and Harman at
the LSE (pp. 36-37). O-Books. Kindle Edition.

54
characters, both physical and imagined. However, this does not turn matter into merely
an illusion, because illusions stem from the attributes of their relationships as much as
those qualities are mediated by the tunings of organs that are also swept up in this
productivity. Networks of actants are presencing and withdrawing; certain qualities
shine under certain conditions and withdraw when the circumstances allow for it.
Otherwise, as Harman makes the point, "everything would be indistinguishable from
everything else."

From within the irreducibility that marks the difference between actants, translation
and mediation are components of a passing relay - a vitality that is as much about this
slide from one thing into another, as it is about a coalescence of signalling energies in
any individual actant. Transductive transformations are on the move, from the moment
the transducer is activated.

The aroma molecule as it floats through the world prior to transduction at the receptor
consists of structures of frequency and energy - a dynamics of certain contours of
energy, loose in the world that once it finds its home in the receptor, the unique
qualities of the molecule are recognized in the sensory being. These molecules express
something to a tuned and sensitive system. Mediation belongs to the countless and
prolific transmutations of energy. Transduction hinges on proximity, in order to
transmute the information into new forms from fundamental forces belonging to both
mechanical momentum and electromagnetic energy.

1.5 Heterogeneity

As if seeing things for the first time, the following passage attempts to weave a filigree of
threads between the natural and the artificial by way of an important family of aroma
molecules that come from ambergris.

A ball of smelly matter coughed up by a sperm whale100 bobs around on the surface of
the ocean and is eventually scooped up by passing sailors. Cured by brine and sun, once
it has reached the shore it smells extraordinary, a world away from the foul smelling
black fluid drained from a freshly torn carcass. This was an intensely cruel method that

100 Physeter catodon L.,

55
people once undertook in order to get hold of ambergris, instead of searching for it in
the wide open sea .101

Transformations and transportations are in play from the moment the whale swallows
a squid. A secretion is produced by the whale that is thought to be a protective response
against the irritation from ingesting the squid's beak .102 The whale then vomits or
excretes this fatty substance into the ocean, a battle between the whale and what it
ingests. This pattern of events is an affair between many things - the sun and the ocean,
the squid skeleton and the bobbing whale vomit. It is also a story of humans, ships,
violence, alchemy, chance and the imagination.

The rays of the distant sun are interacting with molecules and chemicals and many
other things past and present. This tale being told here is not only about the discovery
of something rare, precious and strange that comes from the 'wilds of the world
beyond,' it is also about humans pitted against the sea and humans managing to
overcome the largest of the animal kingdom. It is about matter and the imagination
working away together, despite the enormous conflicts that occur along the way. We
come to know of the whale's insertion into other worlds far beyond the sea -
transporting its way through all kinds of processes, substances and immaterial
imaginings. In the multiple collectives that make ambergris into what it is, the grey
sticky matter has been the subject of continual transformation, travelling far beyond the
whale's skin and bones and beyond its soul.

The material from the whale is passing through so many vectors and inhabiting
universes that are far beyond the whale's existence in the watery confines of the ocean.
Nevertheless, something of the whale has been powerfully unleashed on domains far
from the sea and, as tenuous as it might be at times, the figure of the whale in all of this,
despite all of these transformations, somehow manages to endure. Each moment and
existence of the whale is what it is, sometimes these are potent moments (like when the
whale breaches and then falls with a booming crash back into the ocean) and sometimes

101 At the height of the whaling days American whalers took only the blubber, baleen, teeth and, in the case of
sperm whales, ambergris. Kirsten Englund and Kathy Glass, "Japanese whaling: Saving whales in a clash of
cultures," (Whole Earth Review 5(Winter):98, 1990.
102 Sepia officinalis.

56
there is just a shimmer of the faintest signal of the whale coming through, found here in
the character of the salty aroma within a bottle of yellow liquid.

We name these creatures whales and we think we know what they are and what they
are capable of, and yet (one assumes) that whales themselves in their watery cosmos
are nameless and, just like us, are always striving for something.

Bruno Latour reminds us that:

We should not hurry to divide "nature" from "culture". Scallops also find that
nature is a harsh taskmaster-hostile, nourishing, profligate - because fish,
fishermen, and the rocks to which they attach themselves have ends that differ
from those of scallops .103

Lurking within this territory of amber, in the very persistence of these things that are
pitted against any number of forces, are seemingly opaque systems churning away, until
they are eventually overcome by the tides of scrutiny and energy loss that everything
goes up against eventually. If entropy is as certain as the tides, another fundamental
resistance that all things face is the humble occupation of space. We also must include
primal forces such as gravity and friction, the strong and the weak nuclear forces, and,
of course, the electromagnetic, that holds things together (and not to exclude us
humans, who are masters, as Latour reminds us in We have never been Modern< at
hybridizing things). There are an uncountable number of resistances that things go up
against before we even get to the human role in this network, and undoubtedly many
aspects of resistance and alliance shall never even be named. As well as physical
struggles, there are all kinds of rhetorical struggles, negotiations and impersonal
abstract forces that are like weapons in the mix that make up an assemblage. Alliances
forming every which way that might be felt as symbiotic, parasitic, painful, productive,
nurturing, loving and empathetic.

Let us settle for now with this affair of the sun and the ocean and the regurgitated mass.
Every connection of these actants will go deeper than can be put into language and
every network will contain more actants than we will ever be able to perceive, and yet
can be honed in such a way to serve an observers capability or interest. These three—

103Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988),
159.

57
the sun and the ocean and the whale vomit— are thought to create the.conditions.for
curing ambergris into something that smells wonderful. Ambergris was once considered
the second most precious treasure of the sea after pearls and was accordingly
nicknamed "the gold of the ocean"104

This glob of grey waxy material when brought to shore somehow finds its way into a
tincture and becomes an ingredient in many types of aromatic creations. Once it was
afloat in the sea, now by 'secret channels' it brings radiance to perfume floating in a
different fluid, the distilled spirit of a plant, that is far clearer and more crystalline in the
way it bends light105 than any ocean water.106

Richard Stamelman, an author and professor of romantic literature, gives us an inkling

of the diverse and long history (at least since the middle Ages,) of the use of ambergris
in perfumery and the culinary:

To chocolate, according to the testimony of Casanova, Madame Du Barry, and

Madame de Pompadour, it gave an indispensable aroma which inspired the early
nineteenth century gastronome Brillat-Savarin to create a recipe for ambergris
laced chocolate in 1826. In the sixteenth century, Nostradamus, the astrologer
and physician to Charles IX, believed Ambergris could increase the production of
seminal fluid. A century later, the nonagenarian Cardinal de Richelieu, having
perhaps learned of Nostradamus's hypothesis, was rumoured to chew on small
amounts of substance. Among the Chinese, ambergris was at one time considered
as a potent aphrodisiac as well.107

All of this knowledge was hard won by sensitive noses, methodically trying things out at
the perfume organ, melding ambergris with other aroma materials and through various
levels of potency, asking "what does it blend well with? What materials weaken its
aroma, or even make its smell disappear altogether? What happens over time, after
seconds, hours, days, weeks, and months on a smelling strip?" In its culinary uses,
knowledge comes through taste, by gingerly "testing the waters," and from adding it to
the pot.

104Richard Stamelman. Perfume, Joy, Obsession, Scandal, Sin. (New York: Rizzoli, 2006), 116.
105 Refractive Index: how light or any other radiation propagates through a medium.
106 95/5- Ethyl Alcohol.
107 Richard Stamelman. Perfume, Joy, Obsession, Scandal, Sin. (New York: Rizzoli 2006), 117.

58
Perfumery and the culinary and the proto versions of what we conceive of as the
discipline of chemistry, go back to the artisanal culture of the alchemists. As Isabelle
Stengers and Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent reveal in "A history of Chemistry":

The best known of the sixteenth-century chemists is undoubtedly Paracelsus,

Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenhiem (1493-1541)... For Paracelsus, all
those who improved upon nature - the baker who turned grain into the
perfection of bread, the metallurgist who transformed metallic ores into swords,
the farmer who created wine out of grapes - could be called alchemists... Man as
the centre of creation, possessed in himself a knowledge of things, but this
knowledge could only become a reality through experience, through the
sympathy, attraction, and affinity between these things and their analogue in
man.108

Ambergris is said to cause a perfume to bloom. Amber is described by Turin,109 as

turning the aroma of lavender oil into something that he describes as almost three
dimensional and much is made of its fixative effect in perfumery. Another famous
perfumer, jean Paul Guerlain, describes it as performing like cream in haute cuisine: as
an exquisite binding agent.110111

"For me, ambergris is a magical material", said Givaudan's perfumer Ralf

Schwinger...He explained that it reminds him of the biblical tale of Jonah and the
whale where the prophet was swallowed alive. "Ambergris has so many facets —
amber, woody, dark, a salty-sweet concoction with [notes of] ink and tobacco."
112

The synthesis of synthetic ambrox - an alcohol that has been found to be the main
constituent of ambergris, soon becomes a challenge for industrial chemists in terms of
finding a way to achieve a reasonable and economically acceptable pathway to
synthesis. It is important to bear in mind that this endeavour entails a massive effort in

108Bernadette Bensuade-Vincent and Isabelle Stengers, A history of Chemistry (Cambridge, Massachusetts:

Harvard University press 1996), 109.
109 MIT biophysicist and perfume expert Luca Turin in his book The Secret of Scent, Adventures in perfume and
the science of smell. (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), 91.
no. Richard Stamelman. Perfume, Joy, Obsession, Scandal, Sin. (New York: Rizzoli 2006), 116
111 The fixative effect requires s aroma materials with heavy molecules.
112 From an article in the magazine Women's Wear Daily 12/12/2003

59
terms of the negotiation of a mind-boggling matrix of networks within networks of
technical and theoretical processes. Economic concerns, intellectual property rights and
the physical skill required playing out the procedures in the laboratory with dexterity
and precision, all have to be negotiated. Various people in the hierarchy of an industrial
organization would have had to be convinced that this was a worthwhile use of valuable
resources, hence there would have been political engagements that had to be
undertaken in order to produce this material. The list of negotiations for even the
simplest things seems to be without end.

What was once matter from a whale floating in the sea or washed up on beaches
becomes an important ingredient of Oriental style perfume.113 In many of the perfumes
that contain ambergris (or what are now its synthetic variants, since the natural
ambergris is no longer used commercially), the smell of these new molecules barely
resembles those that came from the whale. Amber chemistry is often part of a hidden
dynamics within a perfume, playing the role of fixative, enhancer and modifier. Amber
molecules in perfumes are ghostly modifiers. Arcadi Boix Camps in Perfumery -
techniques in evolution 2nd Edition describes a recreation of the natural material as
requiring the following four chemicals: dihydroactinidolide, dihydro-x-ionine, alpha-
ambrinol, and ambrox. He goes on to say that:

If one of the four chemicals is missing, it is absolutely impossible to achieve the

truly natural and rich, expansive and metallic seductive note of the natural
product.114

The fantasy version a term often used within perfumery for non-realist aroma
inventions of an amber accord will often contain vanilla, musk and spicy notes.115 Apart
from the animal aspects of the musk molecules, these materials seem to be a long way
from the strange olfactory qualities of what is found on the beach in its natural form.
Here the imagination plays a role inventing a surrogate based, one assumes, on some
kind of association with oriental spices and the creaminess of vanilla.

113 The Oriental style is generally attributed to those perfumes that contain a rich narcotic blend of Amber,
Vanilla, Musk's and resins like Labdanum and Styrax.
114 Arcadi Boix Camps Perfumery Techniques in Evolution 2nd Edition (Illinois: Allured Books,1985), 57
115 Robert R. Calkin and Stephan Jellinek. Perfumery Practice and Principles. (New York: John Wiley and Sons,
Inc.2009), 32

60
Once ambergris is taken from the sea it becomes embroiled with signs, possibly from
the first moment that it touched a sailor's hand. Modification of ambergris through
language is as powerful as the curing of ambergris by the sun. For example, once
ambergris is thought to possess powerful aphrodisiac qualities, the material then
becomes popular as food, and has all of the powerful semiotic connotations attached to
the act of eating. By the same token, language itself is being modified by way of the new
articulations that have come from the connections that have been forged across the
many dimensions that the aroma has passed through on its journey. Language, it seems,
is made up of these turbulent ragged and noisy feedback loops, tied to these material
inventions as much as the ocean is driven by currents.

Language operates as one of the pathways.of transformation and movement within the
ambergris network, sometimes as a poetic syntax at certain times and in particular
contexts, or as incantation and at other times as law, in the sense that certain groups of
people have made certain 'truth claims' about the property of the material. This ‘legend
making' is swept up not only in romantic projections, which always seem to be
travelling on the backs of other occulted forces: the wind and the sea and the murmur
of branches, voices, the shape of hair and the shimmer of cloth, 'desire as assemblage.’
And yet these complex syntaxes are often simultaneously by contrast, the tools of a
mercantile logic that takes great stock in the ephemeral, producing treasures and
exchange value through commodification and marketing. But these are not separate
realms, as if the mercantile logic is somehow disentangled from the incantatory; they
intermingle like the chemicals within a perfume.

As William Burroughs once uttered, 'language is a virus' but, one could argue here that it
is a parasite. This capability within language to generate all kinds of tangential
connections and at the same time operate in multiple milieus of signification is
described by Deleuze and Guattari in the opening chapter of A Thousand Plateaus,
"Introduction: Rhizome":

semiotic chains of every nature are connected to very diverse modes of coding
(biological, political, economic, etc.] that bring into play not only different
regimes of signs but also states of things of differing status. Collective
assemblages of enunciation function directly within machinic assemblages; it is

61
 not impossible to make a radical break between regimes of signs and their
objects. Even when linguistics claims to confine itself to what is explicit and to
make no presuppositions about language, it is still in the sphere of a discourse
implying particular modes of assemblage and types of social power. Chomsky's
grammaticality, the categorical S symbol that dominates every sentence, is more
fundamentally a marker of power than a syntactic marker: you will construct
grammatically correct sentences; you will divide each statement into a noun
phrase and a verb phrase (first dichotomy...). Our criticism of these linguistic
models is not that they are too abstract but, on the contrary, that they are not
abstract enough, that they do not reach the abstract machine that connects a
language to the semantic and pragmatic contents of statements, to collective
assemblages of enunciation, to a whole micro politics of the social field. A
rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains,
organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and
social struggles. A semiotic chain is like a tuber agglomerating very diverse acts,
not only linguistic, but also perceptive, mimetic, gestural, and cognitive: there is
no language in itself, nor are there any linguistic universals, only a throng of
dialects, patois, slangs, and specialized languages. There is no ideal speaker-
listener, any more than there is a homogeneous linguistic community. Language
is, in Weinreich's words, "an essentially heterogeneous reality." There is no
mother tongue; only a power takeover by a dominant language within a political
multiplicity. Language stabilizes around a parish, a bishopric, a capital. It forms a
bulb. It evolves by subterranean stems and flows, along river valleys or train
tracks; it spreads like a patch of oil.116

The capacity of properties once thought to exclusively belong to magic and other occult
agencies are now synthesised with capitalist logic. These transformed forces serve a
purpose in the production of the commodity fetish and yet they still work away as they
always have; only now, transformed from their former life into other forms, they tend to
operate behind a veil of rational discourse that would like to think of them as being pure
and separate:

116 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus- Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans Brian Massumi
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987) 5.

62
 If magic is the body of practice which gives certain words the potency to act upon
"things," then the world of logic, deduction, and theory must be called "magical":
but it is our magic.

Just as the Greeks called the fine languages of the Parthians, the Abyssinians, or
the Samartans "barbaric," so we call the perfect arguments (2.1.8) of those who
believe in other powers of deduction "illogical."117

Taking ambergris as an assemblage of synthesis par excellence, we begin to see how

capitalism despite appearances, is tied to a compelling form of expressionism. Esther
Leslie, a philosopher of political aesthetics describes a material relationship to exchange
value through Karl Marx and Joseph Engels:

Value moves from one thing to another, in the process of an objects modification.
This is a physical process and is traceable. Dyestuffs become the colour of a cloth,
raw materials take on another form, and coal dissipates into the air having
produced energy. However, in the course of capitalist production something
chemically untraceable is also generated: exchange value. This is capital's most
magical transformation - the invention of exchange value. A much quoted line
from The Communist Manifesto describes the impact of capitalism as
vaporization in which 'all that is solid melts into a ir'.118

However, it can be argued given Latour's thesis and any number of materialist
understandings of system theory that these processes of exchange value and its
resulting commodity fetishisation are in no way exclusive to capitalism alone, they are
ridden in the workings of reality itself. If we follow the lines of our example of
ambergris, we see how this exchange is spectacularly realised through the production of
a vast number of synthetic odours that literally rewrite the 'nature' of whatever object it
is fixated upon, in this case ambergris. All kinds o f‘amber-variants' come into existence
that are not only based on the actual smell impressions of the original material, but are
also the product of leaps of the chemist and her team's imagination. The aromas that
we receive in the name of ambergris are now the product of aesthetic transformation

117 Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988),
180.
118 Esther Leslie. Synthetic Worlds Nature Art and the Chemical Industry. (United Kingdom: Reaktion Books,
2005), 15.

63
and many other sets of transforms, including more than likely the chemist’s relationship
to experts on fragrance who are not themselves chemists.

Like most materials found in perfumery, amber (as it is now known] has proven to be a
versatile candidate for the workings of the mind of the composer and the marketeer of
fragrance. From the air of oriental deserts to the shoreline of Indian Ocean beaches, this
material has been charged with the erotic signals of mystery, luxury, opulence and
animalic sensuality within a fragrance. No one needs to trade in the actual authentic
material anymore, since the marketing people are now traders in images of ambergris.
From the moment it was dragged out of the sea it became a kind of information factory.
The supplements that have attached themselves to what were once grey globules are as
wide and diffusive as its odour. This beautiful and romantic hallucinatory material
worthy of Coleridge, is potentially boundless .119 Michel Serres remarks, "As soon as an
object becomes a stake, a fetish, merchandise, it leaves the domain of objective
knowledge ."120

Much further down the track, after the modern industrial complex had begun to master
chemical synthesis, ambergris, once thought of as natural, complex, precious and rare, is
eventually taken over by a fantastical array of industrially synthesized molecules. These
present to the nose as novel smells based loosely around a difficult to describe warm,
woody, animalic 121 and earthy theme. Perhaps it is the relatively low impact, highly
diffusive character of these molecules that makes them so compositionally versatile, the
illusiveness of the aromatic that is part of its powers of persuasion.

Rather than acting as anything like a simulacra of ambergris, the wide spectrum of the
ambergris aroma now becomes splintered into the new 'am ber-like' smells that arise
from the chemist's structural rearrangement of a molecule, in a manner similar to how
drugs are designed. This dextrous 'sculpting' of atomic material spawns a great number
of distant relatives of the warm material ambergris that are now thoroughly
transformed and dislocated from its origins. Such is the wonder and power of these
networks that passages are enabled through numerous domains: the maritime, the

119 The use of amber molecules extends across many perfume types.
120 Michel Serres, Genesis (Ann Arbor The University of Michigan Press 1995), 105.
121 Animalic is an unusual word specific to perfume classifications, such as animalic, woody, earthy, musky,
green, floral, spicy, balsamic etc.

64
terrestrial and the imaginary - all from the result of alliances forged and trials and
tribulations overcome.

The whale is not lost completely in these leaps from one place to another; one might say
that its energy profile shifts as it slides around in the pluriverse ,122 engaged in one
negotiation after another. Thankfully the whale of today retains a tiny slither of dignity
in regards to at least one aspect of its subjectivity, since we have now been banned from
hunting for ambergris by killing whales .123 Legislating on behalf of a mute non-human
seems like a bit of a miracle but in the scheme of things, given the sheer volume of
immense productivity and proliferation of creativity, this is something that is occurring
continuously, even if we live consciously through all kinds of separations, synthesis
occurs on top of synthesis, despite our attitudes to things.

Contemporaneously, new 'amber-like' molecules are the product of self-referential and

imaginary compositions. As much as they might resemble the smell of ambergris found
on the beach, when certain chemicals are able to reflect something of a reconstitution,
the figure of the whale becomes a fragile signal in the background, until it is reimagined
once again into the repertoire .124

People are searching for and crafting new aroma accords every day, based on these
'variable' signals that once came from this fatty smelly gunk, all of which are now mostly
unique creations of the laboratory. Amber-like molecules of laboratory synthesis play
their part in the role of new componentry in formulas that arose from the olfactory
knowledge of the original ambergris now reincarnated as crystalline white needles.
Many of these new amber notes utterly surpass the original altogether, representing an
ever wider conception of what amber is and what it is capable of becoming.

However, the reductions, transportations and purifications do not stop there, with the
proliferations of chemical distillations and the obsessions of chemists and the gleaming
steel vats and pipelines and chimneys of the industrial complex that has let loose over
ten thousand aroma molecules into the palette of aroma creation. In a leap worthy of

122 pp William James.

123 Ambergris can now only be legally harvested in its natural form, by combing the beaches of its territory.
Synthetics have mostly replaced the raw material.
124 Undoubtedly, this is bound to happen, the rediscovery of a pile of ambergris on a beach somewhere (if it is
not happening now, somewhere already) this return will be signed as being somehow 'more authentic or
remarkable1 than the stuff produced in the laboratory.

65
science fiction, the starting materials for the bulk of aroma chemistry, including these
new hybrid offspring of ambergris, come from sources far removed from its animal
origin. These new synthetic aroma molecules emerge from the fractionation of the sap
of the pandanus125 tree, or are extracted from the primordial coal tars that have been
brought up from deep below the surface of the earth from another epoch altogether.
Here time becomes reversible. It is as if the trees themselves once alive some 300
million years ago, have been raised from the dead and put to many uses, one of which is
to now adorn our skin and play a role in our seductions. Esther Leslie tells the
remarkable tale of Frederick Kekule Von Stardonitz (1865) discovery of the
composition of benzene's carbon and hydrogen atoms that turned coal tar into such a
versatile starting point for the production of new chemicals:

Benzene, a colourless, odiferous, flammable liquid, one of the components of

coal-tar and petroleum, had been first isolated by the chemist Michael Faraday in
1825, and, after two daydreams, one in 1854 on a London bus when [Kekule]
saw a dance of atoms, and one in the early 1860s when he saw a snake chewing
its own tail - in a hexagonal ring. This recognition explained how carbon could
make five or six times more chemical combinations than other elements.126

Perfumery and industrial chemistry has retained an authentic lineage with the much
maligned alchemists from which the discipline sprung from hundreds of years before.
This is a tale of a carnival of synthesis, where everything has a role in the formation of
the story of ambergris. This is the entanglement where everything becomes
information, belonging to both the actual and the virtual.

125 Charles, Sell "Chemistry of ambergris." Chemistry and Industry (London) 16(Aug 20, 1990):516-520.
126Esther Leslie, Synthetic Worlds Nature Art and the Chemical Industry (United Kingdom Reaktion Books
2005), 77.

66
Discussion

Nexuses are ridden with black boxes inside black boxes; one is reminded of termite
nests .127 Orders of magnitude seen firstly in the large scale features of any network
being the outside of the nest, with greater and greater detail on the inside, filled with
tunnels and chambers, vast complex of relationships, alliances, de-couplings and
dissolutions. Even termites in nests engage in political struggles, squabbles amongst the
community and their problems with atmosphere in the forms of gasses, some of which
may turn out to be life giving or poisonous. Some networks form relatively contained
systems and at other times the networks become promiscuous, vast and self-organizing.

Unlike the rays of light cast onto the retina that can so easily be given over to the
'knowing subject,1the olfactory puts consciousness firmly in a visceral relationship with
streams of matter. Although these particles are invisible, they spark the most powerful
emotional and physical reactions in people. Smell is one of those confronting physical
sensory encounters, and can elevate the imagination to great heights, or drag us back to
earth in a stench that actually enters the body, in a place where the brain literally
dangles in the air deep inside the nose . 128 The olfactory calls out to be understood as a
great conjoiner between matter and consciousness, as a multiplicity forming a carnival
network.

An early reading of Actor Network Theory, within the frame of this research, was the
starting point that led towards the metaphysics found in Latour's "Irreductions." Actor

127 Latour uses this analogy in a different way in Pasteurization of France (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University press. 1988), 171. "Between one network and another, as between one force and another (1.2.7),
nothing is by itself either commensurable or incommensurable. Thus we never emerge from a network no
matter how far it extends. It is for this reason that one can be Commandant at Auschwitz, an olive tree at
Corfu, a plumber in Rochester, a seagull in the Isles of Scilly, a physicist at Stanford, gneiss in the Minas Gerais,
a whale in Adelie Land, one of Koch's baccili at Damiette, and so on. Each network makes a whole world for
itself, a world whose inside is nothing but the internal secretions of those who elaborate it. Nothing can enter
the galleries of such a network without being turned outside in. If we thought that termites were better
philosophers than Leibniz, we could compare a network to a termites' nest-so long as we understood that
there is no sun outside to darken its galleries by contrast. It will never be possible to see more clearly, it will
never be possible to get further "outside" than a termite, and the most widely accepted equivalence might
appear, under trial, no stronger than a wall of clay."

128 The cilia are millions of nerve fibres from the brain that hang down through tiny holes in the cribeform
plate. They lay in mucous and this is what the aroma molecules meet with when they enter the back of the
nose. These molecules literally touch the brain.

67
Network Theory was useful in the first instance of this enquiry in affirming intuitions
about how the olfactory plays out in the world. It became clear that aroma belongs to
information that is part of a specific circuit, or set of affairs, no matter how deeply
heterogeneous this set of relationships might be as one goes deeper into their interior.
Rather than applying the formulas of the later developed Actor Network Theory, the
aim has been to investigate the beginnings of this style of thought through the ideas
found in "Irreductions."

If anything is permissible within the sphere of art, it's not because everything is
equivalent. Instead, it's because everything is negotiated into a position of strength.
How many times have we heard someone utter "this is a strong work?'' It is almost as if
Latour's metaphysics has been modelled on the artist or art critic in some ways - except
the entire world is the object under consideration. And what is a work of art, if not a
nexus of connections between elements, a patch of blue over here, a puddle of red there,
and a title? And then there is the nexus of its support, whatever that might be. Supports
as varied as woven linen, wooden frames, plinths, rooms, sites, gallerists, publicist and
all the cultural machinery, including critics, commentators, air conditioning specialists,
preparator's, all the way down the line to the subatomic structures.

The components of these heterogeneous networks that belong to matter occupy strange
realms that are not always immediately available to the senses. This becomes apparent
in many ways, but is especially striking when one begins to explore in this context the
space of the stretch frequency of aroma molecules and their emissions in the far
infrared part of the spectrum.129 There is a link here between a body of artistic practice,
engaged with by myself and in collaboration with Australian artist Joyce Hinterding,
that has always had a strong engagement with the frequency spectrum: in the audio
range, in the range belonging to vision, from the very low frequency end of the
spectrum, from the high voltage in the Kirlian photographs of plant auras and
Hinterding's up scaling of solar energy to high voltage, and the work done at 0.6
angstroms in the range of hydrogen alpha that allowed us to look straight into the

129 Infra-Red light is light with a longer wavelength but a lower frequency than visible light. Molecules absorb
specific frequencies that are characteristic of their structure. They are resonant frequencies that are energies
determined by the shape of the molecules potential energy of its surfaces, the masses of the atoms and
associated vibronic coupling. Through spectroscopy we can investigate chemicals through this phenomenon of
vibrational ringing.

68
heart of the sun.130 Now we can include an awareness of the infrared operating on the
molecular, adding another band to the investigation.

These networks hover between the subject and the object. Events in open dynamic
systems put us in contact with the noumenal every time we are taken by surprise or
discover something new that has been formerly invisible, presencing in every moment
of signalling coming over the event horizon to the observer into consciousness. The
conjecture here is that rather than ‘things in themselves' being out of reach, they are
continually presencing to us as novel encounters. If we can never seemingly exhaust the
properties of an object, if alliances enable those occulted properties to become present,
then everything must be a storehouse of the so called 'real' as ‘boxes' filled with
powers. The noumenal, then, could be thought about as a Pandora's Box of powers,
radiating.

This chapter has argued that in the formation of heterogeneous networks, given the
conditions of energy losses and momentary gains that occur between actants, we are
able to grasp something of the intensive aspects of entities, as they move through open
systems and that the olfactory is just one example of a multiplicity in action, one that is
continually composing. Compositionality certainly adds things to the world, and we
began with a formula of n+1 as opposed to an abyss of nothingness. However, lurking
within this equation, could there be a reverse transform? How is it that there is any
space left in the world at all, given all of this accretion? There must surely be underlying
mechanisms for undoing, as much as there are mechanisms for assembling? The notion
of energy loss is something that pertains to information, as much as it does to matter
and mass. It is in this energy loss that we get around the problem of an infinite
accumulation of powers that go on for ever. Entropy becomes a critical agent of
composition as decomposition. Entropy is the great transformer. In our island of
stability it is like we are living in an explosion slowed down.

Eventually the perfume ceases to linger. Energy loss occurs in the fruit once fresh and
sweet, now rotten and poisonous. One thing converts into another. One thing appears as
another passes away. If a process of conversion and translation is crucial to

130 Kirlian photography is an archaic form of electrostatic imaging of plasma fields around objects that are
electrically conductive. These images where once thought to reveal an aura or life force in objects. ).6
angstroms refers to the wavelength of emissions from Hydrogen that shows in the red part of the visible
spectrum.

69
composition, certain things must also be discarded along the way. Some things will
translate even while staying in the same spot. Some will physically change shape
altogether and bind together as compounds. Some will become hordes of noise. Some
things will transduce into language and sensation and from this, some things will be lost
to the ether, evaporate, dissipate and return to its constituent elements. Transduction is
a critical mechanism of many processes including the olfactory; a form of
transformation where the conversion becomes something else, the source of the input is
then left behind. An act of transmutation requires stronger forces acting within the
network, in order to achieve a certain level of change, even if the mechanisms are
extremely delicate, subtle, seducing and seemingly minute. The soft and the hard, along
with the noisy and the ordered, the slow and the fast, are in perpetual exchange.

At the heart of creativity, one could speculate on a kind of additional carving sculptural
subtraction folded within accumulation. A new addition to the formula n+1 could be
imagined. Composition also encompasses addition via subtraction. Nothing endures
forever; everything is in a perpetual state of perishing and transmutation. If we started
with the formula n+1 there must also be a version that is n-1. This is the carving that
starts with the block of marble and works by elimination. This is the scooping out of
hollows in sandstone from the wind. These are the forces of erosion that shape the
caves of the shelter, or give us the remarkable uncanny of the statue standing in a
church. The earth itself is continually composing.

The world as carnival, as an endless burlesque of strange exotica, bursting forth like a
landscape of multi-coloured volcanic geysers. Perhaps the French philosopher Jacques
Lacan is right to say that "rhetoric is the flower of the world," but this expressive
potential surely shouldn't be limited to our vocality alone, when it is the rocks and trees
and the entire gamut of the energy range expressing compositionally. And we burrow
into sensual places with these elements, just one more composing entity amongst many.
When things have not risen up to signification, perhaps they are simply mysterious
things in unnameable clusters in open space (however constricted and compressed that
might actually be] that are transmitting or attracting and acting as enablers or
inhibiters, some of which will be capable of superpositioning in many states at once.

70
We have never really been able to make the concept of essences hold up, only managing
to reach out towards this purification. And yet, think of all of the bloodshed that has
happened in the name of that particular impulse. We have managed to live under the
cloak of an illusion and yet at the same time proliferate billions of hybrids in its name.
Creativity is the engine of open systems that give us islands of peace and harmony, and
at the same time always seem to force a complication, by returning everything back to
the maelstrom. For every loving and giving compositional gesture there is bound to be
others that are upending those islands of peace and stability. Aroma reminds us that
chaos is just around the corner, for every beautiful smell that delights the senses there
will be one of death, putrefaction and revulsion. There is a miracle of transfer of energy
into information that goes back to the beginning of time, but nothing is permanent,
everything is held inside the second law of thermodynamics heading towards
equilibrium. Thermodynamics is about heat and other forms of energy such as
temperature and pressure and its relationship to entropy and work and as Michel
Serres eloquently brings these forces up to the surface in acts found in the everyday:

...this literally supernatural excellence emanates from mixtures and confusions.

Fire fuses many things together. The raw gives us tender simplicities, elementary
freshness, the cooked invents coalescences. Conversely, analysis slices and dices
raw; synthesis requires flame. 131

We think of ourselves as rational ‘Moderns' but everything seems more unhinged and
intoxicated than that and far more baroque. The battle of assemblages consists of
uncountable numbers of armies of turbulent clouds of great variety, including smelly
molecules, striving towards equalisation and eventually dispersion. Along the way they
affect an escape clause through conversion in the virtual transcendent kingdoms that
present minimal physical debt. But none the less, as immaterial as they are living like
this on the threshold of transparency, they have an immense potential of powers to
cross space and time, and that can sometimes even shift mountain ranges and bury
cities in rubble .132

131 Michel Serres. The Five Senses - A philosophy of mingled bodies. (London: Continuum 2008), 167.
132 We began the proposal for our installation "Purple Rain" exhibited in the 2004 Sao Paulo biennale with the
statement "A mountain falls by radio waves" but what we also meant was that whole mountain ranges can fall
from the actions of people's thoughts and desires, as in mining and war.

71
The aphorisms of the "Irreductions," despite some of Latour's own reservations about
how much of it holds up now, at the very least, give us a means of thinking of networks
beyond our common notion of them, largely belonging to the domain of the technical.
Latour always insists that we cannot philosophise from raw first principles, but must
follow objects in action and describe what we see. This is an empirical approach to
understanding that is akin to the idea of analytical smelling in perfumery, known as
’matching', where one tries to copy an existing perfume by recomposing it from the act
of smelling it.133

If our world is full of black boxes, as his metaphysics contends, even if we cannot open
many of those boxes, perhaps this is a good thing. Perhaps it is simply enough to marvel
at their exterior beauty and revel in their elegance and mystery. Metaphysical questions
and artistic creations that are able to grapple with this withholding become a home
perhaps for a secular form of mysticism that may even begin to spark new forms of
ethical relationships to the things we live with, in light of the unfolding post-human that
has always been with us, but seems to be gaining momentum and focus. Through this
tracing of networks and circuitry of the olfactory, we begin to conceptualize new
categories of thought that represent a Vibrancy attributed to materialism' as resonator,
where mental outputs happily interact with matter as a form of synthesis.

This synthesis is as enchanted by the avatars formed from plants in the garden, as much
as it is by the sub-atomic framework that makes each aroma material utterly unique,
and which in turn enables the formation of thought dimensions. But could we also come
to understand how these processes fit within an informational matrix that at times
will produce another pathway altogether in the proliferation of ghostly hybrids, an
outcome of the complex interweaving of cognition and matter that ultimately will
determine the contours of the Garden? Let us be careful in our reversing of time and
our ability to raise things from the dead, by extending the borders of animism. In our
awareness of the network field that is made up of distinctive elements, we discover
interwoven entities that are always passing from objects into fields of the
electromagnetic. This double field idea, one of forging relationships and one of energy,
implies a temporal superposition of fields that sit on each side of the circuit of a
distinctive entity as object. A corollary is found in Frederic Nietzsche's Will to Power.

133 There is a whole chapter devoted to this technique in Perfumery Practice and Principles.

72
 Do you know what a life is to me? A monster of energy... that does not expend
itself... [A] play of forces and waves of forces at the same time one and many... a
sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing .134

The approach adopted in this chapter may never fully escape the correlationist circle - a
division that the 'speculative realists' so dearly would love to leave behind. But how
could it reasonably do so, since a journey into the olfactory is precisely about the
meeting point between the world and the human. It is hopefully the emphasis on the
and that at least functions as a marker of the intermixing between human and world.
And yet even this is complicated and diffused by all of the other composing elements,
such as the animal that marks its territory and the flower that emits fragrance to the
bee, and the geology all of the other strata that is continually reshaping and composing
the world:

Who told you that man was the shepherd of being? Many forces would like to be
shepherd and to guide the others as they flock to their folds to be sheared and
dipped. In any case there is no shepherd. There are too many of us, and we are
too indecisive to join together into a single consciousness strong enough to
silence all the other actors. Since you silence the things that you speak of, why
don't you let them talk by themselves about whatever is on their minds, like
grown-ups? Why are you so frightened? What are you hoping to save ?135

We return then to a new form of atomism, but instead of fixed points as solid particles
as it was for the Greeks, the atomization belongs to information in all of its forms,
material and embodied in language. Information belongs to the human and the non­
human realms and composition is occurring on multiple planes of existence:

'To exist is to differ; difference, in one sense, is the substantial side of things,
what they have most in common and what makes them most different. One has
to start from this difference and to abstain from trying to explain it, especially by
starting with identity, as so many persons wrongly do. Because identity is a
minimum and, hence, a type of difference, and a very rare type at that, in the

134 As cited in Chapter 4 - "A life of metal". Vibrant Matter, A political Ecology of things. (Durham, London:
Duke University press. 2010), 54.
135 Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988),
194.

73
 same way as rest is a type of movement and the circle a type of ellipse. To begin
with some primordial identity implies at the origin a prodigiously unlikely
singularity, or else the obscure mystery of one simple being then dividing for no
special reason.' (Tarde 1895/1999: 73)136

Olfaction as multiplicity belongs to atoms and molecules and yet it also belongs to
perception as part of the circuit that brings the experience of smelling into existence.
Out of perception come all of the causal ramifications of what it is to perceive - all of the
feelings and reactions to those feelings - all of the events and the circumstances that our
being with aroma produces. There was a star, said Frederick Nietzsche "on which
clever animals invented knowledge [however]... after nature had drawn a few breaths
the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die"137

Fig 2: EarthStar,Haines & Hinterding 2008-2009. Installation detail. Hydrogen Alpha Image of the Sun,
photographed by the Artists in the Blue Mountains NSW.

136 Bruno Latour. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Clarendon Lectures in
Management Studies) 15-16.
137 Frederick Nietzsche. On truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873), Part 1.

74
CHAPTER 2. SIGNALS & MODES

I tell you, you must have chaos in you to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you:
you still have chaos within you.

Nietzsche, Thus spoke Zarathustra 138

This chapter involves a more detailed look at some of the signals and modes of olfaction
in light of the more general terminology of transportations, mediations and translations
of actants, discussed in the previous chapter - Carnival of Networks. Where Chapter 2
began by emphasizing the importance of tracing the bi-directional flows in relationship
to the molecule and the nose, in this chapter these tracings of expressive networks are
extended more widely into other related realms.

Starting broadly from the perspective of odour in its pre-phenomenological state—

odour as clouds of molecules that have yet to find a receptor—this chapter speculates
about the circulation of odour as noise, and about the atmospheric as ghostly actants. In
the second half of the chapter, a brief overview on the mechanism of smelling in the
human body is elucidated, leading to a more detailed look at transduction via the work
of biophysicist Luca Turin in light of his vibrational theory of smelling. If there is
vibrational sensing occurring on a molecular level within olfaction, as Luca Turin and
others contend, this may open up new approaches as to how we might one day work
with aroma.

Throughout this chapter and the next, references will be made to works of art that have
utilized aroma in some shape or form, with an emphasis on covering key ways in which
aroma has appeared within contemporary art, rather than being a definitive
compendium of all that has occurred within the field which is outside of the scope of
this study.

138 As quoted by Maria L Assad, Reading with Michel Serres: An Encounter with Time ( S UN Y Series, Margins of
Literature, State University of New York Press 1999), 23.

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2.1 Noise Clouds

A barrel of rotting vegetable matter after rain is brewing away, a stew and somehow the
barrel gets overturned and the most almighty stink is unleashed. It fills the surrounds
with the most gut-wrenching effluvia. Amplitude arises from the noisy crowd and
intensity comes from the movement of a swarm of points under pressure. A marauding
density of invisible entities fills the space.

According to Hillel Schwartz, in his nine hundred page masterpiece on the subject of
noise,139 a great number of scientific specialists in chaos and complexity appear to point
towards noise as the undifferentiated 'protean' expressive state, par excellence. Nobel
Prize winner140 Ilya Prigioni as early as 1980, in his book From Being to Becoming: Time
and Complexity in the Physical Sciences predicted a major shift in science towards the
study of open dynamic systems that would invigorate many fields including the social,
biological and physical sciences:

First, irreversible processes are as real as reversible ones; they do not

correspond to supplementary approximations that we of necessity superpose
upon time - reversible laws. Second, irreversible processes play a fundamental
constructive role in the physical world; they are at the bases of important
coherent processes that appear with particular clarity on the biological level.
Third, irreversibility is deeply rooted in dynamics. One may say that
irreversibility starts where basic concepts of classical or quantum mechanics
(such as trajectories or wave functions) cease to be observables.141

Below is a passage from Schwartz that introduces ’stochastic resonance’ - a shaper of

noise into structure. Stochastic resonance can be thought of as an agent of difference, an

139 Hillel Schwartz, Making Noise - From Babel to the Big Bang and Beyond (New York Zone Books 2011.) 842,
140 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
141 Ilya Prigogine, From Being to Becoming: Time and complexity in the Physical Sciences (Free University of
Brussels and The University of Austin Texas 1980.), 190.

76
injection of an energetic stream into a receptive gathering, this is one way that structure
and change appears in causal interactions:

Itself an increasingly technical tem, chaos would come to seem as "normal" to the
observations of physicists, biologists, and ecologists as "a certain class of
stochastic functions" whose "sufficiently common occurrence in nature" wrote
Eckart, justified calling them "normal.".... Stochastic resonance (SR): "Strictly
speaking, stochastic resonance occurs in bistable systems when a small periodic
(sinusoidal) force is applied together with a large wide band stochastic force
(noise). The system response is driven by the combination of the two forces that
compete/cooperate to make the system switch between two states . 142

Things emerge from the drama of noise. Difference is noise reconfigured; not of an
order that precedes noise, but as syntax that arises in patterns and harmonies and
discordant configurations that we recognize in all manner of situations - the result of
expressive forces swept up as causal interactions in a gathering.

Humans tend to conceive of unity preceding chaos. Theology - the essence - the one -
that accounts for chaos. As Rudolf Anaheim points out, "order makes it possible to focus
on what is alike and what is different, what belongs together and what is
segregated."143It is our senses and technical instruments (that extend our senses) that
allow us to hear, see and smell noise and to harness the spectrum of this horde,
compositionally .144

Territorial animals compose, and Homo sapiens are masters of composition. They
harness noise through the cloak of logics and put it to work, and take pleasure from the
joy of experiencing patterns and putting order in the place of chaos; or they flirt with
chaos by exploiting a risk-taking thirst for creative adventure.

It is because chaos is continually differentiating that we can think of it as a protean

medium, and that found within it are islands of stability that have been moulded into
place by the powers of other forces. We also attempt to mould these differences into

142 Hillel Schwartz, Making Noise - From Babel to the Big Bang and Beyond (New York Zone Books 2011.) 843,
143 Rudolf Anaheim, Entropy and Art an Essay on Disorder and Order. (Los Angeles, London: University Of
California Press, Berkeley.1971), 5.
144 The four forces - the electromagnetic spectrum (which are frequencies of light only a band of which are
visible) gravity, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.

77
shapes; patterns, language and symbols, and we bring order into the world by way of
anchoring raw expressions. We take material information out of the way of the violence
of physical forces by assigning abstract value in symbolic networks that become even
more powerful when they are converted between material and thought. In other words,
we preserve thoughts by making them transcendent. This does not mean that the
symbolic now lives in a fortress, since as Latour proposes, everything undergoes
negotiation and concepts and symbols are continually being eroded, as much as they
are forming within all kinds of battles.

jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher, in their article "Perfumatives: Olfactory Dimensions in
Contemporary Art" tell of how:

F.T. Marinetti, the founder of Futurism, credited the smell of oil and gasoline
spilled in a car accident with inspiring him to create a new artistic movement. In
one of the many Futurist manifestos produced to outline their aesthetic of
"simultaneity," the use of smells, along with noise and tactility, was encouraged
so as to activate all faculties of the viewer. The Futurists also advocated the use
of sneezing powder during their soirées, testifying to the extremity of the actions
they would take in their quest to renew their audiences' perceptual faculties.145

Many artists work directly with shaping noise for sheer aesthetic reasons. Japanese
artist Merzbow utilizes high volume sound in which room-filling static is analogous to
the intensity that the artist claims is felt in acts of bondage and yet beats and phrases
are always emerging from his modulations. In the 25 year journey undertaken by New
Zealand experimental rock group The Dead C, overdubs are said not to be utilized, as
this form of composed layering would be anathema to seeking the collapse of musical
structure. Each Dead C work seems to be on the threshold of collapsing into riotous
chaos and within this maelstrom, structure is continually emerging in crashing
crescendos and gentle murmurs.

Wave fronts push up against each other, in places where humans hardly ever go. Take a
staccato ribbon of ironstone through a band of sandstone that resists the erosion that

14SJim Drobnick and Jennifer Fischer, The olfactory Review The Official Publication of the Olfactory Research
Fund V 0 L. V I I, N 0. 1

78
happens all around it.146 A stream of water running down a slope into a rock overhang,
sheltered from the masses of rain spatters outside: uncountable differences emerge
from noise. Figures ribbon their way up through noise, differentiated by frequency
(which is a band of energy) from what we think of as the background, however, all kinds
of resonances become mobilizing forces - noise is a material that is shaped and kneaded
into a topology. It is a gathering of things folded over on itself, as in the kneading of
dough. And dough is a lump from a certain frame, from another position altogether,
which is made up of a vast community of coalescing molecular forces of a certain type,
interwoven, elastic, and also stretchable to breaking point. This is perhaps what time
looks like when we stand outside of the frame of time's arrow. Events started long
before, bubble up in the present, the perfume bottled a century ago bought on eBay, the
coal released from the ground now fuel, the sun's heat warming our summer that
started as a chain reaction a million years ago, the vintage wine opened at a birthday
party bottled before you were born.

Open a bottle of perfume in the room and the molecules will spread towards equal
distribution; this is what the second law of thermodynamics describes. The creative
artisanal cauldron affords change and yet no fire is eternal, in the same way no aroma is
fixed in one place. 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust' - the matter referred to here as dust is
the residue of the complex animated human being seeping back to the elements through
decomposition in death. The second law is about the slide back through chaos to
equilibrium, against open systems that take their energy from the sun our nearest star,
a process of entanglement and tension that will endure until our star inevitably burns
out and collapses. According to classical physics the universe is said to be a closed
system from which all the elements are made. Turbulent arms of stability and
differentiation appear momentarily and eventually returning to smooth space, just like
a perfume as a model of the universe, each material coming out of the bottle there is for
a time, a stable discernible experience of a tendril of molecules that lasts as long as the
time that we can smell them.

The Roman Lucretius's scientific poem "On the Nature of Things" (c. 60 BC) contains
within it an uncanny intuition of Brownian motion of dust particles. He uses this as a

146 In the vernacular of rock climbers from the Blue Mountains, NSW these formations are known as dinner
plates.

79
proof of the existence of atoms, and what a model it is. Simply replace dust with the
molecules of perfumery for a vivid picture of motion in the air:

Observe what happens when sunbeams are admitted into a building and shed
light on its shadowy places. You will see a multitude of tiny particles mingling in
a multitude of ways... their dancing is an actual indication of underlying
movements of matter that are hidden from our sight... It originates with the
atoms which move of themselves [i.e., spontaneously]. Then those small
compound bodies that are least removed from the impetus of the atoms are set
in motion by the impact of their invisible blows and in turn cannon against
slightly larger bodies. So the movement mounts up from the atoms and gradually
emerges to the level of our senses, so that those bodies are in motion that we see
in sunbeams, moved by blows that remain invisible.

Noise heaped upon noise is one way that noise creates, by folding back on itself as
resonance. A number of fields of expertise have shown how noise plays a role in the
formation of many things. Stochastic resonance occurs when noise of a different
frequency is added to a system and changes the system in some w ay .147 What we have
then, are structures appearing from noise and then decomposition in entropy. These
two states are the heart of composition.

Within the remarkable chapter titled "Everyhow," in Schwartz's Making Noise, after an
expose on the ability of "pink noise" to dither and improve the quality and the
"intelligibility of electronic communications and to even strengthen the coherence of
audio," he writes of how stochastic resonance, (SR) in the text below:

...may be vital to the process of driving sensory responses, as it is with the

mechanoreceptors of crayfish, a phylum so ancient that biologists speculate that
(SR) had a large role in earliest animal evolution. If not primordial (SR) was
primal. According to neurobiologists and microbiologists, (SR) was "evolvable"
for and integral to gene expression. In the long run it made possible the detection
of "quiet" events or small changes in biological systems, which are "dominated by

147 See -"What Is Stochastic Resonance? Definitions, Misconceptions, Debates, and Its Relevance to Biology
Mark" D. McDonnelll*, Derek Abbott21 Institute for Telecommunications Research, University of South
Australia, Mawson Lakes, South Australia, Australia, 2 Centre for Biomedical Engineering and School of
Electrical & Electronic Engineering, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.

80
noise, or random neural firings" - as in the Brownian motion of the stereocilia of
the cochlear hair cells or the fibrillations of the heart.

"Fluctuations allow the different elements of the universe to explore any state,
irrespective of its degree of stability," wrote the physicist's jordi Garcia -Ojalvo
and Jose M. Sancho in 1999, putting the most intrepid of spins on what had been
the bane of chemical, mechanical, electrical and nuclear engineering and plasma
physics... "Such newfound respect [for noise] was anchored in a review of "noise
induced transitions" by Werner Horsthemke and Rene Lefever in 1984. The two
physicists, situated on the opposite end of the spectrum from the continuing
research on noise-induced physiological damage, had studied twenty years of
experimental results in a dozen fields, starting with Radio engineering, all of
which demonstrated that external noise could induce "more structured
behaviour" in equilibrium systems. Through this "symbiotic relationship of order
and randomness," they heard the answer to a conundrum common to twentieth
century science, philosophy and literature: how can long range macroscopic
order "spontaneously appear and maintain itself in spite of molecular chaos and
internal fluctuations"? With a nod to Darwin's suggestion that random
mutations, leveraged by natural selection, were the triggers of change,
Horsthmenke and Lefever affirmed that noise was "omnipresent in natural
systems," whose stable states were often the creatures of noise." In this respect
the Big Bang had been less a manic solo than a downbeat for galaxies
continuously configured by noise, and we would do well to abandon point-point
analyses of cosmic events in favour of stochastic "densities" akin to the density of
auditory experience with its simultaneities of sounds. Noise acoustic, biological,
electrical, statistical, thermodynamic, and sub atomic was the Eternal Gospel, the
universe's way of perpetually revealing, renewing and creating... As Garcio-
Ojalvo and Sancho would write with metaphorical verve, "In convectively
unstable regimes, the presence of noise seeds the system of small perturbations
everywhere, and, as a consequence, spatial structures." The implications were

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 grand: a universe seeded with, seething with noise must be one in which noise
makes things solid . 148

Aroma is multiplicity - noise is multiplicity. Noise is the conjoiner: Serres remarks that
"there is noise in the subject and noise in the object".149 We can draw from this that the
aromatic forms a bridge between subject and world.

Serres remarks on how Leibniz draws our attention to the word aggregate, and
undervalues the concept by according them merely "the status of a heap of stones ."150
What could be humbler than the enticing homely aroma of dinner being cooked,
wafting up the street at night when walking home - a cloud of aroma molecules, a
compendium of comforting signals hanging in the air that instigates all kinds of
thoughts, memories and sensations.

On the other hand, noise is certainly frightening in its power to cancel out the senses.
However, there is something within this fear that goes beyond the agony of volume, or
the terror of stampede, perhaps it is the disquiet and challenge of coming up against a
formless subject and force.

A quote from Serres from the book that was originally meant to be titled Bruit in French,
or 'noise' in English, instead became Genesis. Here Serres attempts to grasp at a pre-
phenomenological Ur Noise, always in tension with concepts of unity and order - a
tension that reveals an impoverished need for control against the multiple:

We are fascinated by the unit; only a unity seems rational to us. We scorn the
senses, because their information reaches us in bursts. We scorn the groupings
of the world and we scorn those of our bodies. For us they seem to enjoy a bit of
the status of'being' only when they are subsumed beneath a unity.
Disaggregation and aggregation, as such, and without contradiction, are
repugnant to us. Multiplicity, according to Leibniz, is only a semi-being. A
cartload of bricks isn't a house. Unity dazzles on at least two counts: by its sum
and its division. That herd must be singular in its totality and it must also be

148 Hillel Schwartz, Making Noise - From Babel to the Big Bang and Beyond (New York Zone Books 2011.), 843.
149 Michel Serres. Genesis. Translated by Genevieve James and James Nielson (Anne Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press, 1995), 61.
150 Michel Serres. Genesis. Translated by Genevieve James and James Nielson (Anne Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press, 1995), 62.

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 made up of sheep or buffalo. We want a principle, a system, integration, and we
want elements, atoms and numbers. We want them and we make them. A single
God and identifiable individuals .151

Aggregation and disaggregation comes naturally to the artist because it is what is

experienced every day within a practice. Whilst never effacing language completely, the
artist seems more willing to accept the unformed. This dance with chaos and this
straddling of form and formlessness has always belonged to the 'tunings' of art, even in
its most representational moments. There are all kinds of scumblings in the
background of paintings by Courbet for example, dissonances in music, chips and
gouges in sculpture and architecture, a non-linguistic material styling perhaps found
most prolifically within the style known as wabi sabi in Japanese culture. The
impressionists scumbled the entire picture plane in order to represent the effects of
light. And so does the actor who contorts his face in agony and the dancer that leaps and
freezes momentarily, the discord that creates an accord. In perfumery, a range of
unpleasant materials are utilised to mould and shape the tone of a fragrance.

Jackson Pollock's action painting flings the paint through space in arcs of chance,
landing on the canvas, which is now on the floor instead of being supported in a
horizontal position. With this approach, he is able to discern the density and the
direction of the paint in his noisy paintings. The accidental shatter of Duchamp's The
Large Glass is a famous example of an artist riding the aleatory. Many aspects of John
Cage's work in sound and music continually rely on chance operations, all realised
within formal boundaries, except now, the frame of the work is duration, rather than a
boundary of moulded timber.

Hermann Nitsch gets hold of Pollock's methodology and reverses the terms by naming it
"Painting Action" and instead of the brittle car duco that signs itself with the United
States motor industry, paints with blood spatters. This is the animal blood of Europe,
and the blood of the provincial farm and of peasant farmers, and of the horrors of war,
and he calls on the god Dionysius as part of his cathartic ritual. At the same time his
work belongs to the orgy of mass production, the sausage factory, the curtains of blood
on the walls and floor of the abattoir, forming glorious patterns. In his ritual actions, one

151 Michel Serres. Genesis, trans. Genevieve James and James Nielson (Anne Arbor: The University of Michigan
Press,1995), 63.

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palpably smells the blood and one sees up close the separation of the iron of the red
blood cells into brown stains of oxidation, and if one is holding the bucket and it
happens to touch bare skin on the leg, the warmth of blood, fresh from the kill can be
felt.

The smell in the space is antiseptic and also of the animal. There is a velvety thick smell
in the air that tickles the trigeminal nerve system ,152 as much as it is ringing in the
olfactory epithelium. Over a six week period, as the fresh blood diminishes from its
almost hospital-like antiseptic olfactory qualities, the smell becomes even more of an
irritant and metallic, as if the dust of crushed chilli and powdered aluminium has been
flung into the air. In Nitsch's work we have a situation of controlled decay or a tonal
synthesis of the cadaver, a reduction or distillation of the carcass as only a part of the
animal is in the room. Missing are the strange smells of gut and faeces and secretions
from the other organs.153Little wonder Nitsch is an artist fascinated by the drones of
musical organs as much as he is by animal organs .154

Fig 3. Working as an assistant to Hermann Nitsch in the 1988 Bicentennial Biennale.

152 Trigeminal Nerves are the second part of the smell system that makes menthol cool and chilli hot and some
smells astringent.
153 I worked with Hermann Nitsch for six weeks in 1988. In my library of molecules are a few nitriles that smell
of fresh air and blood. All of that iron in the blood is possibly being converted into some kind of nitrogen
molecule -all of the nitrogen based molecules smelt throughout this study (and there are not that many in
aroma chemistry) have a blood note lurking somewhere within them.
154 Nitsch is a prolific producer of audio recordings of minimalist high powered organ based drone music.

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Artists don’t have exclusive rights on harnessing chaos towards creative ends; this
belongs to the entire world. Science moulds and studies chaos, and so does religion and
politics. We are both grounded and free. Grounded by language and our subjectivity
and yet when language escapes us, ecstasy, laughter, or humiliation takes over. When
our subjectivity dissipates we are heading towards nirvana, euphoria, or alternately
under threat, heading into panic-stricken chaos. Could this be why aroma has been
pushed aside, because it couldn't be held in check by the comfort of critical distance, nor
could it be contained by the chill of certain logics?

Let us be done for now with the 'subject-object' distinction and instead try to imagine
‘things' swarming and bumping into other things. We have language and the symbolic
and it gifts to us. It keeps us grounded and yet it too produces 'ecstatic' noises - the cries
and screams of children on the beach in summer, or the cries of the crowd at the match -
the angry mob. All of the cries that belong to the guttural pre-figurative sounds mixing
with words, before the separation back to our houses.

The background noise is always there, the signal claps like a flash of lightning,
rumour rushes forth. The signal is a unit, pandemonium is undefined, and
rumour is a plurality. The ruckus fluctuates like choppy waters lapping, the
signal is a fluctuation, the rumour's noise is the flux, or the totality of fluxions. It
increases, decreases, globally, locally it is multiple, various, variegated. Voices,
cries, tears, thunderings, rumblings, whistles and crashes, breaths, blasts,
grindings, blows, chains and beats, cracklings and sounds, growling and waves,
moans that die away...the river of noise carries along a thousand tonalities.155

Our senses are always adjusting to noise, responding to changes in energy; we

continually come up against this fabric of noise that is ridden in everything. Our
sensory organs are transducers that convert parts of this informational spectrum into
other kinds of information. How is it that any dualisms hold up when we have
developed within the body such incredible systems for converting information from one
type to another - information that can be so distant and beyond language and yet is able
to belong to it? Things are irreducible and yet its powers are converting as emanations
and transmitting signals.

155 Serres Michel. Genesis. Translated by Genevieve James and James Nielson (Anne Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press), 65.

85
Saturation point - back to noise: within many of these systems there is a threshold
where the intensity peaks and it is cancelled out; the flesh is fragile and sensitive. Too
many chemicals bombarding the nose and the system momentarily stops working. We
all experience this type of anosmia .156

Air is the medium that surrounds us, constantly moving in turbulent spirals, full of
particles, sound, water, mist, noxious vapours, fragrance and smoke. The outside is
noisy and yet so is the interior, because there is no way of escaping the spectrum, which
is on the inside of the body as well. We cannot escape odours except in sleep, or
inebriation, anaesthetization. We can try to filter the senses by blocking our ears,
pinching our noses and breathing less deeply, or by covering our eyes, but only for as
long as we can hold our hands over these openings .157 The best method is to run away
from it.

Sometimes we have to shout over ourselves to get past the noise and the fury of all the
chaos that is chattering within - the noise of tinnitus versus the maelstrom of
consciousness. Listen for the libido that natters endlessly and the niggling anxieties that
seem to crop up all day long. We are populated by a multitude. Listen to this daily
endless argument - this unceasing chatter of the laughing skull that allows things to
enter - molecules and thoughts. And yes, these affects settle down and become mere
chatter, though at times there are so many voices shouting within they become a crowd
- stress and noise .158 As neuroscientist David Eagleman points out:

There is an ongoing conversation amongst different factions in your brain, each

competing to control the single output channel of your behaviour. As a result you
can accomplish the strange feats of arguing with yourself, cursing at yourself,
and cajoling yourself to do something - feats that modern computers simply do
not do . 159

156 S.Van Toller and G.H Dodd, Fragrance: the biology and psychology of perfume. (London and New York.
Elsevier Applied Science 1991), 102.
157 Strong enough smells can make one vomit or gag I know this from my own experience.
158 One doesn't have to be schizophrenic to hear this, if one listens during stress.
159 David Eagleman, Incognito - The Secret Lives of the Brain (Melbourne: Text Publishing. 2011), 107.

86
Frederich Nietzsche thought about it this way:

The assumption of one single subject is perhaps unnecessary; perhaps it is just as

permissible to assume a multiplicity of subjects, whose interaction and struggle
is the basis of our thought and our consciousness in general? A kind of
aristocracy of "cells” in which dominion resides? My Hypothesis: The subject as
multiplicity .160

The noise of the sea and rain and storm, the howling wind, the confused patterns of
deep grass, the tangle in the rainforest, the noisy crowds in a protest rally, the mists and
the fogs, the plumes of vapours of frangipani and eucalyptus in summer. Or the subtle
emissions of magnolia after winter rain, subdued perhaps, by a drop in air temperature.
Or what about the sweet narcotic stench of death, of food rotting and of pollution, gas
emissions in swamps, the tangle of scree :161

Noise cannot be a phenomenon; every phenomenon is separated from it, a

silhouette on a backdrop, like a beacon against the fog, as every message, every
cry, every call, and every signal must be separated from the hubbub that
occupies silence, in order to be, to be perceived, to be known, to be exchanged. As
soon as phenomenon appears, it leaves the noise; as soon as form looms up or
pokes through, it reveals itself by veiling noise. So noise is not a matter of
phenomenology, so it is a matter of being itself. It settles in subjects as well as in
objects, in hearing as well as in space, in the observers as well as the observed, it
moves through the means and tools of observation, whether material or logical,
hardware or software, constructed channels or languages; it is part of the in-
itself, part of the for-itself. 162

Manuel De Landa explains how information operates in all kinds of realms, how
patterns emerging from chaos are expressive forces at the centre of what it means to
live and to exist:

160 Frederick Nietzsche, Will To Power, (United Kingdom: Vintage, 1968), 490.
161A number of my friends and I once smelt a rotting cadaver, a man had died in the flat nearby. The air was
saturated with a thick narcotic headiness - a perfume like wilting flowers. They say when the body decays it
releases Indole which is an important componentry in perfumery because in heavy dilution it smells floral. See
entry on Indole later in this chapter.
162 Michel Serres. Genesis. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. 1995), 13.

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 These expressive patterns are what scientists call "information". This term does
not refer to the semantic information that we may get from, say, newspapers, but
to linguistically meaningless physical patterns. That physical information has
nothing to do with semantic content is demonstrated by the fact that information
theory was developed during World War II to deal with problems of
communicating encrypted military messages, that is, messages in which the
linguistic form and content were hidden. Physical information pervades the
world and it is through its continuous production that matter may be said to
express itself. Material expressivity, on the other hand, crossed an important
threshold when it ceased to be mere fingerprint and became functional in the
form of the genetic code: groups of three nucleotides, the chemical components
of genes, came to correspond in a more or less unique way to a single amino acid,
the component parts of proteins. Using this correspondence, genes can express
themselves through the proteins for which they code.
This implies that expression has gone beyond the production of information to
include its active storage and processing. And this, in turn, implies that when
populations of information-storing molecules replicate themselves, and when
this replication is biased in one or another direction by the interactions of
proteins with each other and with their environment, the expressive capacities of
material entities may evolve and expand in a multiplicity of novel ways. Like
atoms, living organisms can express their identity by the emission of patterns,
chemical patterns for example. But unlike atoms, this expression has functional
consequences since it allows the recognition of an organism's identity by
members of the same species, a recognition that is crucial for genetic replication.
163

And here is a provisional formula for an aromatic cloud: a turbulent particle system
that is light enough to float in the air, made up in all probability of a variety of molecules
(since smells are unlikely to consist of one molecular type), each a carrier of information
and each subjected to the surrounding forces, in particular temperature, air flow and
gravity; moisture is a factor as well as these molecules are attracted to water. Noise is in
the background, but it is not a background; it is the ground.

163 Manuel Delanda. "Matter Matters,"Domus, No 895, September 2006, pp. 262-63

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2.2 Atmospherics

In the thousands of years that aroma has been made into compositions it has been
imbued with all kinds of powers, religious, medicinal and aesthetic. These atmospheric
networks are expressively writing the fabric of the world, as much as any network that
sits on more stable ontological ground. A charged atmosphere has agency by virtue of
vibrational gradients of attributes that within sensitive subjects, metaphorically
speaking, form complicated interference patterns that upend ontological certainty,
which are in themselves powerful tools in imbuing the world with 'extra-territorial'
powers.

Aromas, auras, glows, echoes, hallucinations, recordings, colours, mirages, optical

illusions and reflections - by no means an exhaustive list of signals that transmit
through space. Others might view these manifestations as "epiphenomena" or
"secondary qualities," but what could be specifically secondary about uncanny entities
that seemingly appear out of nowhere, as figurations from the flux that transfix our
attention, and that we continually engage with?

We often think of air in its purest form, fresh and good to breathe - essential, but this is
merely an ideal. Aroma belongs to the atmosphere and becomes it. Alian Corbin begins
his important social history of the French social imagination, The Foul and The Fragrant,
on the topic of air. In the opening lines, he writes:

Until about 1750, before the crucial advance in what was called pneumatic
chemistry, air was regarded as an elementary fluid and not of the product of a
chemical combination... By its physical qualities, which varied according to
region and season, air was thought to regulate the expansion of fluids and the
tension of fibres. Once its weight was accepted as scientific truth, scientists
acknowledged that it exercised a certain pressure on organisms. Thus life would
be impossible unless equilibrium were established between external and
internal air; this equilibrium was precarious, continually re-established belching,
breaking wind, and ingestion and inhalation.164

154 Alain Corbin, The Foul and the Fragrant, Odour and the French Social Imagination. (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press 1985), 11.

89
Our experience of the air is highly dependent on context. We are perhaps not so
innocent about the nature of air any longer. Many of us live in the shadow of belching
fumes from factories and smog from traffic, but we still tend to think of the air in the
ideal sense as invisible, empty and hopefully pure enough to breathe and free of virus,
disease and pestilence .165

The German philosopher of embodiment and aesthetics Gernot Bohme, in one of his
later essays, points out that "Atmospheres are indeterminate above all, as regards their
ontological status ." 166 He goes on to say that:

The introduction of "atmosphere" as a concept in aesthetics should link up with

the everyday distinctions between atmospheres of different character.
Atmosphere can only become a concept, however, if we succeed in accounting for
the peculiar intermediary status of atmospheres between subject and object .167

The physician turned artist Wolfgang Laib, puts down squares of yellow pollen that
almost seem to hover in space, as if they are defying gravity. His yellow dust of hazelnut,
pine and dandelion are as intense as any yellow cut from the heavy metal of cadmium.
After looking at one of his yellow squares hovering against a pristine white ground,
purple flashes appear in the back of the eyes in contrast (purple being the
complementary opposite of yellow). This is the other side of the circuit that impinges
itself on seeing; you cannot have one without the other. The yellow pollen transmits
back into the arrangement of fleshy matter that belongs to the eye and this is what is
given between hazelnut pollen and the physiognomy of the eye - the purple ghost that
is lingering between the two.

Smell and taste are the sensuous invaders bound up with our psychology, Memory, after
Bartlett, who worked in the first half of the twentieth century, is thought about as being

165 It is interesting to experience air so polluted with carbon dioxide that one can no longer breathe it. Many
years ago I was a speleologist and I struck foul air as a regular occurrence of that activity. I will never forget the
first time this happened, I was deep inside Grill Cave in Bungonia, when the air went from breathable to very
little oxygen; there is something very primal being deep inside this dark interior without much breathable air.
We made great haste in leaving the chamber. Another time, I came across a cavern under the Sydney CBD, and
huge roots had grown down out of the ceiling of this ex World War II bunker from the Moreton Bay figs in
Hyde Park. They seemed to give off this noxious stinging gas that almost burnt the lungs.
166 Gernot Bohme, Atmosphere as a fundamental concept of a new Aesthetics (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 1993), 114.
167 Ibid

90
compositional as belonging to reconstruction, rather than simple recall. 168 Cognition
works up these ghostly actants bound together; you can’t have one without the other. As
a circuit of stimuli and response, our responses to stimuli are also feeding back,
informing our cognitions through "trillions and trillions of pulses in your brain ." 169

Positivist views of scientific progress would like to tell us that the phantom is being
banished by its mastery, but how would that be possible, when there are so many
conditions for ghostly actants to appear? And science itself is continually producing all
kinds of phantoms in the form of countless numbers of hybrids and androids, as the
work of Latour, Issabelle Stengers and others attest. What could be more confronting
than Eduardo Cac's artworks where he claims to have melded animal DNA with a
flower— a new kind of entity—or his infamous pet rabbit with flesh that glows in the
dark ? 170

The spectral flash of a distant lightning storm flickers onto a white wall, making it and
the room momentarily brighter - the ghosts surpass technology and yet also belong to
it. The ghosts live equally well within black box systems as they do in the movement of
leaves.

James Turrell is a prominent North American artist, renowned for his work with
coloured fields of light. Turrell describes this relationship:

Light is a powerful substance... But, for something so powerful, situations for

their presences are fragile. I form it as much as the material allows. I like to work
with it so that you feel it physically, so you feel the presence of light inhabiting a
space. I like the quality of feeling that is felt not only with the eyes .171

168 "For Example, in some of Bartlett's most influential studies, subjects were asked to read a story to
themselves (the most famous story being "The War of the Ghosts"); they then tried to recall the story later.
Bartlett found that individuals recalled each story in their own idiosyncratic way. Jonathan K Foster, Memory A
Very Short Introduction. (Oxford University Press 2009.) 12.
169 Neuroscientist David Eagleman a specialist at Baylor College of Medicine at Houston Texas tells us "Your
brain is built of cells called neurons and glia -hundreds of billions of them. Each one of these cells is as
complicated as a city. And each one contains the entire human genome and traffics billions of molecules in
intricate economies. Each cell sends electrical pulses to other cells, up to hundreds of times per second. If you
represented each of these trillions and trillions of pulses in your brain by a single photon of light, the combined
output would be blinding"
170 See the artists website on this work the "natural history of the enigma"
http://www.ekac.org/nat.hist.enig.html
171 Victoria Lynne. Space Odysseys sensation and Immersion. (Sydney: Art gallery of NSW, 1999), 52.

91
How do we reconcile 'individuality' when faced with a continual dynamic of becoming
that exists in systems across both the macro and micro scale? This dynamic has been
the source of a long debate within philosophical circles for centuries, all the way back to
the Pre-Socratics. It was Heraclitus that said "you can never stand in the same river
twice .” 172

The philosopher Levi Bryant gives us a succinct summary of Aristotle's position on

substance:

To be, for Aristotle, is to be a substance or a thing. All other senses of being,

Aristotle argues, ultimately refer back to substance for ultimately all these other
forms of being reside in substances or are made possible by substances...
Elsewhere, in the Categories, Aristotle gives us an important clue as to the nature
of substance. There Aristotle writes that, "[a] substance— that which is called a
substance most strictly, primarily, and most of all— is that which is neither said
of a subject nor in a subject, e.g., the individual man or the individual horse.” In
short, a substance is that which is not predicated of anything else, and which
therefore enjoys independent or autonomous existence. Colour, for example, is
always predicated of a substance. Put differently, colour must always reside in
something else. The colour red is never a substance in its own right, but is always
in a ball or a strawberry or lipstick. Qualities reside in substances; they are
predicated of substances, whereas substances are not predicated of anything.

One thinks of molecules as innate and as relatively stable entities but they are not ideal
forms. Instead, they are compositions of atoms, and they can decompose as well as
assemble. Quantum physics tells us there are subatomic scale dynamics operating
within each atom and molecule that produces variations of all manner of types
continuously:

First is the gradual emergence in early Greek thought of a factor indispensable to

the discussion of the changing world and the progressive elaboration of that
factor (or, more exactly, cluster of factors) as philosophic reflection deepened
and divided. Second is the radical shift that occurred in the seventeenth century

172 The quote from Heraclitus appears in Plato's Cratylus twice; in 401located online
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0171%3Atext%3DCrat.%3Asecti
on%3D401d retrieved,3/2/2012

92
 as the concept of matter took on new meanings, gave its name to the emerging
philosophy of materialism and yielded place to a derivative concept, mass, in the
fast-developing new science of mechanics. Third is the further transformation of
the concept in the twentieth century in the light of the dramatic changes brought
about by the three radically new theories in physics: relativity, quantum
mechanics, and expanding-universe cosmology, with which that century will
always be associated. Matter began to be dematerialized, as it were, as matter
and energy were brought into some sort of equivalence, and the imagination-
friendly particles of the earlier mechanics yielded way to the ghostly realities of
quantum theory that are neither here nor there.173

Quantum physics shows us that everything at a certain level is a composite energetic

blur in a field:

The first blow came from Einstein's theories of special relativity (1905) and
general relativity (1915). By stating the principle of an equivalence of mass and
energy, the field character of matter came into focus, and philosophers of science
began to discuss to what extent relativity theory implied a ‘de-materialization’ of
the concept of matter. However, as McMullan points out, even though particles
and their interactions began to be seen as only partial manifestations of
underlying fields of mass-and-energy, relativity theory still gave room for some
notion of spatio-temporal entities through the concept o f‘rest mass'. The second
blow to classical materialism and mechanism came with quantum theory, which
describes a fundamental level of reality, and therefore should be accorded
primary status when discussing the current scientific and philosophical nature of
matter.174

Rather than being given "primary status” let us acknowledge that reality is multilayered
and stratified and look for the tracings that cross these dimensions. Conceptually
speaking, the strange situations that are occurring on a quantum level should at the

173 Paul Davies and Niels Henrik Gregersen, (2011-03-01). "Introduction: does information matter?"
Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics (United Kingdom: Cambridge University
Press), 13.

174Paul Davies and Niels Gregersen and Niels Henrik. "Introduction: does information matter?" Information
and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press 2011), 2

93
very least reinforce an idea that things operate differently through a strata of
dimensions, that dimensionality is really only a conceptual character anyway that arises
from the observers position, or viewpoint. When it comes to the qualities of powers
that come to the senses, the prominent American cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett
ascribes this to qualia:

"Qualia" is an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to
each of us: the ways things seem to us. As is so often the case with philosophical
jargon, it is easier to give examples than to give a definition of the term. Look at a
glass of milk at sunset; the way it looks to you - the particular, personal,
subjective visual quality of the glass of milk is the quale of your visual experience
at the moment. The way the milk tastes to you then is another, gustatory quale,
and how it sounds to you as you swallow is an auditory quale; these various
"properties of conscious experience" are prime examples of qualia. Nothing, it
seems, could you know more intimately than your own qualia; let the entire
universe be some vast illusion, some mere figment of Descartes' evil demon, and
yet what the figment is made of (for you) will be the qualia of your hallucinatory
experiences. Descartes claimed to doubt everything that could be doubted, but
he never doubted that his conscious experiences had qualia, the properties by
which he knew or apprehended them .175

Surely it is the constitution of these things that allows them to emit particular qualities
back to us, rather than being merely a product of our hallucinations? A white sheet
hanging in a room will show a different side under different lighting conditions between
noon and twilight. A red sheet will look purple under blue light, as opposed to under
yellow light, where it will appear orange. A black sheet side by side with the red sheet
under the same lighting conditions will also change accordingly, but in different ways.
These objects have the power to absorb light in different ways; isn't this then a
proposition of a complex, involving a union between interpretation through the senses
and the qualities or powers of objects themselves? And what about the question of

175 Daniel Dennett "Quining Qualia" Ase.tufts.edu 1985-11-21. Retrieved 18/05/2012.

94
diffuse light emissions or radiosity ?176 A red sheet in a white room will reflect some of
its redness onto the wall as a pink glow .177

The Belgian philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers, in her book Thinking with
Whitehead, highlights how Whitehead countered our tendency to see the world as a
bunch of divisions, rather than as an entangled constituency:

Thus, nature sees itself credited with that which, in fact, should be reserved for
ourselves: the rose for its smell, the nightingale for its song, and the sun for its
brilliance. The Poets are entirely wrong. They should address their songs to
themselves, and should turn them into odes of self-congratulation for the
splendour of the human mind. Nature is a stupid business, bereft of sounds,
odours and colours; it is only matter in a hurry without end and without
meaning . 178

Whitehead made it his life's challenge to think up alternatives to this divide:

The theory of psychic additions would treat the greenness [of grass] as a psychic
addition, furnished from the perceiving mind and would leave to nature, merely
the molecules and the radiant energy which influences the mind towards the
perception.

What I am essentially protesting against is the bifurcation of nature into two

systems of reality, which, in so far as they are real, are real in different senses[...]
Thus there would be two natures, one is the conjecture the other is a dream.

Wider nature is not so much bereft of sound, odours or colours as it is at times simply
withdrawn from certain qualities, just as we humans are withdrawn from many things
when we sleep or are unconscious. At the same time the world still churns.

How could anyone really know what it is like when another person encounters the smell
of the plant vetiver? This is a smell that is usually described in the most general terms as

176 In 3d computer graphics radiosity is an algorithm used to visualise and take into account diffuse inter­
reflections of surfaces bouncing off each other. The equation comes from thermal radiation but surfaces also
radiate scattered light that has an effect on the illumination of objects in their surroundings.
177 Levi Bryant, in his book The Democracy of Objects uses the example of a cup in a similar way.
178 Isabelle Stengers, quoting Whitehead in Thinking with Whitehead -Science and the Modern World (New
York: Free Press 1967), 54.

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being earthy and woody. How can we find the words to describe to someone what the
smell of vetiver is for us? As Bruno Latour reminds us: "Nothing can be reduced to
anything else." Language comes after the experience with smell, words may put us in
the zone, but words are perhaps the most distant translation of what it is.

Touch also belongs to these occulting states in confirming that there are beings 'outside
of me’ that produce shivers on the skin, or warmth and comfort, even ecstasy, or
perhaps in a striking blow, great pain and agony. The ghostly actants, because they are
unbounded, live in the senses and in the outside world simultaneously. Generalised in
thought, as categories such as "atmosphere" and "aura", this haunting quality we are
extending onto aesthetic practices of atmospherics and ambience, as a place of the
coven where aromatic potions become spellbinding. This is why perfume is often
presented as a gift, something we wear on the skin like a decoration and a declaration of
seduction, as a potion.

"Freud devoted his life to listening and interpreting ghosts," so says philosopher Jacques
Derrida in the film Ghost Dance.179 Everything emits in space, some things are more
stable and others more volatile and some are withdrawn - waiting to pop up like a ‘jack-
in-the-box.’

Shiny surfaces and caustics - the wiggly patterns reflected through water onto a surface
more often associated with visual apparitions. Yet aroma may also be charged by the
interweaving of the effects of dissonance and interference; certainly the accord in
perfumery seems key to these kinds of summations of effects. We now add to these
watery illusions the effects of the air like those found in Turner's painting and onwards
towards a haunting meteorological olfactory that signals to us across the divide that
there are indeed, things beyond ourselves.

The flower attracts with chemical effluvia with an "1 am here" to a wasp that it will
never know and is unlikely to be speaking with any time soon. But time, the
circumstances of evolutionary time is indirectly telling the flower of the necessity of the
wasp and so the flower is composing towards it. Not all communication is as explicit or
as vulgar as language. Communication is so pervasive across the divide that it happens
in spite of conscious awareness of enunciation and reception. There is the time of the

179 A line of dialogue by Jacques Derrida in the film Ghost Dance, 1983. Director Ken McMullen.

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genes and the dark eons entombed within life. We are filled with black boxes as much as
a rose is a black box. We are dark houses, and stored within us are a myriad of
processes that we will never know directly, but none the less, are bubbling away
insistently.

What lies between subject and object are all of these manifestations that act as
intermediaries, as micro transporters, translators that sit outside of any firm
ontological category and yet, counter intuitively, by way of their indeterminate
ambiguous nature are empowered by the receptivity that come from the fascination of
these temporal indeterminacies. This expressive territory is the ways and means of
transmission across epistemological gaps. These powers are attention seeking because
we have always been geared towards looking for the potential in the world around us,
seeking out some unnamed and perhaps subtle force that might be useful for our
survival.

For Walter Benjamin the concept of aura was central. Benjamin was infected with a
form of the ghostly - an incantation of the aura that he revealed for us that he claimed
makes its presence felt in the art object. An aura that gives the work an intangible
power, an aura that he felt was being snuffed out by reproduction. An aura then, unable
to gather enough alliances against the tide of images coming off the presses. An aura
that is present in every museum or gallery, even if it is being felt as an absence in its
wake. Benjamin intuits the aura in the atmospheric clearing of the vista, the antithesis of
the enclosed space of the gallery or the museum. He finds it in nature - nature is his web
and his line into culture:

What is an aura actually? A strange tissue of space and time: unique appearance
of distance, however near it may be. Resting on a summer evening and following
a mountain chain on the horizon or a branch, which throws its shadow on the
person at rest - that is to breathe the aura of these mountains or this branch.
With this definition it is easy to comprehend the particular social determination
of the present decay of aura ...180

Esther Leslie points out how:

180As quoted by Gemot Bohme in Atmosphere as the Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics Gemot
Bohme Thesis Eleven 1993; W. Benjamin, "Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen
Reproduzierbarkeit", 1st version, Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1991)

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 Benjamin quoted a line from Novalis: 'perceptibility is attentiveness'. This,
Benjamin noted in 1939, is a way of figuring aura, for aura overcomes the object-
subject distinction by allowing objects to look back, endowing objects with the
power to see.

She then goes onto quote Benjamin himself:

'Perceptibility', as Novalis puts it, 'is an attentiveness'. The perceptibility he has

in mind is none other than that of the aura. Experience of the aura thus arises
from the fact that a response characteristic of human relationships is transposed
to the relationship between humans and inanimate and natural objects. The
person we look at, or who feels he is being looked at, looks at us in turn. To
experience the aura of an object we look at means to invest it with the ability to
look back at us.181

The ghosts are zigzagging down the channels, completing a circuit of potential; they
attach themselves to anything that has enough energy in the system to allow their
effects to come forth. What humans do with them is up to the humans, the gods watch
on indifferently.

A field of electricity under power lines illuminates a fluorescent tube when held aloft by
a hand that connects the field to the earth through the body. This is also Benjamin's
aura, the natural sublime is to be found now, within networks of electricity that belong
to the cosmos as much as they do to power companies that mediate them.

This is the new line on the horizon - a power line that cuts a corridor through the bush.
The 512k transmission lines to Blacktown that produces the strange sounds of the
electrical field in corresponding lengths of wire (VLF antennae) when held aloft, they
resonate internally and in sympathy. The lines occasionally flash green in the winter fog.
Its aura or electromagnetic field is so radiant that a person can hold a fluorescent tube
up in the air and make it glow without it being plugged into any other piece of
equipment, no power sockets required - a light sabre courtesy of Integral Energy. These
transmission lines run approximately parallel with the ridgeline that the people of the
Durag and Gunddungara nation probably would have travelled to go back and forth

181 Esther Leslie. Synthetic Worlds: Nature, Art and the Chemical Industry.(Great Britain: Reaktion Books 2005),
22 .

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from the tool workshops along the Nepean River.182 This glowing 'Flavin Rod' is a

circuit between the earth, the air, and a living fleshy body.183 A cable between two poles

amplifies the radio emissions from the stars as a crackle that seemed utterly mysterious

to the teams o f linesman who first laid the cable.184 Accordingly, the auras of plants are

rediscovered in the making of a Kirlian camera, its authenticity unquestionable in the

sense that what it shows is the fifth state of matter as nebula around the fringe of leaves,

but entirely questionable in terms of the old idea of life force transmitting in the

ether.185

This sequence of images was accompanied in its first iteration with fantasy fragrances

made in the studio of olfactory interpretations o f each of the plants under

investigation.186 For example the Kirlian image of Water Cress was accompanied by the

fragrance, "A Thousand Leaves” which was a diffuse green bitter fragrance that had

hemp like overtones. All of these fragrances utilized cis 3 Hexanyl and its acetate which

are foundational green notes in perfumery. The Kirlian image of common grass was

accompanied by a fragrance named "Grass Valley” that was described as being hay-like,

diffusive and musk like. It accurately contained coumarin- a vanilla like chemical that

one can easily detect when large bodies of grass have been mown, along with ozone like

chemicals and classic cut grass green notes as already mentioned above. Stemone made

an appearance for its stem like minty qualities.

The Kirlian image of the violet leaf was accompanied by the fragrance named "Violets on

Fire" the fragrance that most tried to correlate with the burning fringe of plant auras

depicted in the photographs. One of the few in the sequence to contain a natural isolate

o f the leaf itself in Violet leaf absolute, it also contained an exotic array of chemicals to

achieve a clean violet accord in tandem with the dirty smokiness of a campfire from the

addition of things like guaicol, cade oil, birch tar absolute, guaiyl acetate and isobutyl

182 A good background for this can be found in the book Blue Mountains Dreaming. The Aboriginal Heritage.
By Eugene Stockton.
183 "Flavin Rod" is a play on the work of American Artist Dan Flavin famous for his sculptures of fluorescent
tubes and the 'light sabre' or staff as ceremonial rod.
184 This description refers to two collaborative works with Joyce Hinterding - The Halo Field - published as a
DVD that came with Art Monthly Australia 2010 and Hinterding's field recordings, in particular Transmission
Lines Series 512k to Blacktown 2009.
185 David Haines. The Phantom Leaves - (premiered at Breenspace, Sydney 2010)
186 First exhibited in the group exhibition curated by Lucy Bleach and Jonathon Holmes at the Plimsoll Gallery
Hobart in the exhibition titled, Green. Then in a second iteration as part of the exhibition Cosmic Vapour at
Breenspace in 2010 (not discussed in the text).

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quinolone. This was the most successful in the sequence because it upheld this paradox
most effectively, somewhat like the way Heston Blumenthal attempts to provide a cup
of tea that is both hot and cold at the same tim e.187

The fragrance "Wormwood of the Sea" accompanies the Kirlian image of camphor
wormwood a precious specimen from our garden that is an incredibly fragrant plant
when one passes ones hand over it. Wormwood of course, is legendary for its
association with the "green fairey" of absinth and the compositional decision here was
to make a fragrance as hallucinatory as possible by invoking the ocean in union with the
terrestrial qualities of the plant and also associatively with the hallucinations of sailors
adrift on life rafts and olfactorily this was expressed (beyond the association within the
title of the fragrance) with both wormwood and vegetal notes with sea like salty Ozonic
accords including a favourite material, maritima or 4 (4,8-dymethyl 3,7-nonadienyl)
pyridine. "Mint Glass" was the final in this series of works that began a whole phase of
exploring Kirlian photography.

The fragrance accompanied the Kirlian image of common garden mint plucked from our
kitchen garden. Here the desire was to capture the crystalline glass like quality of mint.
Perhaps an association with its clean freshness and crystal mint lollies, the most linear
fragrance in the group inspired by Comme de Garcons "Peppermint Sherbet" perfume, a
rose accord underpinned a changing mint that morphed from peppermint to spearmint
and landed in the bright space of a white musk accord. All of these fragrances where
built on a base of modifiers that seem to add a great deal of transparency to fragrances,
namely methyl dihydrojasminate and ISO- E Super.188

187 Heston Blumenthal. The Big Fat Duck Cookbook. (London, Bloomsbury), 285.
188 When one refers to transparency in fragrance composition one might also use the word clarity of notes
rather than confused muddiness of non-descript facets. In another way loud and quiet are used to describe
subtle smelling as opposed to overpowering.

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Fig 4: The Phantom Leaves: First iteration of the work: Plimsoll Gallery Hobart.

Four rusty pipes of various lengths poke from a ruined façade in an abandoned oil shale
refinery in Western NSW.189 These pipes produce a pitch perfect melody - a sad refrain
in the wind. This is Aeolian music that will last as long as the prevailing wind passes
from that particular direction and at that speed, and for as long as the pipes can resist
the process of oxidation into rust, subjected to the process of change, endless exchange
of energy in entropy. This perhaps speaks towards a powerful dimension in art, its deep
recesses, this enormous crescendo of patterns seeping up from the noumenal,
eruptions of time. The work is already nearly complete, all it needs is to be gotten hold
of by some entity and signed.

We live in a world that contains the appropriate substrates for ghostly forces: rock
shelter, tree, telephone, computer, starlight, sun, the cinema, psychoanalysis; the list is
endless - for these unnameable ghostly actants are firmly planted in the real that
includes the imagination: mediators of matter and the senses. These are the timings in
which things come together. They are always with us, the planes and lines of force

189
This sound appeared in the collaborative art work "Black Canyon Earth Field" that appeared in the
exhibition, Modern Ruins at Gallery of Modern Art Queensland Haines/Hinterding 2008

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translating a lightning flash that makes a rectangular luminous shape appear on the
lounge room wall masked by a window. They are the harbingers, because our minds are
geared to receive them, and at the same time we belong to them and them to us, through
the forces of feedback, a circular looping transporter .190 Like upon like, creates
interference patterns when they phase. Energy out of phase with itself creates patterns.
Energy in phase carves out hollow space. Time out of phase is a rupture. Time out of
phase reeks of the event and of the temporary arresting of entropy by preservation in a
bottle. Objects slow down time for us by arresting nervous energy. Here Serres
describes the relational object in action:

For an unstable band of baboons, social changes are flaring up every minute. One
could characterize their history as unbound, insanely so. The object for us, makes
our history slow...l spoke of the ball, ludic mimes in our own age of these
relational objects. Around the ball, the team fluctuates as quick as a flame,
around it through it, it keeps a nucleus of organization. The ball is the sun of the
system and the force passing among its elements; it is a centre that is off-centred,
off-side, outstripped. Every player carries on with the ball when the preceding
one is shunted aside, laid out, trampled . 191

Many entities miss much of the world and yet these objects are caught up in the paradox
of a strange intimacy, a paradox of touching that couldn’t be further from making
contact, described here by the master of objects, Martin Heidegger:

Taken strictly, 'touching' is never what we are talking about in such cases, not
because accurate re-examination will always eventually establish that there is a
space between the chair and the wall, but because in principle the chair can
never touch the wall, even if the space between them should be equal to zero. If
the chair could touch the wall, this would presuppose that the wall is the sort of
thing 'for' which a chair would be encounterable. An entity present at hand

190 Gregory Bateson was one of the first people to think about feedback. Noel Charlton in Understanding
Gregory Bateson: Mind, Beauty, and the Sacred Earth (S U N Y Series in Environmental Philosophy and Ethics
2012), 15, explains it thus: "He was already seeing social and inter-societal interaction in terms of process and,
during this work with the Latmul people, he first recognized (while puzzling over the fact that conflict and
reciprocally aggressive behavior between groups of natives did not normally escalate into all-out war) the
processes that would, in postwar cybernetics, become "positive feedback" and "negative feedback"-though at
the time he referred to "symmetrical schismogenesis" and "complementary schismogenesis."
191 Michel Serres. Genesis. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. 1995), 13.

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 within the world can be touched by another entity only if by its very nature the
latter entity has Being -in as its own kind of Being -only if, with its Being-there
[Da-sein], something like the world is already revealed to it, so that from out of
the world another entity can manifest itself in touching, and thus become
accessible in its Being-present-at-hand. When two entities are present-at-hand
within the world, and furthermore are worldless in themselves, they can never
'touch' each other, nor can either of them be alongside each other .192

But isn't this the case for all entities including humans, try as we might our potential
access to 'other' entities shall always remain somehow strangely beyond us, no matter
how close we lay to each other in our beds? Of course, we have a sense of who we are
with and the qualities they project that allows us to love or to loath; we do all agree
‘more or less' that sunsets are red and often special, but we can never be absolutely
certain that these things are what they are, or that we are getting our point or opinion
through. And when we sense this existential and ontological void opening up, we are
immersed in the uncanny that is surrounded by thresholds; suddenly the home is filled
with murky shadows and black holes.

A hypothesis: only the lifeless things are truly free in their existence, because they do
not have a world to access. Being in the phenomenological sense is never fulfilled,
especially for us. This is because we belong to an open system that is gaining and losing
information. We are always haunted by spectres that give us a world that forces us to
consciously acknowledge, in line with Heidegger, our inability to fully and completely
enter it. Does this ontological uncertainty prove we are ghosts rather than flesh,
operating as a field of vibration? Are we ghostly before we have even died? Are we
always hovering between subject and object? Are we just ghostly actants? Are we
merely shells in which everything else inhabits us, including the past from the inevitable
reshaping that comes with the nexus of our subjectivity? Perhaps this withdrawal is the
very thing that affords power to aesthetics and excludes us the right to total knowledge,
an ontological void that makes us somehow human, as empathetic fragile creatures
rather than incandescent with power and monstrously holy. As Colin Black writes in his
essay "Hauntology, spectres and phantoms":

192 Martin Heidegger. Being and Time. (New York: Harper and Row. 1962), 81-82

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 For Derrida, the ghost's secret is not a puzzle to be solved; it is the structural
openness or address directed towards the living by the voices of the past or the
not yet formulated possibilities of the future. The secret is not unspeakable
because it is taboo, but because it cannot not (yet) be articulated in the languages
available to us. The ghost pushes at the boundaries of language and thought. The
interest here, then, is not in secrets, understood as puzzles to be resolved, but in
secrecy, now elevated to what Castricano calls 'the structural enigma which
inaugurates the scene of writing . 193

Our interpretation and experience of aroma may struggle with language and yet, at the
same time, this is also one of its powers once it enters the realm of phenomena and
composition. The proposition here is that ghostly actants are the entities that resist
representation (as much as they play a role in producing them) as spectre, apparition,
mirage and memory, as entities that appear seemingly out of nowhere that become
powerful collaborators with us as territorial animals. The ghosts are the entities that we
always meet with a certain incredulity against our need to believe we are "the
shepherds of being." An aroma, a certain 'w hiff will resist or complicate any description.
Aroma is semiotically unstable and yet it still signals as information seemingly
immaterially, confounding stable conceptual categories while at the same time
simultaneously producing them. It is in this excess and openness of this exchange and
its lack of perfection, that there will be found all kinds of'ghostly' supplements
supplanting and cajoling with other actants by a similar to route to how we have come
to harness chaos into order. Aroma is one of the most intimate things we can know; as
substances it enters our bodies and we have been thoroughly equipped through our
organs to submit to this occasion.

The ghostly are agents of transduction, they can be found on the output side of black
boxes manifesting as haloes, glows, and auras, or inside the resonating wires of antenna
or in the glowing ion channels beyond the receptor. The ghosts are found in the
harmonic ring of a molecule's stretch frequency and from the arrangement of its shape.
One will smell of freshly cut grass and another of candle wax.

193 Colin Black. Hauntology, spectres and phantoms (Oxford Journals Humanities French Studies Volume 59,
Issue) 3Pp. 373-379.

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Perhaps by attempting to interrogate these so called indeterminate qualities under the
guise of ghostly entities forming bridges and pathways, we might begin to develop a
future taxonomy of fantastical new modes of thought in respect to what was once
banished by the church and held in check by other gatekeepers. The affirmation here is
aimed towards the occult tendencies of perfumery for a rising up of wondrous vaporous
entities from the earth, rather than for the drowning of witches at the weighing station.

Fig 5: Kirlian Image of Mint from the Garden. The Phantom Leaves. 2010.

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2.3 Transductions

The physiological pathways of smell are not completely understood, particularly the
manner in which receptors are stimulated by odiferous molecules.194 What follows is a
very brief summary of the physiology as it relates to smell with a focus on transduction,
which is a biological pathway of mediation between the information provided by
molecules and perception:

In humans the olfactory receptor cells lie in the mucous membranes at the top of
the air passages on each side of the nasal septum. They occupy about a total area
of 2cm, which is small compared with most other mammals. Evidence from both
anatomy and embryology shows that the development of the olfactory tissue is
closely linked to that of the pituitary gland which lies at the base of the brain.
From the receptor cells nerves pass through the olfactory lobes at the front end
of the brain direct to the basal region, the part known as the "limbic system.”
This forms part of our deep seated unconscious mind, being associated with the
control of emotions and sexual activity, as well as with feelings of pleasure. In
evolutionary terms it is also the oldest part of the brain, providing evidence of
the early and continuing importance of the sense of smell in animal behaviour.195

Gordon.M.Sheperd, a neuroscientist who specializes in the microcircuits found within

olfaction, in his book Neurograstronomy: how the brain creates flavour and why it
matters tells of the recent discovery that taste is a second form of smelling:

When we sense the flavour of the food in our mouths, it is not by sniffing in,
which we usually associate with smelling something like an aroma, but by
breathing out, when we send little puffs of smell from our food and drink out the

194 "But despite more than ten years of intense study of the genetics, biochemistry and neurophysiology of
olfaction (along with psychological research), we still do not know for sure how the molecular composition of
an odorant is translated into psychological perception of "aha, the smell of banana" or "aha, the smell of
mildew" Rachel S Hertz (a visiting professor at Brown university who has published numerous articles on
olfactory perception and cognition is quoted here from her essay, / know whot I like - understanding Odour
Preferences": The Smell Culture Reader, Edited by Jim Drobnick. Berg Oxford New York.
195 Robert R Calkin and J. Stephan Jellinek, Perfumery Practice and Principles, John Wiley and sons, Inc. 1994
pg. 76

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 back of our mouths and backward up through our nasal passages as we chew and
swallow. This back door approach is called retronasal smell (retro=backward);
we can also call it mouth-smell. It contrasts with orthonasal smell (ortho =
forward], which is what we call the common sniffing-smell.196

Recently a team of scientists from the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) at
University College London have found evidence in support of an idea brought forward
by biophysicist Luca Turin ten years previously. His idea revives and extends a theory
about the way molecules interact with receptors. The theory focuses on atomic level
vibration and quantum scale processes, first put forward by Dyson in 19 3 8 197 and then
taken up again by R.H. Wright198in the 1950s. There has been a debate occurring for a
very long time on the nature of how smell operates at the level of the receptor; is it
shape that binds to a receptor or is it the molecular spin frequency in the infrared part
of the spectrum that the senses are able to detect? It seems like it may be a combination
of both:

Odorant shape and size are certainly important, but experiment shows these are
insufficient. Here we assess the novel proposal that a critical early step involves
inelastic electron tunnelling mediated by the odorant... Indeed, vibrational
frequency has been found to correlate better with odour than structure. Thus a
molecule's vibrational spectrum appears closely linked to its odour.199

When perception enters the fold, we see how things are constantly drawing and
repelling other actants into their orbit. These systems are transportation networks, and
some of these mediators are physical and some virtual. The word virtual is used here to
point to dynamic machines within a system that actants don't necessarily have access to
until a threshold is crossed. For example, in transduction on the output side of the
mechanism that is doing the transducing there is a result - whatever has passed
through the transducer has been processed into something else altogether. Conversions

196 Gordon.M.Sheperd. Neurograstronomy (Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition 2011), 3

197 J. C. Leffingwell, Leffingwell Reports 4 1 (2001).
198 R. H. Wright, The sense of smell ( Florida, USA: CRC PRESS, 1982), 22
199 Jennifer C. Brookes et al, "Could humans recognize odour by phonon assisted tunnelling?" (Department of
Physics and Astronomy, University College London, 2006), 2.

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from one state change to another are energies that are hovering between existence one
minute and nonexistence in the next, operating as cause and effect.

One of the surprising aspects of this theory is the conflation of minute physical
processes with the unwieldy scale of equipment normally found in the laboratory
(electron tunnelling technology), and how Turin sets out to show that the mechanisms
that make up quantum electron tunnelling is completely physically viable within the
receptors of the nose .200

Vibrational sensing has interesting implications in terms of aroma composition and this
is something that Turin remarks on in his writings. If we are sensing frequency rather
than shape, is there a correlation between quantum frequency and harmony in smell?
And if so, are there particular tunings for smell, similar to how tonal scales occur with
sound, or are there primary smells as we find in colour? It would be remarkable to see if
there are tunings within the far-infrared part of the spectrum along the lines of colour
and sound.

We share with aromatic molecules our own effluvia; we generate smells ourselves, as
much as we experience them in other things. This is another bridge between subject and
object; we forget that we are also made up of matter. Why do we wear perfume, if not to
mask our bodily odour and also create a shell of association around our bodies? We are
signalling to others and to ourselves the aromatic atmospheres that we prefer.

The physiological origins of our aromatic emanations are well known to all of us, found
in the smeli of flatulence and urine, shit, and breath and body odour in general, but

200 Here is Turin's abstract, from a paper that he published in the journal Chemical Senses that outlines his
approach:

A novel theory of primary olfactory reception is described. It proposes that olfactory receptors
respond not to the shape of the molecules but to their vibrations. It differs from previous vibrational
theories (Dyson, Wright) in providing a detailed and plausible mechanism for biological transduction
of molecular vibrations: inelastic electron tunnelling. Elements of the tunnelling spectroscope are
identified in putative olfactory receptors and their associated G-protein. Means of calculating electron
tunnelling spectra of odorant molecules are described. Several examples are given of correlations
between tunnelling spectrum and odour in structurally unrelated molecules. As predicted, molecules
of very similar shape but differing in vibrations smell different. The most striking instance is that of
pure acetophenone and its fully deuterated analogue acetophenone-ds, which smell different despite
being identical in structure. This fact cannot, it seems, be explained by structure-based theories of
odour. The evidence presented here suggests instead that olfaction, like colour vision and hearing, is
a spectral sense.

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sometimes these emanations travel by mysterious channels. No one quite understands
why women's menstrual periods synchronise but this is thought to be some kind of
epidermal signal known as the "McClintlock Effect.” This, according to smell scientist
Rachel.S. Herz,"is the only instance where humans exhibit a pheromonal response.” She
goes on to make the point that:

A major problem with the hunt for human pheromones is that we do not have a
functional VNO (vomeronasal organ] Human embryos do have one, but it
disappears shortly after birth .201

When bodies smell good and taste good our carnal pleasures are all the more powerful,
transcendent even. Even if we have no developed organ to receive pheromones, the very
idea of pheromones is perhaps enough of a placebo .202

British artist James Auger, with his piece "Smell Blind Date” in which tubes connected to
the genitalia and armpits of male and female participants, literally feed emanations to
the nose.

Fig 6: Images of "Smell Blind Date" copyright James Auger.

To facilitate control over both these variables the smell suit has been devised.
Sealed pouches encapsulate the apocrine glands (scent glands containing
pheromones] preventing oxidation (which creates unpleasant body odours] and

Understanding Odour preferences

202 A female colleague once mentioned that the smell of wet concrete made her sexually aroused and at the
time I didn't quite understand the association. Recently I was riding my bicycle through a building site where
they were pouring lots of concrete on a humid rainy day, I took notice of the smell that was rising up from the
ground and I immediately understood what she was talking about - the smell of ejaculation in warm steamy
air.
203 Pictures taken from the artists website: http://www.auger-loizeau.com/index.php?id=12 retrieved
2/ 5/2012

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 channelling smells to the chest mounted control unit. All input smells also arrive
here allowing the wearer to have the choice of which smell to concentrate on.204
Another Mediation.
Jane Bennett in her book Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things quotes
philosopher Manual Delanda, where he describes the emergence of bones.205 What is
interesting about this passage is the way it reveals a profound fluid connection between
realms that seem, at least on an intellectual level, to be vastly distant between the
human and nonhuman:
Soft tissue (gels and aerosols, muscle and nerve] reigned supreme until 5000
million years ago. At that point, some of the conglomerations of fleshy matter-
energy that made up life underwent a sudden mineralization, and a new material
emerged: bone. It is almost as if the mineral world that had served as substratum
for the emergence of biological creatures was reasserting itself.
Mineralization names the creative agency by which bone was produced and
bones then made new forms of movement control possible among animals,
freeing them from many constraints and literally setting them into motion to
conquer every available niche in the air, in water and on land.
In the long slow time of evolution, then, mineral material appears as the mover
and shaker, the active power, and then the human beings with their much lauded
capacity for self-directed action, appear as its product. What struck Vernadsky206
most was that the material of the Earth's crust has been packaged into myriad
moving beings whose reproduction and growth build and break down matter on
a global scale. People, for example redistribute and concentrate oxygen... and
other elements of the Earth's crust into two legged, upright forms that have an
amazing propensity to wander across, dig into and in countless other ways alter
Earth's surface. "We are walking talking minerals."207

204 Quote from the artists website http://www.auger-loizeau.com/index.php?id=12 retrieved 2/5/2012

205 Jane Bennett. Vibrant Matter, a political ecology of fh/ngs.(Durham:Duke University Press. 2010), 6-7
206 Famous Russian Scientist
207 Here Bennett is quoting Margulis and Sagan. By the same token the Himalayan Mountains are made up of
limestone which comes from the shells of marine life.

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Here we see the expressive powers of parts of the whole in action, and we see just how
entangled we are - we are local and we are global, we are flesh and we are earth, bound
together.

Paraphrasing Turin from his book "The Secret of Scent: adventures in Perfume and the
Science of Smell," let us now look at what a molecule needs to look like in order for it to
be detected as an aroma. Our noses have an affinity with molecules made up of twenty
or less atoms, any larger and they can't be smelt. The least number of atoms in the
molecule, the shorter the duration of the smell. It seems that every atom adds a factor of
two to its duration. In perfumery aroma molecules are made, with few exceptions, of
atoms belonging to carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur and these are both
safe to breath and perhaps significantly, are what most things are made up of, in other
words they are common building blocks. The molecules in Turin's words "must be able
to fly in order to reach our noses, so they should carry no charges that make them stick
to each other ."208

An echo in the landscape belongs to a very particular set of circumstances, a circuit

between an ensemble of sound of a certain threshold reflecting off a surface of a
particular hardness and projecting at a particular angle, and so on. Change the hardness
of the surface that the sound wave meets to something softer and it will be absorbed
rather than reflected. The echo will still happen if one returns to the same spot too
holler, assuming of course that the conditions haven’t changed dramatically. If a
landslide had occurred during the night and a million tonnes of rock had fallen in the
place where the path of the sound needed to travel, the echo would no longer appear.
This is the causal specificity of the ensemble made up from the conditions and alliances
that are gathered that make something happen.

Sometime in the future all of the surfaces that produce the acoustic reflections will
eventually have undergone enough changes for the effect of the echo to no longer
manifest. The echo is an immaterial entanglement of acoustic reflections and these are
bound to the physical structures that translate these acoustic effects into existence. The
echo in its repeat, is being transduced by a surface.

2°spp Luca yurjn; jh e Secret of Scent: adventures in perfume and the science of smell, (New York: Harper
Perennial, 2006), 33-36.

Ill
Every time one returns to the place of that echo it will be perceived differently, as it
would be by any being that has the sensory capability of audible or vibratory perception
and it can be taken up and mobilized by other alliances into other ensembles:

Moreover, informational structures also play an undeniable causal role in

material constellations, as we see in, for example, the physical phenomenon of
resonance, or in biological systems such as DNA sequences. What is a gene, after
all, but a set of coded instructions for a molecular system to carry out a task? No
evolutionary theory can have explanatory function without attending to the
instructional role of DNA sequences, and other topological structures. But
neither can a bridge or skyscraper be constructed successfully without paying
due attention to the phenomenon of resonance, and so it seems that just as
informational events are quintessential at the lowest level of quantum reality, so
are informational structures quintessential as driving forces for the historical
unfolding of physical reality .209

We have discussed clouds of vapour as crowds of noise and yet an odorant like ethyl
maltol can be detected as low as one part in a billion. Because we are dealing with scales
that are extremely small, the quantum scale world is playing a part in how we perceive:

It is also well known that the indeterminate nature of quantum states is resolved
into a precise state at the moment of measurement. The mathematics describes a
superposition of possible measurements, which is resolved at the moment of
measurement into a single observed state. This phenomenon, known as the
"collapse of the wave function,” suggests that the observer plays some
constitutive role in making the physical world become what we perceive it to be
at the macro physical level .210

209 Paul Davies;Niels Henrik Gregersen "Introduction: does information matter?". Information and the Nature
of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics (Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition), 7.
210 See bottom of footnote for the source of this quote. -"Quantum events appear postponable until they are
observed, and quantum objects can be both independent and correlated (entangled) at the same time. Thus
notions of causality and of information about that causality appear to be inextricably linked at this level of
scale. For example, in the dominant (although not the only) interpretation of quantum mechanics, events in
the world at the quantum level become real (in the sense of being susceptible to classical analysis) only when
they are measured. Before such an intervention, no explicit single state exists: only a field of potentiality. This
is exemplified by the famous Schrodinger's cat paradox, in which the prior death of a cat in a closed box is
dependent on an as-yet-unmeasured quantum state. In this interpretation it is presumed that neither
macroscopic state exists until the quantum event is later measured (that is, by an observer). Measurement

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In phantosmia, or smell hallucination, it is possible to experience smell without the
presence of any aroma molecule. Phantosmia occur in illness such as delirious fever,
intoxication or seizures. Imagine a future where there might be a form of'extra sensory'
smell perception where the chemistry has been eliminated altogether? The receptors
are receivers of energy and if they were resonated through external frequency, perhaps
one could play the receptors like a musical instrument. The appearance of a
phantosmia potentially liberates olfaction from its relationship with molecules
altogether and gives the sensation over to electrochemical processes in the brain. How
this might be achieved presents a possibility for future research.

'Miracle fruit' or miraculin provides an outstanding and legal way to experience taste
radically disrupted. Miraculin is an amino acid that turns a lemon into the most
wonderful incandescent river of sweetness. This is the chemical that turns beer into
flows of sweet chocolate.211 Under certain conditions the receptors are malleable, and
so it seems this malleability is occurring at every level in terms of what we do with the
information that we are receiving.

information about this quantum state is thus treated as a fundamental causal determinant of the transition
from quantum indeterminacy to classical determinism. Similarly, another strange quantum phenomenon -
quantum entanglement - shares other features with the correspondence relationship associated with
information. In simplified terms, this involves an apparent instantaneous correspondence of measurement
consequences between particles that are separated and non-interacting. So one might also argue that it
exemplifies a sort of intrinsic representation relationship. These are counterintuitive phenomena, which
challenge our normal conceptions of causality, but do they explain the higher-order senses of information?
Unfortunately, they do not actually resolve the paradox of the absent content. These features in the quantum
realm (for example, superposition, and entanglement) resemble correspondence-mapping relationships. Thus
we might be tempted to see this as a referential relationship that is intrinsic to the quantum physical
relationship. But physical correlation is not aboutness. Whereas measurements of particles that affect
measurements of other particles exist in something like a correspondence relationship, this alone does not
make one about the other, except to an external observer interpreting it. The aboutness does not exist in the
interstices between indeterminate quantum events any more than between the gears of a clock, because it is
not an intrinsic feature. So in both classical and quantum computation only the syntactic concept of
information is invoked. There is nothing intrinsic to computation processes that distinguish them from other
physical processes and nothing intrinsic to the quantum or classical physical features that are manipulated in
computations that make them about other features of the world.

Terrence. W. Deacon in "What is missing from the theories of Information" ed, Paul Davies; Gregersen, Niels
Henrik (2011-03-01). Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics (Cambridge
University Press. Kindle Edition), 156-157.
2111have ingested this on a number of occasions, bought legally from the internet. After a number of hours
one wishes for taste to return to normal, which it does eventually.

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In a recent study "Learning to Smell the Roses: Experience-Dependent Neural Plasticity
in Human Piriform and Orbitofrontal Cortices" by Wen Li, Erin Luxenberg, Todd Parrish,
and Jay A. Gottfried, the authors point out that:

It is widely presumed that odour quality is a direct outcome of odorant structure,

but human studies indicate that molecular knowledge of an odorant is not
always sufficient to predict odour quality. Indeed, the same olfactory input may
generate different odour percepts depending on prior learning and
experience.Verbal context strongly influences the perception of odour quality—a
rose by any other name would not smell as sweet. For example, the same odorant
smells entirely different depending on whether it is labelled as fresh cucumber
or mildew. Learning also changes odour quality. A cherry odour becomes
smokier in quality after being experienced together with a smoky odour Thus, a
given set of olfactory receptors activated by an odorant may not map directly
onto a given odour percept. Rather, odour perception may rely on more
synthetic, or integrative, mechanisms subserved by higher-order brain regions.
(Emphasis in the original)

In producing these percepts, we are cast into a dimension that responds to the intrinsic
structural 'feel' of matter, by producing ensembles of relationships that involve
'information exchange' through a complex of biological processes that leap from the
earth as information, to information in the brain: the body as musical instrument (if a
musical instrument is construed as a device that mediates frequency). The organs in
their way can be thought of as instruments acting in sympathy with the mechanical,
electromechanical and chemical forces that they encounter and in turn we act on
materials and forces that we encounter.

Given all of this complexity, through a process that can be broken down into simple
events such as polarity of the receptors, the feel of a molecule and the process of
transduction, which although seemingly chemically complicated is actually
fundamental, perhaps we might detect signs of emergent properties .212 In this case

212 The emergent properties that result could be the leaps and bounds that we see with Proustian effects - a
launching pad - once again. The forces of the past return to the daylight as a thunderhead rising in the night
sky. The sniffing of a molecule in Kyoto produces the feelings of an event that happened in Sydney from some
simple fundamental trigger (taste or odour) the burning present of the past -transcending time and space, a

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could those properties be characterised by old memories returning and reconstructing,
coming back to haunt the present, virtually:

Several researchers [Herz, Aggleton and Waskett] have attributed the efficacy of
odours in memory retrieval, at least in part, to the accepted link between
emotional arousal and the information associated with such affective reactions.
This link is likely to be mediated by the action of the amygdala, which is involved
in olfaction, memory and emotion. It is probable that stimuli which are
affectively arousing may be especially effective retrieval cues and, all things
being equal, olfaction is widely believed to be the most affectively arousing of all
the sensory modalities.213

Smelling is such a complex situation encompassing the impact it has on external worldly
events and internal processes that include moments of transduction, phylogenetic
riddles and complicated neurological computations, along with quantum scale
effects.214One wonders if the impact of these physical and neurological processes on
world events within the social order are the manifestation of emergent properties in
action.

Therefore, given that there is plasticity in the perception of smell depending on (among
other things) the context we attach to it and things that have been stored as knowledge,
and that the sense of smell can escape the molecule when the brain is stimulated in a
particular way, it is entirely possible to imagine a situation in which there may arise
particular conditions that transform the once beautiful smell of a rose into the most
distasteful emanation ever dreamed of.

vivid and highly invested moment. This could amount for one type of person to an event that simply dissolves
into the ether as a moment of intense memory or for another type of person in another set of curcumstances
inspire a call to arms and spark a war.

213 H. Ehrlichman and L.Bastone in Van Toller,S and Todd,G.H. Fragrartce-The Psychology and Biology of
Perfume. London and New York: Elsevier Applied Sciences. 1991
214 quantum biology

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Chapter 3. Substances

In this chapter we move onto the contemplation of the materials, notes and accords of
perfumery, and examine how aroma is shaped and manipulated as art having passed
from the pre-phenomenological into the senses. Important aspects of this compositional
process are described including a discussion about olfactory chemistry, aroma accords
and the construction of complete formulas. Finally, time is discussed with an emphasis
on the development of change through the life of a fragrance. It was never the intention
within the scope of this study to write a manual on the technical side of aroma
composition, because the topic is vast and the space afforded in the dissertation would
not allow for reflection on other aspects of this mysterious thing we call aroma. What
follows is a brief summation of some of the technical aspects of aroma composition, in
order to touch on aspects of the day-to-day practice of what it is like to work with these
materials.

3.1 Notes

The moment one compares the smell from two identical bottles of liquid standing side
by side on the bench; one containing melonal, or 2, 6-dimethyl-5-hepten-l-al C9H1603
that smells like a powerful pale green and yet non-descript juicy melon; and contrast
this with another containing C11H20O2 3, 7-dimethyl6-octen-l-yl formate, or rhodinyl
that has a somewhat subtle leafy red rose character, we come to realize that these two
substances are entirely different. They are in a superficial way close relatives, at least on
an atomic level they share the same neighbourhood of elements and yet they are far
away from each other, in terms of their smelly emanations.215

Add three extra carbon atoms, take away fourteen of the hydrogen atoms and one of the
oxygen atoms and you go from a giant nondescript melon aroma, to something like a
'leafy green rose' smell. The forces that are holding these molecules together are the

215 As Turin points out in a public lecture, given that carbon, oxygen and hydrogen make up so much of organic
life on earth - these molecules are likely to be reasonably nontoxic and to not smell bad. For example add a
few sulphur atoms and we are heading into the territory of highly diffusive onions or worse.

116
electron bonds, a force of attraction that holds everything together. What is so unique
about these materials from an olfactory point of view is the way that the melonal is
telling our brains about the aroma of melon and yet it seems almost impossible to put a
finger on which type of melon we are thinking of. It is almost like an archetype of melon
than any specific melon.

The same sort of thing is happening with the rhodinal formate, except instead of it being
a general sensation of rose without any character; we smell a facet of the rose, like
seeing a leg without a body attached to it. The leafy aspect is present and so is the red
rose quality; however, it almost feels like we are experiencing the bare bones of one
aspect of the smell without the flesh.

In a certain way, one might think of these notes as being representative of a

characteristic since they always speak of facets of a particular odour. Hence, each one
when mixed with others becomes part of a larger configuration. So these materials
operate as a complex of single notes that when combined as accords are considered like
aromatic stanzas and completed formulas which point to something larger, a complex
fragrance often of several hundred molecules in the mixture.

These chemicals are utilized as building blocks in a composition; some of them smell so
good they are almost a complete perfume unto themselves. In this category is aldehyde
C12 lauric, which smells like a waxy floral metal. The synthetic base material from
Givaudan known as Black Agar which is meant to be a recreation of the odiferous resin
caused by fungi in Oud wood, along with the Givaudan base that is a recreation of
castoreum, are also almost complete perfumes unto themselves. These bases are
technically sub-perfumes containing multiple chemicals. A distinction is made in
perfumery between aroma-chemistry and essential oils and absolutes, which are
referred to as 'naturals.' Like the bases described above they are a complex of many
molecules. A strange material is maritima, or ocean-carboxyadehyde with a fresh air
smell that vaguely smells of blood and at the same time of sugary cupcakes.

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Ozone
Ozone aroma, a mixture of fresh sea breeze and burning air, the smell that appears
before a thunderstorm, or from overly warm electronics, or even exploding power lines,
is the main quality within the two aroma compositions of a collaborative installation -
Earth Star .216 Named 'Ionisation' and 'Terrestrial' respectively, here we have included
the radiance of strange synthetic molecules that vaguely resemble what occurs from the
effects of the electromagnetic in generating atmospheric situations. These molecules are
the closest we have to the smell of ionization in the air. Ionization is plasma, the fifth
state of matter. This is the nebula that surrounds stars and is the glow of the Aurora
Australis and the Aurora Borealis in the upper atmosphere. Green glows for oxygen, red
for hydrogen and orange for nitrogen. Ion channels are pervasive within the human
body. As much as we might look to the night sky for the beauty of an aurora these
excitations are also found throughout the body .217

Ozonic aroma molecules come with trademarked names like Florhydral, Ozinal or
Ultrazur that aid in the recreation of freshness in fragrance. These molecules seem
almost nondescript; they have a subtle character but a powerful effect, even in high
dilution they have impact.

216 Haines and Hinterding: 2008 "Earth Star" premiered at the Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland Art Gallery.
217 "As we shall see, potentials are generated by the passive diffusion of ions such as Na+, K+, Ca2+ and CP
through highly selective molecular pores in the cell surface membrane called ion channels. Over 100 genes
coding for subunits of ion channels have been identified. Ion channels play a role in membrane excitation as
central as the role of enzymes in metabolism. The opening and closing of specific channels shape the
membrane potential changes and give rise to characteristic electrical messages. Hille B, Catterall WA. Electrical
Excitability and Ion Channels. In: Siegel GJ, Agranoff BW, Albers RW, et al., editors. Basic Neurochemistry:
Molecular, Cellular and Medical Aspects. 6th edition. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven; 1999.

118
Fig 7: Earth Star Haines and Hinterding 2008-2009. Installation detail of smell station at GOMA, Queensland Art
Gallery.

This ozonic theme was taken up in the collaborative artwork "The Immaterials:
Language - Molecules - Vibrations. The work involved the production of a limited
edition box set that consisted of a book, two fragrances and an audio CD based around
the exploration of the Parramatta River located in Sydney, NSW. Two fragrances where
produced one of which, titled "Ghost Leaves" was based around the headwaters of the
river deep in the liminal zone of a semi -industrial landscape and the other was titled
"Ozone Rubber" based on the saltwater section of the upper reaches of the river below
the Parramatta weir that forms a barrier between salt and fresh water in the system.
This part of the river is heavily industrial and the rubbery accord that formed the heart
of the fragrance is an ode to the Goodyear Tyre Plant that is located along its banks and
the remnant sandy beach amongst the mangroves. The former "Ghost Leaves" was the
start of a detailed investigation of plant like smells within the research. It included notes
of lantana which was growing prolifically within the area investigated and also of fennel
which was also growing wild, fresh cut grass of the nearby playing fields and also
contained a macrocylic musk accord as a modifier that made the fragrance wearable.
Key to both perfumes was the central wateriness that involved an accord of helional
which is striking for its metallic and yet stagnant pond like quality along with a high
dose of calone 1951 or methylbenzodoxepinone, discovered by Pfizer in 1966. This

119
material gives the famous "Le fue d' Issey” its intensely watery quality. Interestingly this
chemical is apparently similar to a pheromone excreted from some kinds of brown algae
and resembles a tranquilizer. 218 219

From a composer's perspective, part of the craft of working with such a vast range of
material relies on being able to recall olfactory qualities from a wide ranging pallet,
combined with the knowledge of their interactions. One may be able to recognize how a
certain note might be able to contribute to the composition but one also needs to be
aware of how it performs in a particular context in terms of the relative powers of each
particular material. For example, which is best used in dilution and which can be left at
full strength, and which materials are modifiers or fixatives? From an artist's
perspective, these things can be tried out in a more improvisational way. Often in the
context of aroma composition in contemporary art contexts the artist is not trying to
achieve a masterpiece of balanced fragrance design but something that might equate to
an environmental effect.

Many ideas circulate within a perfume, from a concoction that smells like ejaculate and
the rubber-like fleshy carnal smell of tuberose, towards smells associated with the
sanctity of the church such as frankincense and myrrh. Or what about the smell of
timbered forests, plants and fruits, the bright abstract waxy smell of aldehydes, the
smell of musk and other animalic materials such as amber, civet and castoreum that are
considered dark, carnal, animal like and gourmand.

218 The Immaterials: Language-Molecules and Vibrations 2008. Haines and Hinterding with texts by David
Haines, Anne Finegan and Amanda Williams. Hinterding also recorded an audio Cd of the electromagnetic
environment around the river. Commissioned for Current08: Sculpture Projects in the River City. Parramatta
City Council.
219 "Le fue D' Issey to my nose is heavily indolic. This means there is a dose of indole in the fragrance which
makes sense because the fragrance is built on a white flower accord. Indole as mentioned in the text is a
floralizer even if it is renowned within chemistry of smelling like the 'devils breath' when it's at full strength
and it does. As mentioned, it's also part of the smell of faeces and is described as a faecal floralizer in the
literature. Another point is that it is also the smell of decay and anecdotally people have remarked how
flowers in vases often smell of flatulence, they probably don't realise that they are getting a blast of indole. As
"Le fue D' Issey" ages, for me the indole note becomes especially prominent and recently I noticed this
sensation come across very strongly from a colleague who wears this perfume every day. Another friend gave
me an old batch of once loved perfume as she couldn't stand it anymore. The obvious guess is the indole has
remained but everything else is slowly boiling away over time. Anecdotally it is said to be structurally similar to
valium and the scientists thought they may have discovered a new class of drug. Having compared both
molecules they do seem rather similar.

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Fig 8: EarthStar Haines and Hinterding 2008-2009, Installation view GOMA Queensland Art Gallery.

Clara Ursitti's Self Portrait in Scent: Sketch #1 (1994), made in collaboration with Dr

George Dodd, articulates her own identity from a combination o f "state of the art

scientific odour analysis" in combination with the knowledgeable nose of her scientific

collaborator. Ursitti uses o f the word 'sketch' in the title precisely because she

acknowledges that the task of scrutinising her own body odour might extend to

hundreds o f chemicals. Her self-portrait links sent with identity. It would be an

interesting exercise to make qualitative evaluations of each o f the aroma molecules in

her smell poem. There isn't space here to do this exercise in any detail but what one can

say about the list is that the smell of these chemicals undiluted would likely be a very

unpleasant experience indeed.

Self Portrait in Scent

Sketch# 1

Clara Ursitti

Propionic acid

Butyric acid

Iso-valeric acid

Heptatonic acid

2-methyl acetonic acid

Putresine

Trymethyle amine

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 Heptane thiol

Carbon disulphite

Marcapto ethanol

Iso-eugenol

Acetones

Androstene dienone

Skatole (1994)220

Fig 9: Self Portrait in Scent:Sketch #1 (1994) Clara Ursitti.

Marcapto ethanol is a mercaptan and this chemical will undoubtedly stink of sulphur,

rotten eggs or cabbage. This is what is put into natural gas as a safety mechanism in

order to make it apparent, because natural gas has no detectable odour. Putresine tells

us everything about its odiferous qualities by its name. Butyric acid one assumes is

known by every high school chemistry student as one o f the components of artificial

flavour esters. It has an outstandingly bad smell of rancid butter and vomit. Iso-eugenol

is the most pleasant on the list; it is a spicy note from nutmeg or clove oil.

There are thousands of perfumes in the chypre category, the French word for Cyprus,

built on variations of a three element accord of citrus, labdanum and oakmoss. This

rather abstract accord is angular and agrestic. On top of this basic structure the perfume

'Mitsouko' adds the aroma-molecule delta-undecalatone, which smells like peach. Only

the particular peach belonging to the perfume for each individual it will be unique .

According to Luca Turin, Christian Dior's ’Fahrenheit’ once contained large amounts of

the violet leaf chemical, methyl carbonyl octinate. Whatever the synthetic violet leaf

like chemical is in’ Fahrenheit’ (since the formula isn't publically available) it seems to

be this chemical in interaction with other materials that gives the perfume its famous

'petroleum' note.221

220 Clara Ursitti in The Smell Culture Reader. Ed Jim Drobnick, (Oxford, New York: Berg, 2006), 359.
221 Another striking perfume with a petroleum theme is Comme De Garcons' 'Garage' which is meant to evoke
the smell of a motor mechanics workshop. It does so rather skillfully, seemingly by using the spicy chemical
eugenol from nutmeg, a stripped back colder smell than the natural material which is associated with warmth
and other chemical smelling aroma materials to create a complex olfactory illusion, albeit one that is wearable
on the skin.

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The synthetic violet leaf note within the perfume 'Fahrenheit' is far stronger and comes
with a more defined presence than the distilled natural product that takes the form of
violet leaf absolute, which is earthier and seemingly wider in its tonality. 'Fahrenheit' is
built on a line that travels loosely from mandarin in the top note, violet leaf absolute in
the heart and a white musk accord in the bottom. These three things can be distinctly
smelled (by this sniffer) when the perfume is sprayed onto a piece of chromatography
paper.

Below is a description of how a gas chromatograph (GC), effectively an electronic 'nose',

analyses a sample of smell:

The Sample to be analysed is vaporized, as it is injected into a stream of inert

carrier gas, the mobile phase. The gas moves through the heated column, where
it passes over the surface of the stationary phase, which consists of a liquid
adsorbed onto the surface of an inert carrier. The individual components are
separated as they pass through the column owing to the different speeds at
which they are repeatedly adsorbed and desorbed across the surface of the
stationary phase. The components are each detected electronically as they leave
the exit port and recorded as a series of peaks on a moving chart, the
chromatogram.222

Sesquiteri; >enes farnesene 1.63

benzyl alcohol 2.35
a
Ketones cis-jasmone 3.25
geranyl linalol 3.33 Monoterpenols
benzyl acetate 23.84
linalol 7.18
benzyl benzoate 15.11
eugenol 2.16
methyl jasmonate 1.01
methyl linolenate 2.24
methyl palmitate 1.38
iso phytol 7.71
\ _phytol9.13

Fig 10: Typical GC analysis of Jasmine absolute. 87.4 % of the material is indicated.

GC analysis of floral odours reveals a plethora of molecules, some of which can number
in the hundreds. In the simplified GC analysis of Jasmine absolute 87.5 % of the material

222 Robert.R Calkin and J.Stephen Jellinek. Perfumery Practices and Principles (New York: John Wiley and Sons,
Inc. 2009), 103.

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is identified, with 12.5 % of the material as trace materials or unidentified molecules. A
big peak may deliver very little odour (which means the molecule is not very smelly]
and a tiny peak may pack a punch (the molecule is a potent odorant).223

Perfumery is about working with manufactured molecules that serve its purposes in
terms of stability and consistency, often in regards to a commercial product. The
distinction between man-made molecules and so-called natural materials is maintained,
but even the act of distilling essential oils involves all kinds of interventions of heat and
method of extraction that have an impact on the aroma of these materials.

There are very few full-blown chemical reactions that occur when blending aroma
chemistry. Instead, perfume compounds are mixtures more than they are reactions.
There are subtle reactions occurring, but mostly we have molecules floating in a
mixture. Working with aroma chemistry mostly involves organic materials made up of
the elements of carbon and hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and less frequently sulphur and
chlorine. Some of the only real chemical reactions in perfumery occur in Schiff s bases,
although others happen between aldehydes and ketones with alcohols to form loosely
joined molecules, known as hemiacetals.224 The most common base that the molecules
are blended into is denatured ethyl alcohol, considered to be relatively odour neutral.
Within this evaporative ether, the molecules float and comingle.

Odours themselves are mixtures of molecules - the smell of a rose or jasmine for
example or any essential oil or absolute consists of hundreds of molecules, many of
which if smelt in isolation would be unrecognizable, some would be foul, astringent or
even sickly. The complexity of this mixture becomes the smell of what we call "rose."

A rose aroma involves an array of chemical compounds including phenylethyl alcohol,

citronellal, geranyl acetate, ionone alpha, phenyl acetaldehyde, aldehyde C ll undecyclic
or C8, C9, eugenol, dimethyl benzyl carbonyl acetate, phenylaceteic acid, ambrettolide,
benzoin Siam, and farnesol. This is not a definitive list in that some in this formula are
crucial to the recognizable aroma of rose and some components may be simply there to
add decorative character to the smell. There are many variations possible from the basic

223 Gilbert, Avery. What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life (Random House, Inc.2008), 27.
224 Robert.R. Calkin and J.Stephan.Jelinick. Perfumery practice and principles (New York NY: Wiley Interscience
1994), 167.

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accord. A rose skeleton would be likely recognized if only four or five chemicals were
used and they were in balance. These would belong to phenylethyl alcohol, citronellal,
geranyl acetate, ionone alpha, phenyl acetaldehyde. One might say that there are no
definitives in perfumery only interpretations .225

The following is an attempt to describe each component based on smelling the

individual chemicals in isolation. The words here in italics, taken from notebooks, are
records kept as each one is smelt. This qualitative practice of daily smelling is about
committing smells to memory. Instead of a 'nose' being someone with an innate talent
for smell, the perfumer is often said to be someone with a good memory for
materials .226 What follows are the written notes that aid in the memory of a collection of
odorants.

Phenylethyl Alcohol: Floral and yet earthy in the distance; the oily phenyl ethyl
alcohol on its own has a general floral overtone, here the floral nuance is
somehow perceived as being bright, luminous in the mixture - a source of
radiance, optical images appear in the mind. Could these visual analogies somehow
indicate cross talk between the sensory pathways and language pathways in the
brain? Synaesthesia seems to continually bubble away just below the surface, as if
the olfactory sense is never isolated but always interrelated with other modes of
perception. 227

Citronellol: smells floral and rosy, but with lemon, waxy nuances. One gets the
skin of a lemon and also citronella candles, lemon grass like but more refined,
somehow thinner, more resonant.

Geranyl Acetate: Smells of green stems with a floral overtone. Associated with
plants from the house 1grew up in.

225 One way to get an idea about what a particular rose might be emitting in terms of its fragrance is to use a
head space sampling technique such as gas chromatography described above. But these are not definitive they
give a good indication of the constituent molecules but many are trace beyond the range of the technologies
calibration.
226 Jean Carles -"A method in creation in Perfumery" first published in the 1968 yearbook issue of "Soap,
Perfumery and Cosmetics" (London: Chapman and Hall, 1968).
227 All in the following in italics have been taken from various studio notes and notebooks and one can draw
from this that they are subjective interpretations that have come from smelling these chemicals directly.

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 Ionone Alpha: The ionones are some of the most beautiful smelling materials in
the perfumers organ, they are fleeting, violet, woody, the perfumer's perfume, of
great diversity and subtlety. They are found in their natural form in 'oil of
orris.'228 Smelt in concentration, nothing like violets. Bright and strange - the
woodiness within, gives off a luminous impression. How do violets come from this?

Violet lollies are the violet o f violets and yet smelling a real violet is rare. The real

violets in the garden at home are violet fo r sure, but only on very warm days and

they are almost imperceptible. Perfume recreations are so loud compared to the

real thing.

Aldehydes: The aldehydes C il, C8 and C9 are waxy and citrus like and
somehow abstract, one is reminded of candles and fruit peels and strange
artificial fruits. It is as if they are complete perfumes within themselves. As if
natural fruits had somehow become cryogenically crystallised. Sometimes they are

incense like as if the citrus acidic aspect is caught up in candle sm oke. 229 The

famous perfumer Jean Claude Ellena categorizes the aldehydes in a class of their
own. Aldehydes are numerous and naturally occurring, and yet, they are
considered the synthetic ingredient par excellence. The first use of aldehydes in a
fragrance was Rêve D'Or (Golden Dream), created in 1905 by Armingeat.
'Channel Number 5' made the aldehydes famous by a supposedly mistaken
overdose, as the result of a misunderstanding between the perfumer and the
formulator; knowledge gained from accident.

Eugenol: is thinly spicy, clove like and related to nutmeg without its richness. This
makes the studio smell like the dentist's.

Ambrettolide: The smell ofambrettolide is almost impossible to put into words.

It's as if we know this smell from smelling perfumes. I don't think I have ever smelt

anything like it in nature, the closest to it may be is to some kinds o f woody resins

such as labdanum or opopinax stripped o f its floral qualities. One assumes the

name is a riff based on musk ambrette which is a plant that has a musky smell, but I

have never smelt the oil o f musk ambrette because it is a neurotoxin. The aroma is

228Arcadi Boix camps, Perfumery Techniques in Evolution 2nd Edition (Illinois: Allured Books 1985),16
229 Taken from notebooks kept in the studio

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 less musk and more like an amber chemical. I have smelt roses that have a
prominent musk character.

Benzoin Siam: The benzoin I have here is a floral resin with a medicinal bite to it. I
imagine this becomes powerful under dilution.230

A perfumery material in high concentration will not only overwhelm the receptors but
in the moments before this happens will be perceived differently against the same
material in dilution. Many materials of perfumery have this effect of strength or potency
on how we perceive them. For example, the molecule of indole is renowned for smelling
positively evil and rank in concentration and yet in high dilution of 1:1000 it smells
floral. Indole is what makes our faeces smell the way it does and yet it is a crucial
component of jasmine and many white flowers, and pivotal in the development of
synthetic dyes. It is also seen in the central ring of LSD, and is very similar to serotonin,
and it is also produced by the body in decomposition: this is one versatile molecule.

Musk.

Everyone knows that musk is a beautiful smelling thing and it has proliferated
immensely from its origins with the folk who got themselves alarmingly up close and
personal with the genitalia of a Himalayan musk dear. It is talked about as if it is a
complete perfume unto itself and yet we are still in the territory of notes. After a long
and complicated journey from the impregnated walls of the mosques of Kara Amed, to
the leap that took place in the twentieth century into its synthetic forms, through
innovations in industrial process and chemistry, musk production was considered so
important that one of its innovators, Leopold Ruziicka, received a Nobel Prize in
chemistry for discovering Exaltalide - its chemical name is cyclopentadecanone and it is
such a tenacious musk that it can be smelt all the way from the top notes down to the
bottom. In perfumery a mixture of musk's are often used because many people are
anosmic to certain musk’s, so this is factored into a formula. The single musk molecule
galaxolide is one in which a large number of people don't perceive and yet it is a

230 Materials in this list of rose chemistry that are not described above, means they are not available for smell
evaluation at the time.

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common ingredient in modern perfumes. Anecdotally it is said that women smell this
musk very strongly . 231

We know that prior to the production of more environmentally biodegradable

macrocylic musk, synthetic nitro musk molecules (accidently discovered during the
synthesis of TNT) were found to be accumulating in the water table from their prolific
use as a replacement for natural musk's and hence, where being absorbed into the fish
population and by turn, musk was being detected in human breast milk from
environmental absorption and yet this pervasive musk that now still remains as a
residue on the bottom of the great lakes of the United States and Canada is sitting there
in the darkness, waiting indifferently for a coupling with a fish .232 The human and the
lake on one side the fish as another part of the network and many additional actors
within a noisy crowd.

We know that hedonic reactions to aroma are associative, as much as they are innate
and that studies have shown rather convincingly that up to a certain stage of life there
are mostly neither good smells, nor bad smells and this gives plasticity to meaning in
regards to aroma .233 These tiny molecules are just as easily associated when bottled in
Maurice Roucel's masterpiece ’Muse Ravageur’ in the evocation of a lost friend as they
might be of a lover. There are examples of the way aroma has been used by armies and
despots and for all of these lovely associations one can make with a beautiful perfume
like ’Muse Ravageur', there will be others that transmit repulsion and horrors .234

There is nothing intrinsically clean about the musk smell -its association with
cleanliness is about the network that is formed between the molecules expression and
the material substrate. There are no fixed essences here, only circuits that form
contextually and empirically. Essence does not precede form; it is the style and the
syntax of things that produce meaning in the object. What was once the olfactory funk
of the unwashed becomes its opposite in another situation.

2311can smell it but it is not a very distinct musk to me.

232 See -Gerhard G. Rimkus. "Synthetic musk fragrances in the environment." Volume 3, 7.
233 Some exceptions being aroma around the breast of lactating mothers and a trigeminal response to
stimulant aromas such as ammonia See Olfactory Hedonics in Infants and young children - Hilary Schmidt in
S.Van Toller and G.H.Todd. Fragrance - The Psychology and Biology of Perfume. 27.
234 See SIPRI Policy Paper 23, November 2008. Chemical and Biochemical Non-Lethal Weapons Political and
Technical Aspects Ronald G Sutherland. Odours tested as mal-odorants include US Govt Standard Issue
Bathroom Odour, butyric acid, vomit odour, sewage odour, burned hair, cherry-almond, cinnamon, etc. "

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Indicative of the complexity found in the tracing out of these olfactory circuits, what was
once in the case of musk the emanations of the funky genitalia of sexual organs has now
come to be associated within a cultural and social setting as being representative of
cleanliness. There are many things at work in this about-face, and one could easily
describe it as a process of cultural exchange but this would only be an account of the
trajectory on which this translation happens. In this particular example the leap into its
opposite goes even further. Knowledge of the molecular structure tells us that the
molecule itself has a role to play, since the long chain carbon molecules found in musk
allow it to adhere with great tenacity to fabric, making it a brilliant nice smelling
material for washing powder and fabric softeners. On one side is the functional
persistence of the object and on the other the rhetorical arguments of humans who are
now convinced that musk represents cleanliness.

3.5 Accords

Known by every perfumer, the origin of the discovery of the accord is probably lost to
the mists of time. An accord in perfumery is an equation that transforms the differences
between the aromas of a certain number of odorants, by mixing them together until a
distinct aroma appears that no longer resembles its constituents. The accord takes us
from the multiple to the one, as a harmony.

Pour one substance into another unequally, in incremental drops or by weight. In

perfumery, accords are built this way - three to one and one to three, two to one and so
on. These form sets or series of ratios through a matrix. What the perfumer is looking
for are degrees of difference. There will be a point where this difference produces
equilibrium, where a new aroma appears. Accords are also useful in creating lopsided
variations on familiar notes. Some aromatic actants are limiters, acting as filters that
arrest flows of relationship, gradients of resistance. In an accord, the gradients of
resistance are governed by properties such as volatility, where the strong smells
overcome the weak. This internal balancing act between olfactory impact or weakness
and strength of a material is what determines the ratio of quantity required to
overcome another material and produce an accord.

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These transforms can be dramatic, such as mint and rum into black current; or vanilla,
lime, lemon, orange, neroli and nutmeg into a cola accord.235 One of many combinations
will be found to come into equilibrium. The gradient of their volatile qualities and
ensuing odiferous impact (the struggle of these gradients) determines the appearance
of the new aroma. A systematic approach is taken results in a simple equation. These
ratios themselves are not eternal, but our harnessing of mixtures in the forms of ratios
means that they hold up abstractly beyond time and space as formulas and concepts, as
is the case with geometry. Accords are occurring all the time; they are not exclusively a
man-made invention because the things we smell are always mixtures.

An accord for strawberry consists of a butter smell, combined with green apples,
crushed grass and fairy floss. This description is a loose chemical formula and if it was
followed with enough trial and error, eventually a strawberry-like aroma will appear.
However, not all elements are necessarily required to complete the illusion, and even
with just two chemicals available a ghostly skeletal resemblance to some kind of
strawberry will manifest. 236 This modulation or stripping back of a complex aroma is
one of the formal powers that a perfumer has available to them. One can make the ghost
of strawberry by emphasising certain facets over others. There is an uncountable
number of variations possible based on such a small number of aromatic elements. 237

3.6 Fragrant Time

Perfume formulas with their aromas are continually changing. As Michel Serres
remarks, the French word for time also means weather - le temps, time is intrinsically
tied to atmosphere and the sense of occasion marked by events. The perfume as a whole
is an individual entity in that it is a fluid or paste that inhabits a container as a mixture,

235 Whenever I taste Coca Cola I feel like I am drinking a very old style of perfume. The association with the
apothecary, the drug store and the elixir as medicine is hard to beat. The amazing thing about Coca Cola is its
refined reduction.
236 This can be practically proven through direct observation with the appropriate aroma chemicals. Recently in
a group situation a vial of ethyl maltol was handed around in order to demonstrate a lolly like aroma - we
concluded that it must have been slightly contaminated because about half of the group of 12 people detected
that it smelt "vaguely of Strawberry". This was not a carefully conducted scientific experiment but simply an
observation made by the group.
237 The butter note could come from gamma-hydroxy-beta-oxobutane which has a creamy buttery note; the
apple side of this accord is more complex probably requiring an existing base accord, crushed grass would be
the very lifelike Cis 3 Hexanyl or one of its relatives and the fairy floss sugary note would come from ethyl
Maltol.

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and yet as it is released onto skin or in the air, it passes through unique stages of
development, each and every moment, a dynamic unfolding. Perfumes are containers of
energy that evaporate under the pressure of their own volatility; they are dissolving
into the air. They are at once global in regards to what is in the vessel and local when
released. As the famous perfumer jean Paul Ellena points out:

We all know that perfume unfolds in time and space. At the same time, the very
first moment we smell it, we perceive it in its totality. For I only have to remove
one so called background, I prefer the term distant component from its
composition, to smell the difference. So the distant component is present from
the first olfaction 238

An aspect of the development of fragrance and its ability to change over time is due to
the volatility or vapour pressure of the molecules. This is further complicated however:

By concentration of the material employed (the higher the dosage, the greater
the persistence] and on the strength of the attraction of forces between the
perfume material and the base in which the material has been incorporated, as
well as the substrate to which it is applied.239

The development of a fragrance can be thought about through this volatility. The top
notes are the ones that evaporate first. The middle notes last longer and are of
intermediate tenacity and volatility. The bass notes are the most enduring and will
establish the character of the perfume because they last for hours rather than minutes
or seconds.

This formation consisting of fleeting top notes, more tenacious middle notes and lasting
bass notes constitutes the volatile time of'mingling bodies' that are fleeting and floating
in unpredictable air-space. The more fleeting perhaps, the more they may call on our
attention because the impulse is to make sense of what it is we are encountering within
the odour.

238 Jean Claude Ellena, Perfume the Alchemy of Scent. (New York NY: Arcade Press), 68.
239 Substrates include skin as in perfume or onto clothing where it is longer lasting probably because there is
less heat and things like paper in the context of sculpture. An effective substrate that I have found for
sculpture is on heavy black paper and on the inside of a shape - the Buckminster fuller sphere has been a
favorite because the aroma can be sprayed into an opening into a black space that tends to absorb heat. The
molecules rise but they don't pour out into the space and this seems to provide the right balance for the
delivery of smells into a gallery setting.

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It is impossible to tell where one phase begins and the other ends; there seem to be
simply gradations of change that emerge from the sillage. Sillage is a word for volume of
aroma in space and a perfume has great sillage when for example, it forms a halo
around the person wearing it. Sometimes this sillage remains in the wake of a person
who has left the room. The passing from top notes to middle and then to bass is non­
linear, since each material whilst operating within a range of volatilities won't consist of
absolute value. Further, the balance of probabilities will be that some of the top notes
will intermingle with middle notes because each phase will consist of multiple notes of
various vapour pressures operating within each range. However, in modern aroma
chemistry there are some materials that persist from top all the way to the bottom.
Even though we can strike a formula with a rational method of proportions there will
always be these variables inserting themselves. Musical analogies are striking because
of the harnessing of this time-based aspect of volatility of fragrance notes. Here Gilles
Deleuze and Felix Guattari describe modulations and vibration within the compositional
frame.

...the vibration, which characterizes the simple sensation (but it is already

durable); the embrace or the clinch (when two sensations resonate in each other
by embracing each other so tightly in a clinch of what are no more than
“energies”); withdrawal, division, distension (when on the contrary, two
sensations draw apart, release themselves, but so as now to be brought together
by the light, the air, or the void that sinks between them or into them ...240

Deleuze and Guattari go on to reach out towards sculpture in their vivid contemplation
of these carving modes but the above could equally apply to a symphony of sound or the
experience of an evolving perfume.

In the chapter titled "Tables" in his book The Five Senses Michel Serres gives us an idea
of how materials act as transporters:

This downwards exploration takes place in the countryside, near its periphery, at
the end of spring, at the beginning of autumn or all year round at the markets in
our part of the world. We should also take a stroll through the realm of imports,
cane sugar, vanilla, tobacco, coffee, and the blended haze of spices on the docks

240 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. What is Philosophy. (United Kingdom, USA: Verso,1994), 168.

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 of Bordeaux or Le Havre, in the merchant's cellar, the bazaars of Istanbul, or
elsewhere in the tropics. We could not survive without mingling with other
worlds. We used to read in our textbooks that our intellect knows nothing that
has not first passed through the senses. What we hear, through our tongue, is
that there is nothing in sapience that has not first passed through mouth and
taste, through sapidity. We travel: our intellect traverses the sciences the way
bodies explore continents and oceans. One gets around, the other learns. The
intellect is empty if the body has never knocked about, if the nose has never
quivered along the spice route . 241

Quantum level experiments show us that atoms and molecules are not stable entities
within themselves but are entirely open. Chemical and molecular changes are
continually occurring. And yet we still recognize the individual qualities of nutmeg,
cardamom, orange and violet. Substances are individual and yet compounds of
relationships between atoms and their constituent molecules are brought together in
perfumery between assemblages of many compounds emanating from one place. With
aroma, an obvious example of its changing nature is the transition from fresh to rotten
at source. Not only is interpretation variable within an individual object but continual
variation is the life of objects even if those changes are indiscernible or dramatic.
Perfumery attempts a dance between stability or consistency and continual change. This
could be thought of as a hovering or suspension for a time that eventually fades or
dissipates. This holding up is the skill of a composers ability to choreograph these
moments through knowledge, at the same time dissipation is also part of the craft of
carving experience within perfumery affecting an escape from the cloying of certain
smells and also at the same time exploiting the elusive quality that gives fragrance its
mysterious quality.

In recent times we find the appearance of linear perfumes. Here the materials are
chosen through the various phases of volatility to strike a single accord all the way from
top to bottom. The challenge is to make a long lasting linear olfactory note from a
perfume. These highly minimalist fragrances become a meditation on some kind of
singular quality as if time is being suspended in a halo of musky pineapple, for example,
or cedar wood. The challenge is to find suitable olfactory notes with the right vapour

241 Michel Serres. The Five Senses - A philosophy of mingled bodies (London: Continuum), 162-163.

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pressure to achieve a long lasting effect. Cedar wood, for example, is likely to have
prominent bass notes and middle notes, but top notes that smell woody are hard to find.
To affect this, the perfumer may begin with an accord made from top notes that strikes a
similar impression to the initial impact of freshly cut cedar, perhaps starting with a
fresh agrestic or earthy facet that provides the shock of an initial impression of a tree.

3.6 Seasonal Time

If we picture the fields in Grasse, France in the spring, we see carefully planted rows
with the most precious flowers of jasmine, rose and lavender that from above carve the
landscape into geometrical stripes like a giant abstract canvass. Unique weather
conditions in each particular year will have an impact on these patterns. With both of
these eruptions described as an occasion, the perceived distinctions that we can detect
in this flow are being moulded from an exchange of energy, a shaping that arises from
complex dynamics of climate and may other conditions. A feature of these open systems
is that they gain energy from the sun

The flowers breaking out, unfolding, opening up, releasing their fragrance, swept up in
a cascade of funnelling up and breaking down, dissipating through the dynamics of
conditional feedback in the system, state changes, oscillations as inputs in the growing
circuit that sets things on their course. Another state of play in this enclosed agricultural
system vanishes, expended of energy - the change in climate just one aspect of this
complex movement, the state of the ground will also have an impact. Swept up in a
cascade of funnelling up and breaking down, dissipating through the dynamics of
conditional feedback through the system, all manner of state changes, all manner of
oscillations, uncountable inputs in the growing circuit that sets things on their course,
this is an exchange between earth and sky. This dynamic is just one aspect of a complex
intimate tree like movement that brings to mind the branching staccato limbs of a
Linden-Mayer System242. Pastoral networks are an assemblage of harlequin patterns.

242 Commonly referred to as an L-System used extensively in the work I have done with fractals throughout
my practice, a veritable rule based language useful for representing natural structures and parametric ie by
changing the variables the various iterations such as branches change shape.
G = (V, co, P), where

• V (the alphabet) is a set of symbols containing elements that can be replaced (variables)
• co (start, axiom or initiator) is a string of symbols from V defining the initial state of the system

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The Mobius strip of temporality appears, once again. Let us call it temporal,
superimposing calendar time that humans work with and seasonal time which is
variable. And if time is brewing, it is ragged. If the brew goes cold the yeast will die or
go into stasis, the fermentation will stop.

3.6.2 Thresholds

A threshold marks a point that is reached. A threshold occurs on the borders where
things can easily be mistaken for things that they are not. The wind in the distance
becomes the murmur of bandits. What looks to be a ship in the distance turns out on
closer inspection to be a rocky knoll, rising out of the sea. In the former sentence is the
description of a passage going from one state into another, along the way, a threshold
has been crossed - between the illusion of a ship and the rock in the sea. It might be said
between every 'and' a threshold is being crossed, but built into this 'and', not everything
behind it is always disappearing; things can remain in proximity but still be on one side
of a threshold. However, at the threshold itself there is a passing that happens. There
are shape-changing thresholds that are singular, mental, and imaginary, and then there
are border crossings that are more diffuse. These are flows of difference or patches of
difference and islands of chaos and stability.

Olfactory thresholds are important to the perfumer, who surveys the smell landscape
with focussed concentration and can detect balance in a mixture, what is foregrounded,
with the addition of a new material when it makes its presence felt. Out in the world,
smells are generally either apparent or absent. We think of smell as illusive but when it
present its illusive quality gives way to recognition and interpretation and sometimes
confusion.

• P is a set of production rules or productions defining the way variables can be replaced with
combinations of constants and other variables. A production consists of two strings, the predecessor
and the successor. For any symbol A in V which does not appear on the left hand side of a production
in P, the identity production A -> A is assumed; these symbols are called constants or terminals.

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Michel Serres describes the time-base belonging to the mixture in which he uses the
analogy of the ancient Greek water clock that relied on air pressure to transport liquid
from one place to another:

Confusion presupposes a space, or series of proximities, it accesses, which is no

doubt not as separate from spaces as we think. It marks, watches, keeps time. For
a long time now I have thought of time as a node or interchange or confluent of
several times, each of which can be understood spatially...How can it be that
philosophy has taken several centuries to ask that we wait a moment while sugar
in a glass of water melts? How can it be that when faced with such evidence, time
itself was not associated with mixture and the fusion of one body into another?
Yet two streams poured forth their compound as one. Bergson, following Duhem
and in the footsteps of the Greeks, invented a clepsydra with several entry
points: variable inflow, communicating vessels. This was the precise practice of
confusion. And solution. The intimate fusion of one thing into another: generalize
this to as many flows as possible . 243

On the question of the olfactory there is always a dynamic of events occurring between
matter and representations, the sensorium and politics, between idea and world,
experience and invention, discovery and industry, time and space, the actual and the
imagination. Change is a driver of this equation, a temporality that stretches far beyond
the present, reaching back to the deep recesses of the 'in itself that is always imposing
some effect by reaching into the present. Objects feel the effects of another paradox that
is both present and absent. This result is the manifestation of a compositional brewing
of time.

The harnessing of smell is a mobilizer of many things, both aleatoric (as opposed to
natural) and invented (as opposed to unnatural). The outside that comes into the fold of
perfumery belongs to eruptions that draw our attention to the seepage of the past into
the present. We moderns often adopt an attitude that what is done is done and the past
is simply things that have finished. However, this attentiveness both to the historical
time of an aroma and to its emerging histories works counter to positivist modernist

243 Michel Serres, The Five Senses - A philosophy of mingled bodies (London: Continuum), 168.

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orientations that often choose to blindside the past and see everything as belonging to
the present, as if things have simply appeared as fully formed objects.

3.7 Formulas

Completed formulas consist of multiple aromatic materials blended together to form an

olfactory composition. For a balanced enduring perfume, jean Carles has developed a
simple method of proportions for a typical development of a lasting fragrance. They are
20 % top notes, 25 % middle notes and 55 % base notes. Carles remarks in his series of
articles "A Method of Creation and Perfumery (Dec.1961)":

Anyone even remotely familiar with perfume materials is aware that all products
of low volatility and high tenacity such as Vetiver, oak moss, patchouli, the
Methyl Ionone's and the like, give off a rather unpleasant smell when freshly
deposited on the smelling strips but, on the other hand, the scent given off during
the subsequent stages of evaporation is excellent. This is the reason for the use of
the modifiers of intermediate volatility and tenacity which will serve to change
the unpleasant top note of the base products. Finally, the very volatile top notes,
lacking tenacity, will serve to impart to the perfume composition a very pleasant
odour on opening the bottle. (First published in 1968 yearbook issue of the
publication "Soap, Perfumery & Cosmetics")
Top notes have the highest volatility, meaning they evaporate faster than middle notes
with base notes being of the lowest volatility. Within the technical literature
information such as boiling point and vapour pressure will indicate the volatility of
certain chemicals.

Below is an example of a relatively complete perfume formula to give an idea of the

complexity of a typical fragrance. It is worth bearing in mind that a contemporary artist
is not limited to making a balanced high performance formula but knowledge from
perfumery will be invaluable. Included below this is the formula from the fragrance that
formed part of the "Phantom Leaves" series discussed earlier in the text.

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Linalool 5.0 Lavender without the smell of lavender- astringent, agrestic, plant and herbal -
subjective: vegetal without the greenness, silver, luminous, generic herbal closer to
bitter than sweet.
BenzylAcetate 15.0 Familiar, floral and narrowband - subjectively thin and yet strong smelling - a
banana deep in the far distant background. Chemical like and etheric.
Aldehyde C l l 10% 1.0 Hybrid Mandarin & waxy/fatty rose- subjective, shiny sparkling and radiant.
Aldehyde C12 Fresh with candle wax and crystalline floral odour
Aldehyde C12 MNA Mid note: Powerful and diffusive with prominent metallic amber quality. Subjective -
shape shifting sheen of sunlight through a volume of liquid.
Ylang Ylang EO 5 Powerful floral with banana overtones - indolic and sweet
Phenyl Ethyl Alcohol 5 Green and ghostly rose like
Oakmoss 10% 1.5 mossy nutty agrestic woody
Galbanum Oil 6.0 Geranium leaves - milky green woody and earthy
Styrax Oil 0.2 Sweet, musty, animalic and poly styrene like balsamic
Aurantiol Schiffs base of orange blossom flowers
Labdanum Resinoid Rich pudding like animalic - genitalia almost musky
Methyl lonone Fleeting woody violets
lonone Pure Less woody violet - impossible to describe
Patchouli Oil powdery wood and at times with high sillage that erratically shows its face - head
shop hippy aroma
Coumarin Fields of freshly cut hay which is both dry and vanilla like - aged paper or old books
- not as thick or gourmand as vanilla nor as powerful...though diffusive in a field of
cut grasses.
Hydroxycitronellol Dry floral and vaguely rose like
ISO Eugenol Dry and thin clove or nutmeg like spicey but very transparent
Amyl Cinnamic Dry and thin cinnamon spicey powerful but its transparency means its cinnamon at a
Aldehyde great distance
Benzylsalicate Floralizer like having the power of a strong flower fragrance in the nose without the
character of an identifiable species - sweet and oily smell
Musk ambrette Not smelled but it's a musk from the seeds of a plant
Musk Ketone Exactly like lolly musk (now highly restricted)
Clary Sage Weedy dry fresh and herbal Subjective: thick and fog like.
Dihydromyrcenol Fresh lime floral, clean cologne and weedy.

Table 1.0: Perfume in the style of Chanel Number 5244

244 The actual formula for Chanel Number 5 is a secret; my guess is that the one shown in the table above is a
thumbnail sketch of the fragrance. Having produced the above formula and compared it to the actual perfume
this is certainly similar to the original.

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 M aterial D escription

Cis 3 Hexanyl S tr o n g ly o f c u t g r a s s

Cis 3 Hexanyl As above, only finer and slightly more acetone like.
Acetate

Violet accord Strongly of Violets

Green Leaf Tangereniol, 5, Decanal-4-Trans@10% 5, Hexenyl-3-ds Acetate -30, Hexanol -3-cis,

Accord 10,Toscanol, 20, Stemone, 20,Florhydral, 50, Phenyl Ethyl Acetate, 80,Styrallyl acetate,
80. Hexyl Salicylate, 200, Linalool, 200 Phenyl Ethyl Alcohol, 300.

Iso E Super Amber and Velvet (not strong smelling) (modifier)

Hedione Vaguely of Jasmine, Transparent, lactonic (modifier)

Floral Ozone Ozonic, fresh, wet flowers.

FlorHydral As above

Galaxolide Musk enhancer.

Cosmone Animal smelling musk with barely perceptible cherry pie aspects.

lonone Alpha Violet like (fleeting and dry powdery, Sweet)

Methyl lonone A facet of violet (more woody and fruity)

Beta ionone Floral violet, woody, fruity (difficult to describe)

Gamma Supreme

Violet Leaf Earthy leaves.

Absolute

Guaiacol Smokey and vaguely spicey

Guaiacol Acetate Balsamic and rose like, woody spicy, green

Birch Tar Super smokey and phenolic

Cade oil Smokey green

lsoraldien95 Diffusive: woody, powdery violet.

Table 2.0: Formula for Phantom Leaves 005: Violets on Fire.

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Discussion

The aim of this chapter has been to discuss some of the modes and signals that make up
the networks formed between people and aroma. Beginning with the heading 'Noise
Clouds' we often associate noise with sound and clamour, but noise is a complex of
many things; a vast gathering, a multitude, and in the context of this study around
olfaction noise is equated with clouds of aromatic vapour.

Noise is posited here as being at the heart of the formation of many kinds of structures.
Ann example of how this occurs is found in how noise is shaped by other frequencies.
This focus on chaos and how it differentiates into structures through dynamics is of
great interest over many fields from physics, mathematics, biology and ecology.

Aroma belongs to clusters or aggregates of molecules, sometimes en masse and

sometimes in low concentration, but still in unimaginable numbers.245 Unstable and
unpredictable, aroma drifts in the air. This is the landscape in which all kinds of
circumstances spring from. To get an idea of how attuned we are to these odorants, we
can detect the sweet sugary fairy floss smell of ethyl maltol at one part per billion. Noise
ranges from quantum scales all the way up to the macro.

Olfactory mixtures are not passive; they ride on currents of air, or are warmed by flesh.
This volatile inter-mingling is sensitive to air and heat. Out of this comes the effluvium
of jasmine on a warm summer night from a community of quivering molecules in a
garden, or the slippery soft yet strange invocations of an interpretation of tuberose in
the perfume 'Carnal Flower' by Dominique Ropion, in a nightclub in Italy.

Expression is not only how we respond and articulate our responses to things that come
to the senses as aggregates; it is also a property of nonhuman forces within open
systems. According to Nietzsche’s hypotheses, our subjectivity can be thought about as
a multitude. But why should we limit this to our subjectivity alone? We are complex
structures made up of molecules; we are matter vibrating, barely differentiated from

245 Approx. 500 million, million atoms fit on the head of a pin.

140
chaos, where the borders of differentiation will appear entirely different at different
scales.

An aroma enters a nose that, as we have seen, produces an incredibly complex lineage
of tangents, and new moments spring from this relationship. Chaos theory in
mathematics deals with the discernment of patterns and theories of emergence of
unexpected events - how something as seemingly random as the flapping wings of a
butterfly 246 can sink a kingdom on the other side of the earth. In other words, complex
systems are highly sensitive to inputs. There may be a multitude of potential outcomes
as things meet up with other actors along the way that also have powers of persuasion
and agency that can determine any number of outcomes. This open branching is non­
linear, filled to the brim with differentials intrinsic to its powers is complex filigree.
Some actants will be in high rates of entropy and others will have low states of entropy
but this is no barrier within the system, this is the engine of difference at work.

Our ability to harness and work with chaos is at the heart of our compositional
intelligence, and Michel Serres reveals to us the tensions between the clamour of noise
in all its forms and order and unity as a concept. This drive towards the compositional,
our ability to mould and shape these signals, is not an especially human trait, to borrow
a phrase from Jane Bennett. Much has been made of our tendency to self-realize and yet
any change in frequency into a noisy system will produce structure, at least for a time,
until another force overcomes it, or it is swept back into a high state of entropy.

Information in the way that it is being thought of here is taken from its etymology 'to
form’ and to give shape .247 Complex systems ultimately rely on energy brought into the
system from the outside, but this does not mean that entropy is not manifesting in all
kinds of ways, or that entropy is arrested. Working with aroma exemplifies how
thermodynamics and entropy interact in open systems. Once aroma molecules are
placed in the bottle and the perfume is released, the dissipation of the aroma in the
environment can be thought of as a quasi-controlled energy loss. However, because

246 Butterflies really carry a unique smell and Charles Darwin was fascinated by this phenomena.
247 OED - Information - inform etymology: Middle English enforme, informe 'give form or shape to', also 'form
the mind of, teach', from Old French enfourmer, from Latin informare 'shape, fashion, describe', from in- 'into'
+ forma 'a form'.

141
some of the molecules enter the highly-tuned system of the perceiver, the response
sparks all kinds of gestures, acts and responses that are feeding back into the world.
Here we have the intersection between human self-realizing actions and the controlled
chaos of release into the atmosphere of perfume.

Once aroma appears, fragrant time shows its face. Change occurs in fruit once fresh and
sweet, now rotten and decomposing. One thing converts into another. One thing
appears as another passes away. Aromas from garbage dumps or street vendors locate
aroma as part of the street geography. As temporal as aroma is there are all kinds of
time differentials in play. For example, a street vendor who cooks every day becomes a
fixture of the olfactory map of a district. Fragrant time also gives us a time signature
that makes perfume into something like a music of aroma, rather than a music of sound.
Experience of change in fragrance is critical

If a process of conversion and translation is the engine at the centre of a system, certain
things must also be left out. Some things will transduce and some things will be lost to
the ether. Although much has been made of these lines of trajectory of translation and
mediation they are really nothing like lines or trajectory; it might be better to think
about them as occasions in a dynamic system.

Atmosphere is thought about in this chapter as productive hauntings populated by

ghostly actants many of whom are agents of expression that are conjoined with us in a
feedback loop. The atmospheric elements speak to us though our perceptions but many
of these occulting signals, as De Landa points out, have expressive agency outside of the
human. Living organisms respond to these enigmas creatively. By analysing these
enigmas speculatively through aesthetics we take flight from harder forms o f‘naive
realism’ that cut these processes off as dry formulas of interaction and instead become
powerful agents of activities that encompass enigma and mystery. This is the gift that is
given when a perfume fills a room; it opens up a relationship to the middle that is
between the subject and the object.

The vibration theory of smell has interesting ramifications in terms of future research.
Are there harmonic ratios that make interesting smells? How might this idea be used in
compositional practice? Another insight is the realization that we are capable of
smelling when there are no molecules present, as hallucination. This enables one to

142
imagine a future device or method for stimulating the receptors through resonance,
rather than the usual route of chemicals entering the nose.

The situation within this level of sensitivity is the hovering indeterminate state of
molecular actors that takes us out of the microscopic realm of small entities into
territory that turns matter into a vibrating field in the quantum space that resembles
the concept of'becoming' thought about within philosophy since the Pre Socratic
thinkers. String theory posits that everything is a vibration and at this level nothing
distinguishes its position, everything is hovering:

According to this theory at the level of the very small, the position and the
motion of a body cannot both be sharply determined at the same time. (The
quantum phenomena become appreciable, in effect, only at the level of the very
small). According to the majority interpretation of the new theory - the so-called
'Copenhagen' interpretation - electrons do not even possess sharp positions or
momenta prior to measurement . 248

Olfaction belongs to a liminal zone that includes matter and field, perception and
knowledge. The challenge for any contemporary artist wanting to work in the area is
that the world of fragrance has been artfully innovating synthesis throughout history.
The change that occurs in perfumery over time is an attempt at a partially-controlled
experience of interesting aromas. Artists working with olfactory composition may be
able to, and certainly have in the past (consciously or otherwise,) exploited chemical
change in aromas to create new senses of time and place in their work. Some have
approached the olfactory from a relationship with the material side of their work. An
artist like Hermann Nitsch replaces paint with the organic matter of blood, which brings
with it associations that are a long way from the smell of chemical paints found in the
traditional atelier .249 Similarly, the Australian artist Mike Parr in his
performance/installations urinates into buckets, and these aromas as they breakdown
in oxygen become more powerful as time goes on. It is difficult to put into words what
the smell of urine is as it changes over days. We have the word putrefaction and many

248Ernan McMullin in "From Matter to materialism..and (almost back) Ed.Paul Davies; Gregersen, Niels Henrik
(2011-03-01). Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics (Cambridge University Press.
Kindle Edition) 26.
249 Something many artists are very fond of - the association of oil paint and the freedom that comes with
working in the studio.

143
other words of revulsion, but from this sniffers perspective my olfactory response is
somehow interwoven with mental imagery of sensory bombardment. The smell of the
urine brings up sensations of saltiness that seem to be both in the back of the throat and
the mind. Deep golden yellow is strongly mixed up with what really amounts to an
indescribable sensation. One further remark about smelling buckets of urine: as
repulsive as it is, one can palpably sense the rate of change taking place, something one
feels sure has been programmed as a survival mechanism - the smell sure is familiar.
These materials such as blood and urine are unstable compared to the chemicals
utilized by the perfume industry; they are interesting olfactorily precisely because they
are the subject of outstanding change.

Ambrox250, an industrially synthesized amber molecule and the most prominent

molecular constituent of ambergris is brought into the world via the notebooks251 and
the technical apparatus of the chemist, mythologized by the murmur of sailors,
perfumers and cooks. What exactly is being purified and hybridized in the world of
aroma-chemistry found in the industrialised palette and what exactly is operating
through the transmutating procedures of organic chemistry? An act of transmutation
requires stronger forces acting on each other in order to achieve a certain level of
change in the electrons. The soft and the hard along with the noisy and the ordered, the
slow and the fast are in perpetual exchange.

Perhaps another formula is bubbling away under the surface as a kind of paradox?
Creativity also responds to addition via subtraction. The other side of the equation is
found in the formula then as n-1. Nothing endures; everything is in a perpetual state of
perishing and transmutation.

Could one say that at the heart of creative process there are processes bubbling away
that reveal a kind of carving sculptural subtraction of parts? 'Things' that are in union
through the very opposite of aggregation, things being formed from loss? This is the
gaps of silence in streams of staccato sound. This is the hollowing out in geology, the

250 Chemical name Dodecahydro-3a,6,6,9a-tetramethylnaphtho(2,l-b)furan;source- Dictionary of Organic

Compounds - Wiley Publications.
251
Laboratory notebooks are a company's repository for raw and interpreted data which are the legal basis
for publicly disseminated information about its products and their use and can become its primary line of
defence in product liability suits. Source Maintaining a Laboratory Notebook Collection Randy D. Ralph. MUS,
Ph.D.1994

144
transfer of materials into dust in the hollowing out of marble, and this is the tempering
agents in perfumery, the neutralizing agents and the modifiers that can change the
intensity of other molecules into quiet over loud. This question of modulation of
strength and weakness is another aspect of qualities that are asserting difference into
the time base of fragrance. An exchange of energy into information produces losses as
well as additions. The four abiding forces formalizes this miracle of energy transfer that
goes back to the beginning of time, but nothing is permanent according to Cosmology
our sun will eventually collapse into itself, forming a black hole.

Serres makes a plea for balance and reciprocity in our relationship with the earth:

An armistice contract in the objective war, a contract of symbiosis, for a

symbiont recognizes the host's rights, whereas a parasite - which is what we are
now - condemns to death the one he pillages and inhabits, not realizing that in
the long run he's condemning himself to death too .252

Hybrid after hybrid, one could create a vast compendium of hybrids based on the
internal make-up of the accords that make up perfumes. These olfactory compositions
are like musical structures. The challenge for any creator is to also seek out the beauty
of the by-roads of dissonance in the spirit of creating new smell worlds. Already, in the
recent endeavour of perfume criticism we see from Turin, Sanchez and Chandler Burr a
complaint that the world of commercial fragrance is becoming homogenous, and one
detects a degree of nostalgia for a recent past in perfumery of great novelty, originality
and innovation.

As Levi Bryant points out, a substance is an individual system, or an organization of

powers, and aroma materials precisely seem to fit these criteria. These materials, along
with the ability to make new accords, represent the point where aroma composition
takes on invention rather than simply belonging to mimicry. It moves beyond emulation
of what is ‘out there' into the open fields of the imagination. One could argue that much
of perfumery, as much as it has always consisted of this scaffold of mimicry that points
towards realist observation, has always broken out into fantasy realms based on less
critical filters. In composing within the olfactory, aroma is continually on the move. It
may be that in smelling a complex perfume at first citrus fills the air, then comes a

252 Michel Serres. The Natural Contract (University of Michigan Press ), 25.

145
'Mellis accord253' and much later the balsamic rich desert like spiciness of ambriene
and musk, therefore perfumery is always evolving through time, in a similar way to
music. 254

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EarthStar Haines and Hinterding 2008-2009.

253 The mellis accord is made up of benzyl salicylate, eugenol combined with patchouli, hydroxycitronellal,
cinnamic alcohol, cedar oil and coumarin, balsamic notes can also contribute. Examples of Mellis perfumes are
Youth Dew, Opium and Coco Chanel.
254The ambreine accord is made up of bergamot, vanilla, coumarin and civet along with benzoin, opopanax,
tolu, and labdanum which are resinous materials. Typical perfumes made of the ambrein accord are Shalimar,
Must de Cartier and more recently Obsession.

146
 CONCLUSION

The osmologies of this study arrive from attempting to write about a multiplicity that
comes to life in the senses as aroma molecules make intimate contact with the
undulations of our flesh, in the nose and in the brain. It is also about a nebulosity that
radiates through the air as aroma. This investigation is anchored in the practice of
working with olfactory materials, with a focus on the modes and signals of aroma that
form new olfactory worlds out of complex systems. The outcome of this study has been
to realise that compositional work in the realm of aroma is never definitive; that the
research is ongoing, as open to development in time as a perfume, provisional and
constantly changing.

Perfumery is an activity of the mixture; things are captured within it and distilled into
synthesized characters that are volatile and thermodynamic. Within olfactory
composition, we experience the formation of all kinds of strange profiles of animal and
plant in liquid form, acting as persona. This distillation could be thought of as
something essential, whereas given all of the mediations in play, from the role of
perfumer as composer to the transmutations of chemistry and the reactions of each
receiver of these odiferous creations, it might be more useful to think of these
substances as belonging to synthesis.

Since the beginning of modernity, artists have become increasingly aware of all kinds of
forces and phenomena, particularly in light of the huge leaps that have taken place in
regards to science, technology and the industrial that influenced the way they invented
their aesthetic worlds taking the form of movements like conceptualism, post object art
and the media arts, where the frequency spectrum has often played a part in the
formation of powerful artistic outcomes. All of this activity has arisen from a lineage
that goes back to the Dadaists and the Impressionists. Light becomes an object in its
own right, along with sound waves divorced from the cultural syntax of musical
languages. But so do language and ideas based on the immaterial aspects of reality make
up the 'ephemeral' materiality of art, at the same time as belonging to the 'subject of art.'
So why not more fully embrace aroma?

147
The world of aroma chemistry is filled with an incredible array of materials that have
great potential for artists to work with. Aroma chemicals that range from the waxy
sparkling aldehydes that exudes a metallic and crystalline sheen of almost jewel-like
proportions, all the way through to the exotic hyper modernist ozone-like aroma
chemicals that resemble the aroma of a fresh sea breeze or of thunderstorms and even
the smell of overheated electrical circuitry .255 Aroma chemistry is also filled with all of
the componentry of the familiar. These are the absolutes and essential oils of plants,
fruits and animal secretions. Within these so called natural categories are also the
synthetic analogues of often 'nature identical' facets of these familiar fragrances,
forming subsets that allow for all kinds of fantasy riffs on familiar smells.

What becomes apparent from working with olfactory materials on a daily basis, is the
difficulty of reconciling the experience of olfaction as a reduction to the 'secondary
effects of perception' alone. It is difficult to take on this idea when we come to
intimately know the special qualities that these materials emit and the mental images
and affectations they can evoke. The effect they have on each other in the way these
substances change over time, and the impact they have on cultural formations in the
wider world, combined with their ability to be assimilated into ritual manifestations,
and into the wider networks of artistic cultures through their insertions into daily life,
which then feedback on themselves as influential agents of our olfactory scape, means
that this nexus goes well beyond the experience in sensation alone.

Locked within these molecules are the subtle and sometimes overwhelming and
amazing facets that make each one of them so interesting to work with. One thing you
can say is a that molecule that has sulphur as one of its atoms will never smell of
carnations. By the same token, the industrial production of musk will be so much more
than the sheer beauty of its emanations.

The distinctive character of an aroma is an output of information that results from the
assemblages that form the distinctive circuits of wider networks that the aromatic is
situated within. These circuits give wider causal networks their form and are never in a
vacuum; instead they are always circulating. Here is the idea of dynamic superposition
of a knotted topology, like an ever changing mutating dynamic fractal.

2551am told by someone who has experienced John Cage's performance, Variations 7, made up of various
noise producing electrical equipment that smells of hot electronics once it warms up.

148
Within this study, it is a conjecture that atmospheric manifestations are capable of
transmitting to the input side of transducers that penetrate the dark interior of things
and that ride the four forces like escaping gas from the windowless interior to the
exterior. This is because materials have expressive agency as much as the immaterial
does and certainly as much as language belongs to expression. Transducers within the
gamut of the olfactory are critical agents in the conversion of information to sensation
in the brain, in the form of receptors that convert chemical signals into pulses of
electricity affecting the neurons. Every actant that makes up an 'atmospheric' alliance,
everything that signals an aesthetic reaction, either by accident or by design, becomes
an agent in this drive towards forging connections and producing meaning. Perhaps a
way to close the gap between subject and object is by looking for all of the mechanisms
that are shared in common between human and nonhuman realms. Transduction is an
exemplary mechanism in this regard, because it is so pervasive within living and
nonliving systems. Transduction is a 'conjoiner' to evoke a term that comes from Michel
Serres. As he points out in Genesis, noise is a conjoiner, and aroma, as it is posited here
in this study, for part of its life belongs to noise as a gas. And yet it is this expression of
difference through change that gives things their powers that makes our world possible
against the sheer violence that can be found in the universe - the slow motion explosion
of our world as a haven, a shoal of calm in a churning sea.

A periodic sway of falling leaves, the zig and the zag recognized by entities capable of
cognizing patterns, a sensual rhythmic relationship between impersonal transmitter
and receiver transmits into thin air. Such is the openness of information. The leaves
find it difficult to escape these swaying movements that occur in some way or another
by the force of gravity and sensanance in tandem with the windy seasons, though
always falling in variation. What Bruno Latour shows us in his "Irreductions” is that
there can also be another kind of mediation just around the corner. Perhaps a child will
pluck the leaves and place it in a book, only to be discovered by someone a long time
into the future. Perhaps for a bower bird in the forest, if not for a human, this zigzag
circuit signals something close to aesthetics. And the leaves carry on regardless of
whom or what is watching. The leaves continue in their shedding and falling, zig­
zagging indifferently, doing their gravitational dance, whilst catching the light of the
setting sun. Predetermined by the conditions that they find themselves within, these

149
are the forces of causality that make our world what it is - what makes our earth
habitable is the relative speed of change far from the rapid rotations of a pulsar where
gravity is unfathomably immense. This is the tonality, the timing of the earth in action.
And as the leaves curl in the warmth of the day, the air becomes filled with the sweet
musty vapour of liquid amber that is said to resemble the smell of genitalia. And indeed,
liquid amber essential oil does smell like this, only darker, spicier, mustier, of the animal
and the tree and yet somehow more balsamic, somehow in between animal and
vegetable and deep down I smell a stony flint - this golden oil is rife for a carnal
perfume creation.

A hardened 'realist' might break this network down into an array of categories along
with their accompanying equations, gravity and air resistance and laminar flows over
aerofoil-shaped surfaces and the secretion of oily aromatic resins that are to be
classified in the laboratory; this is one kind of knowledge. In the spirit of another kind
of knowledge, born from something more provisional, from the vat of time and simple
observation, let this complex network assemblage be known here as the'gravity and
leaf composition.’ As we pass through that musty liquid amber cloud that comes in
simpatico with the falling of leaves, our vitality and libido is surely awakened, haunted
by the aroma of those particular trees in that particular state of being in that particular
time.

There are a multitude of philosophical positions on the status of substance, from

Aristotle, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume and Kant, and it has been taken up again more
recently in philosophy by a ioose grouping of individuals who are casting a net once
again over objects under the guise of Speculative Realism. Graham Harman describes
the new investigations of Speculative Realism as being critical of:

Kant's Copernican Revolution which turns philosophy into a meditation on

human infinitude and forbids it from discussing reality itself. And by
"speculative" 1 mean... a darker form of "weird realism" bearing little
resemblance to the presuppositions of everyday life.256

If we intend to meet this ground plane of mixed categories, shouldn't it be in itself like a
fragrant intoxicating evocation that plunders freely from any side of the circuit? Things

256From the Preface of Graham Harman's Towards Speculative Realism Essays and Lectures - Zero Books 2010

150
seem so back and forwards, left and right, but perhaps we can sense a spectral radiating
emanation that everything is swept up in. The pallet of this osmology is widening,
becoming impatient with the notion that language is at the centre of everything and
moving to the eccentric orbit of the Outlands, where everything is floating far away
from the world of Kant and Newton .257

We are moving now beyond the visible world into the ion channels of the body and deep
down into the deposits of musk molecules on the bottom of a muddy lake. We inhabit
the quantum realm via the spin frequencies of molecules and are also thrown into vivid
memories of 'Proustian' night-time lovemaking. We come to know about the matter of
whale vomit from a creature we are unlikely to ever have much physical contact with in
our lives, if at all. We come to think about multiple forms of time and its dimensionality
as simultaneously topological, linear and chaotic. Within the smell networks described,
yes, those with noses are crucial, but so is the civet cat, the musk deer and the plants we
wring the lifeblood out of in the harvest. All of this flesh and vegetable matter coexists
alongside the cold hard metal of the spectrograph, an analytical tool of science that is at
the heart of an electronic nose, and all of this becomes hundreds of bottles filled with
fluids that emanate, each one a distinctive odour all play their part in this olfactory
nexus. These networks are kaleidoscopic, just as this osmology forms into an undulating
mass as intermingled constituency - a nebulosity that radiates in the air like the diffuse
nature of a perfume that fills a room with a strange intoxicating presence, a perfume
that is mysterious, provisional in its nature, illusive and powerful.

Perhaps then the question of substance resides within a things capacity of powers that
allow it to form a complex of relationships with other things, and it is in these powers
that appear at certain moments that a thing differentiates itself from others. Some
substances are extremely volatile and reactive, some will be on the borders of what we
would call dynamic, some are virtually immaterial, and others will be so relatively slow
and unchanging as to seem to be like statues. Here we have things in a high state of
entropy and a low state of entropy. Becoming, as a pure undifferentiated continuum
certainly seems to be what is occurring on quantum scales; once an observer enters the
frame even on the macro level things take a position, because the scale of dynamics

257 A pun on the title of Haines and Hinterding's work of real time 3d The Outlands that was first shown in
Unguided Tours, The Anne Landa Award for Video Art and New media AGNSW 2011 also refers to territories
on the periphery, belonging to other kinds of synthesis.

151
becomes a multitudinous congealed mass of process. Becoming also fluidly circulates
within the immaterial realms of language and symbols and these immaterial realms as
information are continually determining matter in the physical world, operating in a
turbulent feedback system.

A matt black object will never reflect light in the same way a matt white object will.
There is an intersection between surface attributes formed by the makeup of the
substrate and light and each one plays a part both in how it appears and what it radiates
to any perceiver who is merely interpreting uniquely what one is experiencing through
the senses. Everything differentiates to a certain extent but it also contains a
multiplicity. To paraphrase Gilíes Deleuze quoting Henry Miller: "Everything is
individual and yet related.”

Biophysicist Luca Turin brings us closer to the forces in a smelly molecule by alerting us
to its frequency, with each one consisting of a unique harmonic tone; a quantum-scale
inaudible ringing that eventually leads him to recognize a correlation between
frequency and smell character and re-start a debate between the theories of vibration
and the proponents of shape in regards to the biology of smell. Even the question of how
we smell is as much about rhetorical arguments at work in science, as much as it is
about passionate discovery of new smell worlds.

The four fundamental forces258 of gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force
and the weak nuclear force, are intrinsic to the organizing networks that produce all
kinds of modes, such as resistance, capacitance, conductivity, attraction and repulsion,
oscillations, signals, resonating frequencies, harmonics, waves and particles,
thermodynamics, absorption, flux and flow (and others yet to be discovered], all of
which provide the conditions for coalescence, accretion and dissolution to occur.
However, with these mediators there are the influencing forces of transcendent actions,
information in the form of symbols and codes and numbers and geometry, time and
space bearing down on things that are moving towards greater entropy. 259

258 Gravity, Electromagnetism, The Strong Nuclear Force and the Weak Nuclear force, the last two are forces
that interact at a sub atomic level. - see
259 These (four forces) range over 40 orders of magnitude; some involve repulsion as well as attraction - the
push as well as the pull is used to hold things together. The mix of forces is both remarkable and complex.
Apparently, in this universe at least, these forces, and the particle masses and charges involved, have to be

152
Physical matter is something other than solid in the conventional way we come to think
about it.260 In the world observed within the branches of physics, concrete matter is
more of a ghostly presence than we realize. Matter could be likened to a symphonic
burst of energy - a kind of tonal ringing in space.

If the critical terms for Latour are translation and mediation of actants, the other one
must be their transportation, which is the result of translation. Things are transported
from one place to the next; another word for this is transform.

We need to understand more about the connections between things. Connections as

strange and as interesting as Marcel Proust's network of mixtures in his mouth of lime
blossom tea and a piece of madeleine, and how he was able to show us something about
the nature and perception of memory through the winding path of his writing. There
are connections to be traced that are as wondrous as the brittle aroma on the seashore
that brings to us humans the sheer pleasure of the dunes. Connections, as marvellous as
the greasy secretions from cat glands, contributing to the smell of jasmine on skin in
sunshine. The role played by cat secretions in the jasmine accord is the moment of
conversion and mediation in action, telling us everything is on the same footing and yet
not lacking in dimensions or difference. The forging of all of these elements shows us
that there is a delightfully deep degree of asymmetrical connectedness between things.
Connections as intriguing as an accord of butter, grass, fresh green apple and spun sugar
that makes a strawberry aroma coalesce in the air, like a ghost. The strawberry appears
out of nowhere, from things that the strawberry will never know. Even though these
elements of the strawberry aroma seem incompatible, as if they belong to the wrong
species, the thing that unites them is the bonding of like molecules.

Is it not reasonable to say that it is the things that are outside of cognition that are free
from the burden of knowing there limitations? It is because of our awareness and the
limits of our senses and knowledge and a deep curiosity to know what is beyond us that
we have cause to resort to instruments that are able to extend these capabilities by

about what they are if matter is to become more complex, a prerequisite for anything still more complex
developing.
260 What makes something solid are a combination of strong interacting forces and densely packed molecules.
The categories of solids are crystalline and non-crystalline solids such as amorphous solid, granular matter,
quasi crystal and polymer. A solid can be thought of as continuous elastic body. Instead of residing in the
vibrations of individual atoms, the internal energy of a solid is assumed to reside in elastic standing waves.
Source http://universe-review.ca/H3-14-ejunk.png sighted on 10/6/2011

153
burrowing down into the specific nature of the chemistry that gives each molecule
within a certain range a unique olfactive signature.

We are attempting then to try to get to know something more about these constellations
that flash like an occulting beacon. Lurking on the other side of that quantum flash in
this reconceived ether is energy that makes up all matter. For Spinoza this unity is God,
but in the schema outlined here this unity belongs to the electromagnetic spectrum,
impersonal and unnameable, that is both 'sombre precursor'261 common to the entire
universe, but somehow just as glorious as any god. What we are concerned with here is
the smelly, vibrational aspect of this continuum, caught up in reaction with a sensorium
and a multiplicity of other entities that are really made up of the same stuff as
everything else. These olfactory events, seeping like oil through the fingers of
Modernity and yet never entirely surpassing it, pressured by the forces of humankind,
this curved cluster formed by degrees of relationship, at times spinning out into the
strangest dimensions, emerging into being from deep evolutionary recesses, sublimely
fragrant on one side - poisonous on the other. None the less, slipping through within it,
matter and representation all bound up together, and then breaking away into chaos
and visceral carnal moments that fly in multiple directions.

The human and the nonhuman forming a territory - the abstract and the expressive in
an intimate union: a territory of the outside reaching in that has always been within
everything. The odiferous anti-modern is now in full swing like a driving wind gust at
sea. This form of matter that is intrinsically tied to its opposite, a (theoretical] dark
matter. This matter that is 99.99999999 % empty, this outside that is ultimately an
intimate union with the vibrating inner worlds of objects that we can never see with our
eyes.

261A favorite passage from Gilles Deleuze, see- "Z as in Zigzag", Charles Stivale A-Z
translation,www.langlab.wayne.edu/cstivale/d-g/ABC3.html#anchor811855, retrieved 18/05/2012.

154
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