24Electric

Space (Coffee). In this work I invited the public to sit
and rest on two black cushions in two meditation
spaces. Each space offered a different aroma: one of
Rwandan tea and the other of Rwandan coffee. With
this project I wanted to offer the viewers the aroma
of the two most important products of the Rwandan
economy, and so symbolically erase from my body
the smell of death.
32
Vincenzo Castella
Since I am not used to write about my work, I hope
you can use
these notes I took while taking that/those pictures.
“Out of landscape and imaginary perfumes
insider landscapes
• out of scale
• white sprouting
• fluorescent green (industrial smell)
• scent of rain
• cotton paper
• pigments
Finally, out of Paradise.”
33
Almudena Lobera
The region of the possible
“Places generate space, and space is the region of the
possible”
[Introduction. Catalogue for Documenta 13,
The Guidebook 3/3]
Sunny summer day. Twenty-five degrees. A garden
framed by a façade without a building allows me to
conceive the exterior space of my artistic residence
as a place of exhibition. The experience of the picture-viewer
arises by chance, outside of the conventional
exhibition context. A window with no glass
acts as a living picture in front of my eyes. The image
I see is not an illusion; the illusion is my presence.
According to the theories of Physics, by the very act
of observing something we are already modifying it.
My perception of space alters its state of reality. The
void of the broken glass and the volume that encloses
the image shift the air and the smell, which, like our
gaze, can expand beyond the surface.
34
Magdalena Correa
Rotterdam, August 2013
Isle of the Dead corresponds to an island, Isla de
los Muertos, that is located in the Tortel Commune,
Capitán Prat Province, Aysén Region. It was transformed
into a cemetery by a hundred of deaths that
occurred there, the cause of which remains unknown
to this day, and became a National Monument of
Chile and the inspiration for thousands of superstitious,
poetic and historical stories. Beautiful frame of
cold forest in a setting of superb landscape of mountain
ranges and glaciers, which, apart from the value
it has in its own right, enhances still more the mystery
of what took place there.
The constant rain and wind in Patagonia make the
souls of the dead rise up in the smell of the earth… and
the tongue with mould, like a submerged bell tower.
Isle of the Dead is an image that belongs to the
Austral project on the region of Aysén, the South of
the earth, the South of Chile; the XI Región General
Carlos Ibáñez del Campo.
Isle of the Dead reflects and revives the atmosphere
of death and mould, of cold virgin forest, of
cypress and fern that envelops everything in a penetrating
sweet smell, truly unforgettable. It represents
a kind of journey within a limit, constrained, without
moving from there, travelling through memory and
the experience of limits. It invites you to be inside the
landscape, travelling in it, experiencing the movement,
the changes and the opposite side of reality.
Perceiving the other side, making our imaginary position
change and modify itself completely.
35
Javier Almalé - Jesús Bondía
Playing with silences we slide images of forgotten
smells in the viewfinder of our camera. Video fragments
bring us closer to the olfactory memory as a
fragile witness turned into windows, in many cases
beautiful.
That silence is the smell of mist, the essence of the
drilled earth, a primitive nature that stretches out
like a landscape saturated with silent flavors.
Quietly we slide towards a happy ending. How are
we going to retain the colours from which the smells
of mist, of old earth, are made, when the canes and
trees are different, yet similar?
36
Riitta Päiväläinen
Alone, in the remote forest, I am gazing into the eye of
the water spring. Air is filled with moist as if it would
start to rain soon. I am embraced by the sweet odour of
clean freshness. I am staring enchanted how the structures
at the sandy bottom of the spring are constantly
altering. Crystal clear water wells up from the unknown
depths and brings up the sudden smell of sulphur.
It was early morning when I found the spring. Was
it coincidence or faith that I had with me a roll of ribbon
with similar colour to the sandy bottom of the
spring? I started gently entwine the ribbon around
the branches of spruce. The familiar fragrance of
pitch and evergreen needles made me feel like home.
The shape of the ribbon reminds me of a gigantic,
rare forest flower, which shines in the darkness. Its
peculiar odour spreads into faraway places; invites
forest animals to drink from the spring during the
dry seasons. The shape of the installation was not
planned before. I created it by following the conditions,
the terms of nature and it was modified by my
unconscious mind.
I am waiting for hours for the perfect moment to
shoot the image; the beam of the sun to touch the
centre of my installation. The odour of pure water is
mixed with dark, deep, earthy smells. On the forest
floor the dead plants are decaying, turning into soil.
The rich smell of mud, moss, and mouldering leave
under my boots, trigger my memory. Suddenly I am
in another time and space.
I am a child. I pick up yellow and red autumn leaves
of aspen. I stand on the small river and set the leaves
free for adventure. The smell of autumn surrounds
me. I am one with nature.
37
Carlos Betancourt
Of the many trips that I have had to make, in only two
places have I found myself saying to some friend: ‘Of
this smell I am made’. It happened to me for the first
time as I sat on a reef on the north coast of Puerto
Rico. As the reefs were exposed by the motion of each
gentle wave they gave off a smell with which I identified
thoroughly.
The second time that it happened to me was on my
arrival on Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands. As soon as
I got off the plane I perceived a delicious aroma that
also made me feel complete. When I was documenting
the series TOUCHING TEGUISE I, I realized that this
smell came from the earth, the volcanic rocks, the
sea and who knows what other ingredient.
In Puerto Rico I was able to identify the aroma of
the reef thanks in part to my youthful joy when I lived
on the island.
On Lanzarote, and specifically in Teguise, I realized
that the Betancourt family in the New World originated
from precisely that city.
On these two occasions it was a smell that gave me,
or returned to me, a part of my self-identification.
38
Teun Hocks
The smell of a lazy summer morning
With the sound of the far-off birds and the buzz of the
insects, the time passes slowly.
The tar rises from the barrow of straw,
mixing with the hay, almost without air.
What does time smell of?
Perhaps to the fresh wood newly cut?
39
José Noguero
My relationship with smell is somewhat ambivalent.
On the one hand, my olfactory perception does not
have the same degree of sensitivity as my visual perception.
It is as if, in order to perceive any smell, it
had to pass through my bodily atmosphere, just as
the terrestrial atmosphere filters the sun’s rays. So,
then, I suppose that my limited sense of smell, as
if it were a sky full of dust particles, would perceive
everything with an orangey tone of dusk. On the
other hand, though, in the olfactory range at my disposal,
when the reptilian part of my brain perceives a
small trace it could instantly transport me to places,
bodies and memories with an abrupt intensity. All
that is needed is an allusion and it could carry me off
to a mountainside with bushes recently refreshed by
a spring shower, to a damp English kitchen, to a stairwell
filled with the smell of a neighbour’s cooking or,
of course, to the body of a loved one.
When I think about Space for 9 with Lime Tree I end
up doubting what smell I would relate it to – actually,
I will have to wait for spring to come to remind
me what a lime tree smells like; it must be lost in my
memory, or perhaps it is too subtle for my atmosphere
and I really have to rub my nose against the
leaves, the way a bear scratches its back against the
trunk of a tree.
According to one of the series of the pasturing of
the ox, after the pastor arrives at awakening in the
eighth sequence, in the ninth stage, having returned
from ecstasy, some flowering branches appear, indicating
that the perception has become more crystalline
and true: ‘Blue flow the streams, green rise the
mountains.’ What would the pastor perceive, now
free of atmospheric inclemencies, in this space?
What would he see? How great an extension would
that vision encompass, and bathed with what light
would he contemplate it?
And, of course: What would he smell? What smell
can that extension have?
The visual metaphor offers us a horizontal turquoise
space – or is it water? – with access to a higher space
in which a lime tree would appear in dialogue with the
void and bathed in light; and all of this, except for the
light, is made present to us framed by dark bands.
What odorous dialogue would be established? Or
would it be a monologue of the lime tree?
Could you smell the light? And if so, what fragrance
would it have?
And would someone with that activated sensitivity
also smell space?
Would they smell the colours? What does turquoise
smell like?
40
Jordi Casañas
Snail of dry, hostile earth, from the outskirts infested
with lives that smell of death, your imminent FALL!,
inexorably you approach the laws of life… and a far
from ambiguous vertigo, …breathe in…and breathe
out at last your putrefaction. Meanwhile, the cicada
goes on with its song.
134