Performative structure (on loop)
Swiss Art Awards 2023, Basel CH
Aluminium frame, perfume, fan, vacuum sheet
60cm x 60cm x 140cm

Performative structure (on loop)
Swiss Art Awards 2023, Basel CH

Aluminium frame, perfume, fan, vacuum sheet
60cm x 60cm x 140cm

The air is filled with a velvety, earthy smell when the weather changes and heavy rains wet the asphalt after hot temperatures. This particular smell of rain comes from an organic compound called Geosmin (C12H22O), released by microbes as they die. This scent is known as Petrichor and is one that the human nose is highly sensitive to—detecting concentrations as low as 0.4 parts per billion. Through the mechanics of modern technological control, operating by stealth [think air changes per hour], buildings construct an internalized comfort limiting our experience of the world outside [climate/ season/ time]. GEOSMIN, a collaboration between Tetyana Kulminska (Verdandi Perfume), Nelly Pilz (studiopilz) and Matthew Phillips (00Island), interrogates the conditions of conditioned environments. As an act of reversal, the installation hijacks modern architecture’s tools of separation. By installing the smell of rain inside the exhibition hall, we disrupt the systems of control, blurring the lines between the natural and the artificial. The installation proposes grafting lightweight forms onto the existing ceiling-mounted service structures of the 160,000m2 exhibition hall. The incoming air is channelled and mixed with a synthetic rain scent in vessels below. Extending the system to the floor pulls visitors and technology into unusual proximity. Each vessel contains one-tenth of the air that dissipates from one of the 172 outlets every hour, making the invisible act of air exchange quantifiable. The 1/10 scale prototype on display at the Swiss Art Awards 2023, represents a section of the ten-metre-high exhibition hall. The experimental test model which inflates and deflates based on sensors and timers [measuring the ppm of perfume in the air and a maximum air pressure threshold in the vessel] investigates the dynamic between the visible [vessel] and the invisible [scented air]–the relationship between controlled inputs and uncontrolled outputs. The installation activates the senses through a performative simulation creating the largest collective environment with the minimum material means. Constructing a highly sensorial space and disrupting our perception encourages one to question existing relations and architectural forms. By creating a new ambience, the installation as a physical structure expands into the auratic field of experience, acting as both the content and the context. It attempts to critique the construction of our environments and their manipulated conditions. With the support of Fabian Bircher [ungenaurobotics].