The videos features an international roster of guests who respond to a set of questions posed by the artist relating to the sense of smell. Created originally in the context of a residency at the Banff Center for the Arts in Alberta, Canada and broadcasted live as a talk show on Banff’s public television station. The ten guests provide confidential, entertaining and sometimes racy testimonials about their pre occupation with smells and body odors.

 

“Smell You Smell Me” was conceived and created over the period of several weeks and in the context of the thematic artists residency “APOCALYPSO” that I was awarded from the Visual and Media Dept at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 1998 in Alberta Canada. At that time I was deeply inspired by Patrick Buskin’s novel Perfume and the hero Jean Baptist Greeneville and I embarked in a series of art projects to expand the notion of scent and smell from the molecular to the perceptual. I wanted to investigate the distinctive qualities of scent and odors such evocativeness, intimacy, violence, subjectivity, variability, privacy and so on seeking to redefine the complexity of odors as an esthetic critical experience using video, internet and relational art projects.

 

“Smell You Smell Me “ has been one of the projects that I created through my olfactory journey in Banff and it was originally broadcast live at Banff public television station and later was presented as a ten video channel installation.

 

The structure of the 10 single channel video installations was based on the kind of “diary room” footage found in the real time television Big Brother where contestants speak directly and candidly to the camera. “Smell you Smell me” features an international rooster of guests who I happened to meet in Banff at that time and I asked them to participate in my “interviews” TV show by responding to set of the same questions which I posed related to the sense of smell. The guests provide personal, entertaining and sometimes confidential testimonials about their preoccupation with smell. Perfume, body odor and olfactory memories are just a few of the topics discussed. Intimate thoughts are revealed about how smell intersects with their everyday lived aspects such as personal and cultural identity geography, community, violence, death, and idiosyncratic likes and dislikes. As well as contemplations about the nature and philosophy of smell in general. Smell you smell me was originally broadcast live Banff public television station and later was presented as a ten video channel installation.