creating scentsgeneral thoughts

the essential culture

As promised yesterday, I follow up on yesterday’s post with a few comments on art. These are comments and reflections I made at Campomarzio at via Vittoria on Thursday night, and all this under Campomarzio ‘s claim “the essential culture” which I like a lot. Thus, I mused on how we see the world, during the presentation of Miriam, the fragrance, from the Tableau de Parfums series and Miriam, the movie that inspired its creation and that is an integral part of Woman’s Picture, independent movie maker Brian Pera’s oevre.

I made in front of my public the three drawings, asking the public what they see. You see the drawing to the left. Quick: What is it?

It is a bird. A tree. The sun.

This is code. This is the way one part of our brain sees the world. In abstract forms, simplified patterns. This simplification, this abstraction allows us, our brains, to move through this world very effectively. We do not have to identify patterns of a tree, its form and shadows, its colors and patterns, its size and relative position to other objects for half an hour in order to get the information right: Yes, it is a tree. We have learned to simplify by abstraction. We need to.

We live in our world of abstraction, every day and even in the world of scents we use these abstractions.

This is why I can ask “what is this” and get the answer “it is a bird”. I did, however, not ask “what does this look like”, because the code never looks like the real thing.

This abstraction does not show us how the world looks like, and it misses its beauty and the contrasts where light and shadow meet, where colors explode, where shapes and forms create new impressions, where scents recreate pictures of the past, bringing back memories.

It is the artists task and privilege, it is the art’s mission to know about these abstractions, to use them, break them, transform them and to show the world around us without  code and abstraction. Art allows us to the the world differently.Art can show us the beauty of the world and how the world presents itself. This is true for any form of art, for painting, for music, for movie making, for writing or for perfumery.

This is why art is important. It allows us to see the world differently and opens our  minds.