Nose-wise: Smell Studies Come of Age

This essay argues that to arrive at a proper understanding of the aesthetic and cognitive potential of smell, we must look outside the western tradition to those traditions where the power of smell does not carry all the baggage, all the disqualifications that Kant and Freud, and even Proust, saddled it with. The cases of Indian perfumery, the Chinese incense clock, and the Japanese incense ceremony known as kōdō, which involves “listening to the incense” (ko wo kiku), are presented by way of example. This essay also seeks to recover the original meaning of the term “aesthetic,” which Baumgarten defined as the science of grasping “the unity in multiplicity of sensible qualities.”

On the “Odoresque” and “Aero-Perfumes”: Smell Related Neologisms in Avant-garde and Contemporary Art and Scholarship

For her doctoral dissertation “In Search of Lost Scents,” art and scent historian Caro Verbeek (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Kunstmuseum, The Hague) collected olfactory neologisms or newly invented smell related words from (art) historical sources ranging from 1855 to 1975, which she categorised according to the themes poetry, mind, concepts, material and synaesthesia. Three never-before-published artistic illustrations by the author help establish a more embodied cognition of the meaning of some of these concepts, as including “smell images” is impossible. In addition, she has created a “synaesthetic odour wheel” based on literary sources (2021).

Subverzivna mladinska književnost – pravljična igra Alenke Gerlovič Jurček in trije razbojniki (1944) v kontekstu

Članek obravnava pravljično igro slikarke Alenke Gerlovič (1919–2010) z naslovom Jurček in trije razbojniki. Igra je nastala v času 2. svetovne vojne in je izraz avtoričine etične drže do fašizma in nacizma ter vojnih grozot. Kot pokaže analiza, se Alenka Gerlovič s svojo igro uvršča med svetovne mladinske pisatelje, ki so s svojimi deli komentirali vojno dogajanje. Alenka Gerlovič z Jurčkom ustvarja »imaginarni zaslon«, ki je publiki v vojnih razmerah omogočil, da je ohranjala distanco do grozodejstev in bil hkrati del antifašističnega boja, tudi kot simbolno orožje in etično dejanje.

Rana in potovanje – Sofoklejev Filoktet in Homerjeva Odiseja v drami in uprizoritvi Inflammation du verbe vivre (Vnetje glagola živeti) Wajdija Mouawada

Avtorica v članku analizira primer besedila in njegove uprizoritve, ki ju je navdihnila nenadna smrt v ožji ustvarjalni ekipi njunega avtorja. Kanadsko-libanonski dramatik, režiser in igralec Wajdi Mouawad je v solo predstavi Inflammation du verbe vivre (Vnetje glagola živeti), uprizorjeni v pariškem gledališču Théâtre National de la Colline leta 2015, prepletel antično grško literarno in mitološko izročilo z osebno izpovedjo o izgubi prijatelja in sodelavca Roberta Davreuja, vse to pa nadgradil še z družbenokritičnim prikazom razmer v sodobni Grčiji. Predstava je nastala kot predzadnji del cikla uprizoritev sedmih ohranjenih Sofoklejevih tragedij s skupnim naslovom Le dernièr jour de sa vie (Zadnji dan njegovega življenja), ki jih je Mouawad nameraval režirati v Davreujevih novih prevodih. Proces žalovanja ob smrti, ki je zaustavila projekt, je povezal z dokumentiranjem procesa nastajanja besedila, ki ga je v obliki svojevrstne gledališko-cinematične žalostinke tudi režiral in v njej nastopil. Lik Filokteta je spojil z likom Odiseja, toda ne tistega, ki si v Sofoklejevi tragediji prizadeva, da bi mu s spletko izmaknil lok, temveč tistega, ki pri Homerju po zavzetju Troje deset let išče pot domov na Itako in ki v podzemlju obišče senco Tejrezija.

Sledeč nosu: dozorele študije o vonjavah

Ta esej trdi, da se moramo za pravilno razumevanje estetskega in kognitivnega potenciala vonja ozreti izven zahodne tradicije, v tiste tradicije, kjer moč vonja ne nosi vse prtljage in vseh diskvalifikacij, ki so jih zanj naredili Kant, Freud in celo Proust. Kot primer lahko navedemo indijsko parfumerijo, kitajsko kadilno uro in japonski kadilni obred, znan kot kōdō, ki vključuje "poslušanje kadila" (ko wo kiku). Ta esej si prizadeva tudi za povrnitev prvotnega pomena izraza "estetski", ki ga je Baumgarten opredelil kot znanost o razumevanju "enotnosti v mnoštvu čutnih lastnosti".

The Complexity of Olfactory Art The Use of Scent as Concept and Context in the Work of Art

The sense of smell is a powerful sense that offers many possibilities. To speak of olfactory art, there must be the intention to use odour or olfaction as both context and concept of the work of art. For this, we speak about the terms Olfactory Context and Olfactory Concept. The Olfactory Context can be divided into the Intrinsic and Intentional Odour Values. The intrinsic odour value brings with it their significance, while the intentional odour value gives an extra meaning to a smell. In addition, the Olfactory Perception is part of the Olfactory Concept of the artwork. To perceive this, the smell must be transferred to the spectator. The way in which an odour is transferred in a work largely determines how the smell is interpreted in relation to the work. The odour transfer and odour situation determine how an odour gets to the viewer. We call these methods of odour transfer Olfactory Transfers and divide them into five categories: Flowers, Smell Devices, Scent Spaces, Time and Translations. In most cases, Olfactory Transfers are used in crossovers. Together with the various possibilities of using the Olfactory Context, they also demonstrate the Complexity of Olfactory Art. The 1st Olfactory Art Manifest explains the differences in olfactory art, while the 2nd Olfactory Art Manifest demonstrates the Complexity of Olfactory Art.

Med 151 aisthēsis in colere: senzoričnost, vsakdanja improvizacija in etnografska resničnost

Individualna izkušnja vsakdanjega mestnega življenja je v bistvu vsakdanja improvizacija, med drugimi, meščanov. V urbanih okoljih se družbeno strukturirane formacije vsakdanjega življenja srečujejo s povsem individualno situirano izkušnjo v neštetih spontano ustvarjenih in oblikovanih sklopih vsakdanjega življenja. Vizualna percepcija prostora, zvočna orientacija v določenem prostoru ter vohalno in taktilno doživljanje okolja so temeljna estetska dejanja pri kultiviranju skupne urbane resničnosti. Komunikacija z drugimi ljudmi običajno vključuje zvoke govora, taktilno komunikacijo ter izmenjavo vonjav in vonjev. Toda človeška komunikacija vključuje sodelovanje, dejavnosti in različne prakse, torej človeška telesa pa tudi občutke, čustva in afekte. To je izhodišče antropološkega znanja, ki izhaja iz neposredne izkušnje življenja drugih ljudi na terenu. Človeški glas in različni zvoki, glasba ter ples so bistveni deli vsake etnografske izkušnje. Vsakdanje življenje in vsak človeški obstoj v svojem neprekinjenem delovanju vključuje stalno taktilno zaznavanje in okušanje hrane, vode in drugih pijač. Ob spoprijemanju s kompleksnostjo vsakodnevne urbane improvizacije bom za opredelitev prostora človekove interakcije uporabil dva starogrška izraza: aisthēsis, torej čutno zaznavanje, in kompleksne pomene latinskega glagola colere, iz katerega izhaja izraz kultura (tj. kultivirati, negovati, naseljevati, častiti in zaščititi). Triangulacijo vsakdanje improvizacije skozi čutno jedro vsakdanjega življenja je mogoče doseči z uporabo dveh drugih starogrških izrazov, praxis in poiesis. Temeljno empirično gradivo pri obravnavi vsakdanje improvizacije v urbanem okolju so zbrane pripovedi čutnega zaznavanja in posameznih življenj s senzobiografskih sprehodov po Ljubljani, Turkuju in Brightonu.

Performing Touch and Smell: The Liminality of the Senses

The paper discusses the liminal nature of the sensorial languages in contemporary performing arts. Its starting point will be the following chain of thoughts: during artistic events, a performative action reshaping the performers and the audience takes place, along with the interchange of the roles between the “stage” and “auditorium”, either in the sense of Augusto Boal’s spect-actor or the destruction of the fourth wall and the specific “autopoietic feedback loop” (Erika Fischer-Lichte) between both parties involved. We aim to rethink and re-examine the role of the sensorial language as one of the rarely used yet highly efficient tools of the performative revolutions of the 20th and 21st centuries. These revolutions started with the Futurists, continued with the tactile and sensorial performances and politics of Marina Abramović and Yoko Ono, and culminated with Enrique Vargas and his sensorial theatre in different stages from New York’s La Mama radical 1960s productions to his 1990s new sensorial theatre language of his Teatro de los Sentidos. We will try to answer the following questions: How can and how do we touch and smell … in performative actions? Which kind of liminalities does the act of sensorial produce in a contemporary performance?

Gledališče čutov: nagovora

Kaj se nam zgodi, ko doživljamo gledališče čutov? Zakaj potrebujemo igro? Zakaj je senzorialno gledališče danes pomembno? Zaradi kakšnega čudnega razloga se ljudje radi igramo, da se v temi izgubljamo in znova najdemo? Z vami bi rad delil, kaj mi pomeni gledališče čutov, vse odkar sem se med svojo otroško igro zavedel, kako se izumljam in ga izumljam, ko sem si zamišljal prepovedane labirinte v kolumbijskih kavnih nasadih, pa do danes, ko si pri svojih osemdesetih želim, da bi to vednost telesa lahko predal naprej. Jasno je, da obstajajo prvobitna in vzporedna védenja, ki so se razvila skozi čas, v vseh kulturah; miti, praznovanja, domišljija, poezija, moč simbolov … so različno odzvanjali glede na različne zgodovinske okoliščine. Vse to, da bi se skupaj vprašali: Kaj danes zmore senzorialno gledališče?

Wound and Travel – Sophocles’s 193 Philoctetes and Homer’s Odyssey in Inflammation du verbe vivre (Inflammation of the Verb To Live) by Wajdi Mouawad

In her article, the author analyses an example of a text and its staging brought about by the sudden death of a member of the playwright’s creative team. In his solo performance Inflammation du verbe vivre (Inflammation of the Verb To Live), created at the Paris Théâtre National de la Colline in 2015, Canadian-Lebanese playwright, director and actor Wajdi Mouawad interwove the ancient Greek literary and mythological heritage with a personal confession about the loss of his friend and professional colleague Robert Davreu, upgrading it with a socially critical depiction of the situation in today’s Greece. The performance was made as the penultimate part of a staging cycle of Sophocles’s seven preserved tragedies under the common title Le dernièr jour de sa vie (The Last Day of his Life). Mouawad had intended to direct the cycle in new translations by Davreu. Mouawad thus connected the process of mourning the death, which stopped the project, with the documentation of the writing process of the text that he later also directed and performed in the form of a peculiar theatre elegy. He fused the character of Philoctetes with the character of Odysseus; not the Odysseus from Sophocles’s tragedy who plots to steal Philoctetes’s bow, but the one from Homer who seeks his way home to Ithaca for ten years after the conquer of Troy and visits Tiresias’s shade in the underworld.