Ephemera by Unsound

by: Jodi Battershell

Unsound is a Krakow-based music and arts festival known for presenting unconventional music and commissioned art works at installations in Krakow, New York, London, Minsk, Adelaide and more. In April 2014, as part of Unsound Festival New York, a unique project  exploring the synaesthesia of light, images, sound and scent was created—Ephemera.

A second installment of Ephemera took place in October 2014 at Unsound Krakow, followed by another presentation in October at the Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art in Norway.

In 2015, Ephemera presents the bottled olfactory compositions based on the musical resonances and reverberations of the project. The nose behind the project is Berlin-basedGeza Schoen, known for the groundbreakingEscentric Molecules series as well as various avant-garde/conceptual scents.

Let's explore the three scents and the auditory and visual works that inspired them.

For Steve Goodman (aka musician and DJ Kode9), the idea of Bass connects with childhood memories triggered by the sound and the accompanying scent he remembers of a broken, burning vacuum cleaner. Geza Schoen translated this to a scent which opens with woodsmoke and rum notes, developing into leather, mastic, and tea notes, and finishing with castoreum and moss. Steve Goodman on Bass: My piece ‘Vacuum Burn’ is based on the earliest sound/smell overlap that I can remember as a child. We had a dysfunctional vacuum cleaner that gave off a scent of burning dust, so whenever I hear the sound of hoover basslines, or those kind of crackling low frequency, fog-horn type bass drones, then I always get this burning smell which is not actually present, but rather is a virtual byproduct of this memory in which the smell and sound have become cross-associated.

BASS // Steve Goodman (aka Kode9)

Geza Schoen created the scent representing Noise, inspired by way of Ben Frost’s deepest recesses of olfactory memories: Ash Wednesday: The creeping haze of burning trees, distant crackling, the muffled roar and siren, suffocating wind, heat and the physical noise—the looming spectre of Australian bushfire. We wear wool. Sheep don’t easily burn, you see. My Grandfathers workshop: Soldering, electrical burns—the cycling whine of angle grinders and the showering sparks of an arc welder. The rust, the damp, the wood, the sweat. Church on Sundays: Crackling radio-mic sermon, always cold, bluestone, frost, and frankincense. The back of the hunting truck: moisture and insect drones, mould and gunpowder, empty shells and diesel in jerry cans.The buzz of flies over sticky blood.

Noise // Ben Frost

Fragrance Drone has been adapted by Geza Schoen for the upcoming performance ofEphemera Live, which will take place in Toronto on June 19-20, 2015. The presentation will pair Schoen's fragrance with music by Tim Hecker and lighting/visual effects by MFO (Marcel Weber of Berlin). "It is time we can enjoy fusions of senses which we haven't been able to see before really... Sound and scent together are incredibly powerful. You will always remember the setup as whole unique amalgamation of two things which normally ARE NOT represented together, so there is room for an individual exploration here," notes perfumer Geza Schoen.

Tim Hecker’s notion of Drone does not have any direct personal narrative, drawing instead on his imagining of “a speculative day-glow incense from rituals where long-form sound induces levitation.” For Geza Schoen, that translates into aldehydes and air notes, developing to fir and juniper, with a base of patchouli, ambergris, and vetiver. Tim Hecker on Drone:  A speculative day-glow incense from rituals where long-form sound induces levitation. The smell of music that has somehow gone on too long, but no one cares. The confusion around odours possibly coming from an unwashed composer or a fully-washed cleric bathed in smoke. A chance to ease off from the sensory dominance of sound, where light and smell also hopefully coalesce. perfumer: Geza Schoen

Drone // Tim Hecker

More installations of Ephemera are being planned for 2015, including an upcoming event at the Intonal Festival at Sweden's University of Lund, April 24 to May 1.

In the meantime, the fragrances (including a boxed set of all three and sample packs) as well as prints and totebags of the visual artwork for the project are available on the official website of Ephemera by Unsound.

Source: Ephemera