GMU:Sustainable Aesthetics/Amelia Eickhoff

ORIGIN

I taste, I smell but what?

In 2020 I had a covid infection which first didn’t affect me very much. But after some days I realized that my taste and smell have completely disappeared. These Symptoms are typical for a covid infection but mine never really went away. For two years now I have been living with long covid. I have tried Therapy to regain my sense, but it did not work out for me. My smell is almost completely gone except for some very intense scents. But these don´t smell like they used to. Interesting for me is my taste. Some things don´t taste like they used to, some make me nauseous, some don´t taste at all, some things taste like something I have never tasted before.

PERCEPTION OF SMELL AS A FORM OF COMMUNICATION

This Project is an appoach to the social conditioning of what smells we as humans have learned to find repulsive. Much has to do with the human hygiene standards, which have developed through the sedentary nature of man and the division between rich and poor. Many of our body odors and pheromones communicate to our environment something about our health, which was originally important to assess the reproductive capacity of others. The sketches show how a device connetcs the most "information loaded" body parts to the nose and mouth of the other person to smell only the "unpleasant" smell. In doing so, all other senses are as much as possible not usable, since smell is very much understood by association of visual and auditory. Due to human history this form of exchange has become extremely fetishized and devalued this is nowadays, which is why the device could be seen more as a sex toy than as a communication device.

MOUTH/NOSE/ARMPIT/GENITALS

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