Kate McLean | Canterbury Christ Church University (original) (raw)

Uploads

Media Coverage by Kate McLean

Talks by Kate McLean

I am fascinated with smell, and with the links we individually form between smell and place. To m... more I am fascinated with smell, and with the links we individually form between smell and place. To me, smells, aromas, odours, scents perform similar functions to maps – they enable us to travel without leaving the armchair, both in advance and after the journey. “Properly used a map reconstructs a scene, it becomes a point of departure for the imagination.” (Outhwaite 1935)

Our world is a continuous one of relations and processes, but individual experience of the corporeal world is significantly different. Smellscapes are “non-continuous, fragmentary in space and episodic in time.” (Porteous 1990) Smells form a part of our knowing, and disappear before we can nail them in place.

So far my study of smell has highlighted perceptual differences, and in the process of smell mapping, listening to “olifactors” or “bouqeteers” and reading individual smell notes I am building a body of human perception of a shared experience, experience which is then recounted very individually.

Traditionally maps are used to find out how to get from where we are to where we want to be. This... more Traditionally maps are used to find out how to get from where we are to where we want to be. This talk will examine an alternative approach to mapping whereby the temporal qualities of smell are combined with graphics to provide the end-user with an emotional connection ot place instigating new personal geographies.

Considerations and artistic processes when representing human perception of smell in the urban en... more Considerations and artistic processes when representing human perception of smell in the urban environment. Smells: scents, perfumes & fumes. Design: line, point & shape. Colour: hue, value & saturation. Smell sketching: research from sensory ethnography

Conference Presentations by Kate McLean

"The urban smellscape comprises a series of perceived smells that disappear before we can nail th... more "The urban smellscape comprises a series of perceived smells that disappear before we can nail them in place. Smells are ephemeral thus forcing us to consider the nature of such temporality in the creation of smell mappings. Static printed smell maps can be regarded as moments in time providing a snapshot of a city smellscape, alluding to the movement through symbolic representation in the form of line. But as printed pieces they remain temporally fixed, a constant presence, an “Impressionist” smell portrait of place. Digital technology affords a constantly updatable visual display and would seem to be an ideal tool to mediate the temporality of a smellscape.

Traditional mapping performs many functions; historically an attempt to render legible our world.... more Traditional mapping performs many functions; historically an attempt to render legible our world. Sensory mapping as art-based work creates new opportunities. Smell mapping has the potential to fulfil multiple functions: it can map what the senses detect, it can map how we smell and it can communicate information about a place through smell. Few sensory maps are in the medium of that sense, with the exception of tactile mapping. The overwhelming majority of maps are visual despite a multimedia turn in cartography.

So there’s a gap in research and execution and this paper covers practical issues involved in designing smellmaps. Firstly it considers the smells themselves; the creation and use of scents, perfumes and fumes. Secondly it looks at representation of smell through two-dimensional tools of graphic design including line, point, shape and colour. Thirdly it considers smell mapping in three dimensions. Finally it explores the idea of smell sketching and methods to record research from sensory ethnography. Smellmaps are performative and embodied, involving the end-user in an interactive and dynamic process challenging the notion of the map as final artefact.

"In September 2012 Glasgow Science Museum exhibited Kate McLean’s map of the city based solely on... more "In September 2012 Glasgow Science Museum exhibited Kate McLean’s map of the city based solely on its smells. Incorporating visuals of identified city-specific scents and bottled scents (created from natural substances) the map invited the audience to interact with the exhibit and to contribute their own placement of the scents across the city.

The function of such smellmaps is to explore new ways to depict cities other than purely visual, encouraging tourists and visitors to explore and find their own city experiences, which thereafter become memorable through a direct link with smell. Sensually-based memory is an area of increasing interest for the tourism industry whose higher-end clients, tiring of activity-based experiences, are seeking to reactivate and relive the good feelings. Mendiratta (2010) suggests that the tiniest aromas and sounds can have a profound emotional effect.

Every scent is carefully chosen, by a combination of crowd sourcing and the "weight" of its story. Every smell has a story – the memorability or memory-invoking scale of individual scents and how they work together to form a smell portrait of the city (history, architecture, culture, attractions, people).

The maps are designed to be questioned and intended for people intended to ascribe their own smells to places. Smellmaps are intended as a kick starter for personal sensory perception and sensory memories relating to a specific location. My experience of smell walks and smell bike rides is that very often half a metre, a 10 degree angle or 1 minute can make a huge difference in odour perception therefore smell is temporal, geo-specific and also personal.

Deliberately omitting spatial indicators is both aesthetic and functional in that it makes the map more personal as people recognise a place from the smell rather than the names. My intent was for the audience to study the map and figure out where they were based on some of the smells.

This presentation will depict the methodology used to generate the data, the design considerations and the creation – successful and otherwise of naturally occurring scents for display purposes."

This paper explores the difference that smell makes to mapping, and the difference that maps brin... more This paper explores the difference that smell makes to mapping, and the difference that maps bring to smell. The mapping of the olfactory landscape is a relatively recent phenomenon, and to date has almost always either focused on mapping smells, or making a metaphorical map, to impose order onto sensory diversity. But there have been significant challenges in this process. Smells are ephemeral, with mutable meanings and problematic duration and placing. It can be hard to translate smell into a visual and mappable variable. Olfactory geography of public and private space also creates significant problems for mapmakers. It can be hard to tell these smelly spatial urban stories!

Immerse yourself in a tour of a city in which you meander based on odour using associative memori... more Immerse yourself in a tour of a city in which you meander based on odour using associative memories to guide you to other memorable locations, to hidden emotions.

Designed with the intent of investigating connections between scents and a city this study uses design to show how emotion, location and memory can be linked at semiotic and personal levels. It explores those links in the form of an art installation, a smell-induced “virtual dérive” smellmap experience through an urban landscape. The audience response was one of quiet reflection, their sniffing was a three-stage process, their written contributions led to an understanding of how certain smells induce types of behaviours and reactions – the smell of coffee induced people to write a story, the scent of wooden floors brought to mind a different era.

Smellmapping poses its own problems; smells are ephemeral thus forcing us to consider the nature of temporality in such creations. Consideration also needs to be taken of how to lead the audience through the landscape. The urban landscape belongs to the humans who populate it; future smell maps need to belong to the permanent and transient populations who inhabit that space.

Smellwalk/mapping Activity - DIY by Kate McLean

Papers by Kate McLean

Smell has a huge influence over how we perceive places. Despite its importance, smell has been cr... more Smell has a huge influence over how we perceive places. Despite its importance, smell has been crucially overlooked by urban planners and scientists alike, not least because it is difficult to record and analyze at scale. One of the authors of this paper has ventured out in the urban world and conducted “smellwalks” in a variety of cities: participants were exposed to a range of different
smellscapes and asked to record their experiences. As a result, smell-related words have been collected and classified, creating the first dictionary for urban smell. Here we explore the possibility of using social media data to reliably map the smells of entire cities. To this end, for both Barcelona and London, we collect georeferenced picture tags from Flickr and Instagram, and
geo-referenced tweets from Twitter. We match those tags and tweets with the words in the smell dictionary. We find that smell-related words are best classified in ten categories.We also find that specific categories (e.g., industry, transport, cleaning) correlate with governmental air quality indicators, adding validity to our study.

Human olfactory experience and perception of cities is often shared at the source of the smell bu... more Human olfactory experience and perception of cities is often shared at the source of the smell but diverse in the places to which those smells transport the smeller. This note investigates the role of smell in our city experience with a specific focus
on personal links formed among smell, location, and emotion. In 2010 I created a virtual dérive of bottled smells and a traditional map (with a deliberately limited visual lexicon) and then elicited and recorded visitor responses (Map 1). I selected the map as a theoretical psychogeography framework and as a visual
device to geo-spatially locate a collection of odours.

Creating a smellmap of a city is a collaborative exercise. During a series of smellwalks, local p... more Creating a smellmap of a city is a collaborative exercise. During a
series of smellwalks, local participants identify distinct aromas
emanating from specific locations and record the description,
expectation, intensity, personal association, and reaction. I then
analyse this data, along with conversations arising from the walks,
and select a set of smells that convey the smellscape of the city at
that moment in time, visualsing the scents and their locations in
the city as a “map”. The resulting map visualisations are
propositions: indications of what one might smell in a certain
place. The map is accompanied by scents, which are the nasal
stimuli, and a catalyst for discussion. This visualisation/olfactory
art emphasises human interaction with a vast set of contestable
sensory data.

This presentation will depict the methodology used to generate the data, the design considerations and the creation – successful and otherwise of naturally occurring scents for display purposes."