space installation

Production: Kyoto Arashiyama Art Festival (performing arts festival)
Venue: Riverside Ryokan Arashiyama Benkei, Kyoto Japan
Premier: November 3rd, 2022
Sound: Shambala 2 / Friedrich Glorian

What if we could see scents? Aerosculpture is the collective name for a series of research and experiments that started with this question. This time, with the help of dry ice and smoke.

Traditionally, there is an incense culture in Japan. Incense is not only used to add a pleasurable fragrance to a space, but also has a sense of hospitality and a religious role in dispelling evil spirits. When people visit temples, they first cover their heads with smoke to purify themselves.

As a child, I simply enjoyed covering myself in smoke. It smelled slightly sweet and good, it was visible but it disappeared quickly, and I tried desperately to catch it, which was not at all possible to  grasp.  With this work, I tried to provide a place to play with the fragrance like a child.

As the exhibition venue was located in the heart of Arashiyama, a place of worship in the ancient capital of Kyoto, experiments were conducted to produce the 'aroma of temple incense' with dry ice.

Experimental music by musician Friederich Glorian's Tibetan gongs added depth to the time axes. In this way, the composition of time (sound) and space (fragrance) proved that scent can also be a performing art.


[Technical Production]

First, I started by experimenting with dry ice evaporation. When the shiitake mushroom broth was evaporated with dry ice, it smelled of forest, while the kelp broth had the scent of the sea. Even the same aroma smells completely different from our usual perception of it because dry ice evaporates aromas at a lower temperature (-70 degrees C)  than the atmosphere (+-20 degrees C).  I understood then that ancient Japanese cuisine, in which both types of dashi are used in abundance, conceptually expresses the forest and the sea.  

The next step was fragrance composition.  The combustion temperature of incense is 800-1000 degrees Celsius, and it was extremely difficult to express this in liquid perfume because the evaporation mechanism is different and the temperature difference is large. As a result, I assembled the fragrance using mainly agarwood accords, sandalwood, patchouli and other fragrances used in burning incense. It was then adjusted for water-base fog liquid in order to use a lower fog machine (ADJ Miter Kool II ) to produce large quantities of smoke.

作品名：エアロ・スカルプチャー
-  香りで作る空気の彫刻 -

パンデミックにより、わたしたちは飛沫や排気など、目に見えない空気というものを知覚する努力を払うようになった。この作品では香りを使って、目に見えない香りの空間「エアロ・スカルプチャー」を創り出し、さらに視覚化する試みをおこなう。香りは、嵐山を表す香りであり、今回のために制作した新作。

作家名：MAKI UEDA

- 香りで説明不要な体験を創出する嗅覚芸術家 -
アートと嗅覚の融合を試みる、「匂いのアーティスト」。新しいアートとして注目を集める世界の「嗅覚アート」のシーンを率いるひとり。匂いと記憶・本能に関する作品を数々発表し、近年は空間・ムーブメント・そして嗅覚のクロスオーバーする領域において環境インスタレーションを制作。2022年嗅覚アート最高峰の国際賞であるアート・アンド・オルファクション・サダキチアワード受賞。www.ueda.nl

会場：京都嵐山芸術祭／嵐山辨慶