Beyond words1:43
Beyond words1:43
Bodily ways of knowing help Christophe go beyond the limitations of an individual creator.
Christophe Laudamiel once described a perfumer as someone «who masters the behaviour and the perception of volatile molecules by the nose and the brain». Accordingly, a perfumer definitely knows how to create a perfume. Yet, this clip reveals the limitations of an individual creator. Practices of collective smelling and sense-making are needed to challenge and confirm the creative path. In this respect a scent development project serves as an extreme case: Verbal utterances account only for a small fraction of human communication. In addition, body language & posture, silence, gestures and face grimaces function as nonverbal feedback. At first sight, this clip might seem boring because there is not very much happening. At a deeper level however, one can notice the deep uncertainties a creator bears. Experiencing scents, sensing, and sense-making emerge mutually in active and reflective practices that have to cope with the paucity of language to describe scents and engage with bodily ways of knowing.