For my group’s site specific performance we want to focus on how the manipulation of the senses can influence an individual’s interpretation of a piece of art.  One sense will want to incorporate is smell, and how different types of smell can arise certain ideas or memories. We are exploring the idea of using four completely different smells on four participants, each individual will only experience one of the four smells. This means that each audience member will not have the same experience as one another. Then see how their opinions on the artwork are affected by  the use of smell and their own memories.

Selecting the smells will be challenging as they all come will numerous connotations. Each smell will create different ideas depending on the individual. For example someone could smell flowers and link that with the idea of love, although another people could smell the same flowers and think of lost or sorrow. We plan on running the performance at least four times so we can get a range of interpretations from the participants.

A theatre company that have used smell in their productions is the Pigeon theatre company in their performance of The Smell of Envy (2013).  The theatre company wanted to ‘celebrate and interrogate the workings of the nose and the brain’ (Pigeon Theatre, 2013). Additionally how certain familiar and unfamiliar smells could manipulate the audiences thoughts and memories. They used older actors and their memories to create a ‘smell-scape’, the different smells create a story for the audience. I often forgot how the use of smell can be used to influence an individual, as this sense is not often used in everyday performances. I think our performance is influenced by the Pigeon theatre’s The Smell of Envy as they use different smells which will create a different experience depending on the individual and their memories.

 

Work cited:

Pigeon Theatre (2013) The Smell of Envy (a show). [online] Available from:

https://pigeontheatre.wordpress.com/thesmellofenvy/ [Accessed 25 Februray 2015].