| Abstract | In this practice-based Ph. D. thesis, a new theoretical
framework for examining the olfactory social sculpture World Sensorium
(Nalls 1999/2000) is applied which establishes the fields of Olfactory Art,
Olfactory Aesthetics, and Olfactory Art Informatics. The case study begins
with an examination of historical aesthetic theory (influenced by Kant and
Adomo) and a discussion of the philosophical influences of Joseph Beuys
(Social Sculpture) and Marshall McLuhan (Mass Communication), and posits
World Sensorium in a new contextual basis for understanding the relationship
of the human brain and the environment: the meaning and impact of
aesthetics, phytogenics, human memory and culture. The work draws upon
artistic practice (characterised by interpretive analysis) and scientific (or
positivistic) methods, in defirting the relationship between botanical scent and
cultural identity. This thesis locates its main argument and evidence base in the
field of art,, with four major overlapping disciplines: e. g., Olfactory Art,
related to Olfactory Science (including Behavioural and Evolutionary
Sciences); Neuro-aesthetics, related to Neuroscience; the Philosophy of
Aesthetics; and Social Sculpture, as drawn from Art and Cultural Studies. The
work of more than 35 contemporary artists who have made distinctive
Olfactory Art is presented as a set of contextualising examples, within an
examination of key scientific research in a broad range of sub-disciplines
including psychology, neuroscience, behavioural and evolution studies, media
ecology, and anthropology, as well as the new field of neuro-aesthetics. It is
argued that there is a molecular relationship, of primordial origin, that birthed
both the environment and the landscape architecture of the human mind-that
the mind and the environment are one ecosystem. The thesis concludes by
exploring the implications of the findings in relation to the future of Olfactory
Informatics, and in particular, to the potential ubiquitous technological (mobile
and Web-based) disbursement of synthetic scent. |
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