WHAT would our understanding of music be like if composers had routinely created works for scent as well as sound? At the turn of the 20th century, artists were combining the senses to imagine 鈥渢otal鈥� artworks. Visual artist Wassily Kandinsky was painting the music he experienced, while composer Alexander Scriabin was adding directions for coloured lighting in his 1910 score for 鈥� a work I have been collaborating on with the San Francisco Symphony.
In dialogue with the orchestra鈥檚 music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and piano soloist, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, we discussed the idea that Scriabin was unable to compose for olfaction because engineering and technology in his day couldn鈥檛 deliver it. It has been our goal to add a curated scent experience to his visionary piece and to provoke a discussion 鈥� why shouldn鈥檛 perfumery take its place alongside other arts?
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Over a number of years, I have been exploring scent in settings we at Cartier have named 鈥渦nidentified scented objects鈥�, where perfume is freed from simply being a product and presented to the public beyond any commercial context. In such scenarios, we can show that smell is an unrivalled vector of emotions.
As I came to Prometheus, which tells the myth of how humanity was gifted fire, I was reminded of the ceremonial origins of perfumery: the word 鈥減erfume鈥� (from the Latin per fumum or 鈥渢hrough smoke鈥�) comes from sacred rituals involving fire to obtain scent. It used to be said that the wrath of the gods was in their noses, and so diffusing pleasant scents would calm them.
My task with Prometheus is to ensure that, as the music unfolds, the scent stirs a primal, universal and instinctive emotion, far removed from any aesthetic aim. I investigated data that linked perfumery ingredients with emotions. I want to bolster and consolidate the feelings instilled by the music, by focusing 鈥� through olfaction 鈥� on the ancestral instinct of every spectator, to get them to engage emotionally and physically with the music without ever overshadowing its aesthetic.
I particularly focus on smell being a sense that directly stimulates the instinctual centre and the limbic brain, the amygdala, and which stimulates memories and emotions via the hippocampus. Olfaction bypasses our reason. When we smell, the activities of our cerebral zones are modified and uninhibited. My aim is to show this potential of olfaction and the merging of senses. In this project, olfaction dramatically increases the music鈥檚 emotional potential. Through listening to and discussing the piece with Thibaudet and Salonen, we identified three different sequences in which symbolic moments could be olfactory.
We set about addressing the problem that made scent curation impossible for Scriabin: the amount of time that one scent lingers in an enclosed space. Discreet devices strategically placed throughout Davies Symphony Hall, the home of the San Francisco Symphony, emit scent at key moments of the performance. The devices utilise a dry-air diffusion technique, where the air is propelled through capsules infused with fragrances.
Following Scriabin鈥檚 vision, my goal is to create a state in which all the senses are solicited, and minds, hearts and even guts vibrate in unison. Like the artists at the turn of the previous century, we want everyone to experience the transcendence that art endows humanity. Olfactory art is as potent as any other art form in this regard. All our senses have a role to play.
Mathilde Laurent is in-house perfumer at Cartier. is being performed by the San Francisco Symphony, 1 to 3 March
