nOsense
Sacralization. Each of our memories have great value and we keep them as relics. Every memory is precious. We collect these experiences all our lives. I created my own cabinet with a collection of my memories of London using English traditional methods of collecting and organizing materials. Each object has a name, title, location point and a personal creative description. In this online exhibition, I present just a part of my collection. Scented objects.
Fragmentariness. Our memory consists of fragments, and we can never accurately or fully describe what we saw, even if it was just yesterday or one hour ago. This fragmentation is one of the main principles of how our memory and brain work. On this page you see just several fragments of «nOsense» exhibition (as you can't fully remember it, return to it in two days and check your memory).
Symbols. A form to represent my memories and feelings about London is to recreate them in memorials and sarcophagi. These are my trophies and my homage to this city. This tradition was also borrowed from the classical tombstones and burials of monarchs and saints. Sculptures represent pedestals which are covered with draperie.
My decision not to put anything on a pedestal was a means to express the suspended moments in the history of 2020. It felt like an empty year with nothing to preserve after the terrible events. Looking to the future, the empty pedestal also represents the unknown, the fear of going through an endless nightmare where memory will dissolve into time.
In this context, the church atmosphere – sound, smell and spiritual light that immerse the sculptures - brings a sensation of comfort, of hope that we all need.
Sense. I collect only invisible memories. Then I transform and verbalise them in visible imagery. But they still are not material. Nobody can fully reflect what they see and feel and explain what it means.
Plan.
The exhibition is divided into zones. We have a different olfactory, tactile, visual, auditory and gustatory sense inside each zone. All your senses are activated.
At the entrance, viewers see that they will have to travel to their six senses. Each space has its own colour on the map.
The exhibition space is almost completely dark. Only a few objects are highlighted. For each object there is a small audio-guide. The viewers safely pass through the exhibition like a labyrinth. Going through their own emotional story.
The audience is always accompanied by the organ-electronic music written by the composer Nicolas Rommé.
P.S. The exhibition was intended to be completely tactile and interactive. For the safety of the audience, I will translate all possible sensations and memories into an audio-guide format. Verbalization.
«nOsense*» Immersive olfactory project*Nosense is a unique situation in 2020 when you have some feelings and senses, but you are unable to make sense of them and you experience these sensations as nonsense.
Smell
Olfactory memory is the longest in life. It may come back to us in twenty years. The so-called Proust effect.
Aromatic composition - incense and styrax; myrrh. Characteristic of the smell-cold, heavy, oriental, spicy.
Materials: polymer clay, wooden base, velvet.
The choice of materials is not random. These are three main materials that retain the smell longer than others. The smell is felt at a distance of 20 cm from the object.
Music. Nicolas Romme.
Nicolas ROMME is a french composer based in Paris. He has a cinematographic approach to music and works on creating soundtracks of his dreams. He wants to tell their stories and convey their emotions. He is influenced by a wide range of artists such as Thom Yorke, Brian Eno or Arvo Pärt. After his experience as the leader of the band The Rise Block and the creation of a soundtrack for series of podcasts on creativity, he is now working on a solo EP for 2021.
«The work of Lisa Shtormit on memory was an important source of inspiration for me. After a year 2020 made of endless days of confinement, a year evolving between fear and the comfort of being isolated, Lisa’s project made me think, which memories will remain of it?
I created the soundtrack «Heartbeat of a memory» based on this. The track starts by a heartbeat motif that represents the emotion that triggers the souvenirs. It explores the sensation of jump in time and the confusion of our emotions which resurface through the projection of memory in our mind.»