Raewyn Turner - Olfactory Artist

When my mentor emailed me asking whether I'd like to go to a seminar last Thursday about art in biology, presented by the olfactory artist Raewyn Turner, my mind subconsciously skipped over the words "olfactory artist" and I contemplated not going - in that hour, I could get some homework done! I assumed that it was going to be some presentation about those diagrams you find in biology textbooks. I decided to go, anyway, because I figured that it'd be cool to meet a textbook artist while eating cheese and crackers. Maybe she'd give me some tips on drawing complicated proteins.

Raewyn Turner, however, is not a textbook artist. She doesn't use paper or pixels as her primary medium. She's an olfactory artist - what the heck is an olfactory artist?! - and I never knew such a field existed. I suppose this justifies my ridiculously high college tuition; instead of going to Rutgers, I'm here, with opportunities to meet people (and I'm close to a Trader Joe's. And supermarkets, in general). My mind was blown by this concept of art based on smells. I don't actually grasp a lot of what she did, but she did bring some nifty devices that I got to see close up.

One of these was this... balloony thing, that had motion sensors. When you walked up to it, the balloon swelled up, and a box within the balloon emitted a smell. If you stood motionless, the balloony thing would shrivel up and lie dormant. It reminded me of an eager dog (perhaps a mechanical one).

Another device detected smells and output sounds that corresponded to the smell. For example, when ethyl alcohol (?) was placed at its sensor, it emitted a certain sound, and when cinnamon was placed at the sensor, a bright, tinkering bell sound was produced. A low lull/clock chiming sound represented hydrocarbons. The smells themselves were in little beads in mini jars. I really want some of those beads (air freshener?... it's just really cool to have supersaturated smells), and they're apparently used in the perfume industry because they are concentrated and absorb the specific smell and only emit the smell slowly.

Other art of hers that I didn't really comprehend/didn't see a point in included the baking of a lot of cakes and sticking many colors of icing on them and the tasting of some 50 samples of wine, paired with certain words from poems. Ironically, these are the food-related projects...

I think that as it is such a novel concept to me, olfactory art hasn't found its niche in my brain yet.

Food Injustice

UPDATE: So, I apparently got 3rd place out of 40 photos. The photo that got 3rd place is the one with the plastic spoon, knife and fork, the broken coffee cup, and the piece of bread - the third picture. 3rd place means I don't get any prizes but I get my photo displayed on college green on Wednesday from 11-3 I think... so check it out :)

The Civic House at Penn with Moral Voices had a photo competition about food injustice. I tried not to waste any food in the making of these photos... [mostly wasted spinach and lettuce...:(]

As a side note, I wonder why there was a "Dinner for Hunger Awareness" via Unicef at Penn. Why host a buffet dinner to kids who are able to obtain food? Sure, each person is paying for this dinner, but why not pay to experience fufu or Plumpy'nut? Then, the people to whom the money is going [excluding the amount that goes to Unicef workers and advertising...] will get to experience the buffet dinner so ubiquitous in our lives [instead of just obtaining more fufu or something]

Omelettes...

It looks like the letter Y. As in, "Why?"

Yeah, they're supposed to be mismatched...

Pure injustice right there. Why is a segment of fruit so much more expensive than a pastry? What if the world sold and bought food based on caloric value? Implications... would be ridiculous.

Salad leaves...

Oh the puns. It's such a mouldy cliche metaphor...

It just so happens I obtained an apple [that I was ACTUALLY going to eat...] with a hole in it from a worm or insect or bacteria or something...

Art!

This is just a post to say that there are a bunch of pages at the top that link to my art. I do a lot of drawing [mostly of food :)] and I'd like to sell my pieces. The prices range...the lowest is $5 or $10 for A5 sized paper pieces, and they go up to a few hundred [or thousand, or seventy million, depending on how philanthropic you feel, since I do need money for college].

If you send/give me money, I'll send/give you the art. Advertise for me :)

I also do commissioned art.

If you've always wanted a picture of a slice of cherry pie in a bowl of corn chowder hanging on your kitchen wall, I'll be happy to draw it for you [if you pay me]!

Party... at the Philadelphia Art Museum. 4th Sept.

I'm not even kidding. After having a party at the library, we had a party at the Art Museum.

Not just any art museum. I mean, the Philadelphia Art Museum. The PHILADELPHIA ART MUSEUM. Penn rented out the place.

THIS is where all my superfluous tuition money goes to...[and leaves me nothing with which to buy textbooks]

It was a ridiculously sumptuous feast for both the eye and the uh.. mouth? I like art, so it was a great field trip to the art museum :) I especially like modern art because it just shocks in the sense that one wonders: "How MUCH can they get away with? And yet they get paid and lauded 24/7?!"

So, this was a peanut cookie. It was rock hard. Out of all the cookies on the giant table... I picked the peanut cookie [I like peanuts. I like cookies. Peanut cookies aren't my favourite, though]. And, out of the mountain of peanut cookies, I picked the undercooked one. Or, the overcooked one. Or, the one in the batch that received NO BAKING SODA/LEAVENING AGENT whatsoever. It was dry and so rock hard that it didn't even taste crunchy. However, the peanut chips were nice.

I later got a chocolate chip cookie which was divine. It made up for the lousy peanut cookie [hey, personal preference... someone else might've enjoyed the peanut cookie.]

Amazing mac and cheese and breadcrumbs.

The best part of the day was that I had a corn tortilla that wasn't fried. This is my first soft corn tortilla in my life. With beans. In a burrito-esque thing. I'm not sure what it was. The salsa was tangy, and the guacamole was INSANELY LIMEY! This is the first time I've had such limey guacamole... it was a beautiful piece of art, which, of course, fit the Art Museum theme.

I also ran up the stairs, which is an allusion to Rocky although I've never seen Rocky. When we [ML and I] got to the top, fireworks went off. I'm not kidding. It of course was for Labour Day... but still. What a coincidence!

Art Shows Cookies

Sup? Persimmon. SUP PERsimmon?
Supper. @ Simon Mall Company. aka our town mall.
Well, I had already had dinner, but I went to volunteer anyway, for NAHS. Art show today...my art piece was the bread [above] from my concentration...the show itself, though, wasn't that great in the sense I got hit with reality [again]. Usually, I'm the crowd, spoiled with free food... hogging the corner of the table in order to get the second cookie [Well, truth be told, I'm not hogging the table, but if there's leftover food I'm willing to take it.] But... today was just people swarming, picking and dropping cookies and grabbing apple juice. Weird... how we all know this stuff kills us yet we go taking and taking and taking... and hoarding...
This is why stuff costs $$. If we were allowed to take what we wanted, we'd all get fat and grumpy, like the mice in experiments [which, to put it out there, saves YOU from whatever illness you have/had. So don't go all PETA-crappin' on me].
So... voici des photos.
Well, this is what we started with, along with 3 jugs of apple juice.
This is the third tray of cookies. I didn't have the camera for the other trays because my mum had it, and they were gone wayyy too fast.
This is a few minutes later. I sampled [with A, so we split them] the chocolate chip [typical good], cranberry [very buttery.], jam [very buttery], nut [okay.], oatmeal [instant oatmeal? It was chewier than I had expected], and brownie [literally a brownie in the shape of a cookie.].

Cezanne and Chinese Food.

I have at least 5o minutes with Ms. M every morning, first period. Although Ms. M majored in Art History in college, she now teaches English, and is my current English teacher. As a thank-you present for her for helping me through draft-after-draft-after-draft-after-draft x25080238 of my Commonapp essay, I drew this out using oil pastel.

Note the glutinous rice balls [with lotus bean paste filling, NO ANIMAL PARTS!], the vegetable-filled man tou, vegetable dumplings, bubble tea, peach man tou, egg tart, and that fried lotus bean paste-filling-thingy, and the spring rolls. Doesn't it look so much cooler than Cezanne's basket of fruit? Ms. M. loves Chinese food... I think my present was appropriate. Click on it for a larger image :)
Click here for a link to the original image by Cezanne.