Conceptual Design
In thinking about the various issues and impact of augmentation of experiences through smell, we considered what the current situation is and what the most probable path of advancement in terms of smell technology would be within the next 10 years.
Today, our sense of smell is becoming increasingly important. From air fresheners to smoke alarms to masks, we see that smell is associated with not only the idea of cleanliness and health but also experience and personal memories.
We believe that smell is fundamental to the human experience as well as to human memory. While often overlooked, it has an ephemeral quality in terms of how it diffuses and fades away over time and space, as well as because currently the scientific community has not settled on the fundamentals of smell-making and whether or not the millions of scents could be created from a few basic chemical compounds. Other ways of thinking about smell perception is perhaps the nerve receptors -- the question is perhaps whether or not we need to create the smell physically, or if it can be done digitally.
Some of the circumstances that we considered included:
-Remembering loved ones by smell
-Unique smells for each individual (smell fingerprint? smellfie?)
-Smell neutralization
-Remembering lost/destroyed places
-Creating places through smell (augmented reality)
-Remembering extinct food items
-In a world with Soylent, to overlay different types of smells to trick the mind into thinking the person is eating something delicious?
-Smell therapy
-Smell advertising
-Smell mapping and navigation
