Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Smell But Were Afraid To Ask

IAP 2001 Activity

Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye, website-AT-jofish-DOT-com

I am a grad student at the Media Lab, and my current research involves conveying information using smell. As such, I've spent the last several months learning more about smell than I ever wanted to know. I think the work covered will be of interest to a very diverse crowd, including but not limited to:

• Comparative Media Studies - the role of smell in film, theatre, and computers, and in antiquity
• Brain & Cognitive Science - looking for a little more in depth information than 9.35 gives
• Computer Science - virtual reality; human-computer interface design; calm computing; ambient media
• Anthropology, Ethnography, & Sociology - smell & human relations, relationships, sex, pherenomes
• History - Roman & Greek historical uses of smell, the belief that smell conveyed disease, plague years...
• Etc.

We will start at 10:30 each day, and go for about two hours, with room to run over if necessary. We will meet in room E15-335, on the third floor of the Media Lab.No previous knowledge of smell expected, but attendance at the first class will greatly help you understand any of the other classes. Please email me to signup, and if you have any particular areas of smell you'd like me to cover, let me know. I suggest you have a flip through my bibliography, and let me know if anything piques your interest.

This plan is entirely subject to change.

January 16th

I. How We Smell: Neurological & Physiological Basis

January 17th (My birthday. Just so you know.)

II. Smell and Human Relations
- Smell in Learning and Memory

January 18th

III. Cultural Background of Smell: Uses over History
- Religious uses
- Smell & Disease
- The Rise of Perfumery

January 19th

IV. Smell In Media
- Smell in Films