Aroma Journeys – “Scent Music” – Integrating Scent within Media Experiences
Comments from Doug: Regarding the term “Realistic”
We have taken a very different approach to integrating scent with media experiences.
Aroma Journeys “Scent Music”:
We have approached the scent layer within a multisensory experience as an abstract, emotional (even medicinal/pharmaceutical) composition, working much like a music composition does within a motion picture. The musical score does not literally have match a scene, but rather evokes a mood, stirs the audience, sets a pace or facilitates a process the director had in mind. It often captures the flavor of an environment. Our system (the MSS or Multisensory Stimulation System) works to support various media in a way more like music.
“Excellent point and perspective, one I have not had for multi-sensory but also similar to how we pare scent to architecture. We interpret the feeling and accent with scent layers…very cool!!” Quoted comment by MP.
I do consider this a fairly new art form – Scent Poetry.
From Previous AromaComposer Documents:
“Until now, gimmicky theatrical aroma systems have used aromatics as an independent effects system, designed to throw out familiar scents to match the physical environment of a movie or theme park ride, to give a sense of increased realism, often using cheap synthetic or chemical scents.”
“In contrast, the aromaComposer system is designed to stimulate emotions, and works in a subtle and often sublime fashion, increasing the emotional impact and subconsciously alerting people to a process. This is True Aromatherapy. Integrated into the process of healing, or entertaining, the aroma delivery is not a show by itself. It works by pulling upon emotional threads to manipulate the guest’s psyche, to open closed doors, to medicinally treat, working as a subtle trendsetter and as a background for thought and for expression.”
“This gives us a way of presenting aromatic essences in a new context. A progression of inhaled aromatics guide people though a process, each scent with its own distinct purpose in that process, and each step preparing them for the next in that process. This works very well when integrated into a multisensory experience.”
“The aromaComposer system is not a synthesizer, but rather a “synergizer”. It is not intended in anyway to simulate or synthesize smells from a series of substances either natural or synthetic, but rather to automate the process that aromatherapists use in crafting useful synergies from various pure essential oils and/or absolutes.”
Doing Realistic is Possible
Surrealistic is the more accurate term.
This is not to say that we cannot produce special realistic cartridges designed for a particular type of game play, which of course we can. But inherently our most flexible and universal systems actually compose aroma, thus… “AromaComposer”, creating powerful “abstract” journeys… or scent-performances, which are able to accompany existing media creations of all types… automatically (using a new “intelligent” technology I have in my mind).
In our actual scent-track design process, various essential oil qualities and effects are weighted and are carefully balanced within the multisensory composition: Included are compatibility with the natural environment, ability to stimulate or evoke feelings and emotions, ability to induce physiological and hormonal changes, thought patterns and levels of awareness, create new memories and/or trigger old memories, which work together to move us on a deliberate path.
The dramatic implications of this system are quite amazing.
Surreal – this may be the word…
Surreal… having a strange dreamlike atmosphere or quality like that of a surrealist painting marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream; also : unbelievable, fantastic.
R. D. Nelson 5/8/2010
