Seeking participants for audio-olfactory study

The Seven Functions of the Nose - Fritz-Kahn (1939)

The Seven Functions of the Nose – Fritz-Kahn (1939)

We are recruiting participants for a study investigating how sound might affect the perception of aromas. If you participate, you will listen to a number of music/sounds and smell up to 15 aromas, about which you will be asked a series of questionnaire-based questions. The experiment will take no more than 2 hours and include regular rest breaks.

 

The study is being conducted by the multimedia artist, Jo Burzynska as part of her PhD research at UNSW as part of a Culture at Work Art-Science Residency. Participants will be given the opportunity to experience the audio-olfactory work that results from the research at the Culture at Work Space at a later date.

 

Date: Thursday 19thJuly

Time: 7-9pm

Venue: Culture at Work, Pyrmont, Sydney

Please note, if you’re interested an can’t make this date, additional sessions may be added earlier that week in the day or evening, or possibly early in the week after – just let us know your availability..

Please contact me to book or ask questions using this form:

Culture at Work Residency

Featured

Osmic Resonance Brochure Cover Image Credit- Justyna Burzynska

Residency image by Justyna Burzynska

This week I have started a month-long Culture at Work Art-Science residency. This culminates in an exhibition of the resulting work between 4 – 12 August at The Accelerator Gallery in Pyrmont, Sydney.

In this residency, I am seeking to identify correspondences between sounds and aromas, examining what might be shared and what is personal, and how memories, emotions, preferences and culture may affect these correlations. I’m teaming up with the cognitive neuroscientist, Associate Professor Anina Rich of Macquarie University, who will be offering me insights into her specialist areas of multisensory processing and syneasthesia, which will both inspire and inform the final audio-olfactory artworks I produce.

The residency will also include a talk that’s part of the Sydney Science Festival, in which Anina Rich and I will discuss our approaches to the multisensory in our work. I will also be leading a Sound and Aroma Tuning Workshop during National Science Week, where participants can create and explore their own audio-olfactory harmonies.

I’ll be sharing progress over the residency on my multisensory blog.

Further information about the residency, exhibition and associated events can also be found at Culture at Work.

Assessing Oenosthesia: Blending Sound and Wine

Paper to be published in the International Journal of Food Design, 2018

Abstract
Recent developments in neuroscience and psychology have confirmed what many artists have long intuited, that our senses are connected. Research into crossmodal correspondences – the universal tendency of a sensory feature in one modality to be matched with one from another sensory modality – has highlighted strong connections between flavour and sound that has only just begun to be explored by artists working in these sensory realms. This paper investigates Oenosthesia, a practice-led art research project that aims to harness crossmodal correspondences in an artwork that combines a soundscape created from field recordings of the winemaking process with wines consumed as part of the piece. Its success in achieving this was tested through data gathered from participants at presentations of the work in London in September 2016 and in Sydney in March 2017. This paper presents the results of this study, which suggest that sound can significantly change perceptions of flavour and highlights the potential for the design of crossmodally congruent sound works that heighten specific flavour characters of a wine.

 

Oenosthesia: the international blend

This version of Oenosthesia was a remix of the original using wines and their sounds from different regions around the world. It was presented at Studio Sienko in London in September 2016 and Black Box, University of New South Wales Art & Design in Sydney in 2017, from which feedback was gathered for this study.

The Plant Contract

The Plant Contract Cover“If the plant contract is an effort to redress damages incurred upon nature due to human over-dominance and extreme sovreignity over the natural world, then Jo Burzynska is experimenting with changing our perceptions of the vegetal life, and dabbling with the changed usage of a given landscape.”

Prudence Gibson. The Plant Contract: Art’s Return to Vegetal Life. 2018. Lieden: Brill.

I’m honoured to have a section devoted to my work in Prudence Gibson’s excellent new book on critical plant studies, The Plant Contract. In “A Baccanalian Labour,” Gibson writes about my Oenosthesia project and ongoing research into the perceptual interactions between sound and taste/flavour.

 

Recruiting Sydney wine lovers for wine and sound study

Oxford University Experiment picI’m recruiting participants to take part in a study on how sound affects the perception wine characters. This is the final part of an experiment started at Oxford University’s Crossmodal Research Laboratory with Professor Charles Spence and Dr Janice Wang that I will be finishing in Sydney.

To participate in the study you must be over 18, comfortable with consuming a small (125ml) amount of red wine and have a normal sense of smell, taste and hearing. Participants will be given red wines to taste with different sounds, and will be asked a series of questions. The experiment is a single session that takes no longer than 30 minutes. All those taking part in the study will be invited to attend a free wine and music tasting that I will host later this year in Sydney using the results of previous research.

The experiments will take place at the UNSW Paddington Campus:
22nd March 5-8pm
23rd March 11am-6.30pm
24th March 10.30am to 3pm
The 22nd and 23rd March sessions are largely booked up now, but slots are still available on the afternoon of Saturday March 24th.

And UNSW Kensington Campus:
5th April 10am-4pm
6th April (possible extra date)

Those with all levels of wine expertise are welcome. However, I’m particularly interested in recruiting participants who are able to identify body and acidity in a wine.

If you are interested, please contact me using the form below, ideally with an idea of what dates/time might suit. Slots are on the hour and half hour between the specified times.

Please do circulate this invitation to anyone else who might be interested.