Exhibition opening on 7th December at 17:00.

Aaro Murphy exhibits a new installation work Fickle (Gritty) Memory at SOLU Space this December-January. The work is based on his research into urban smells and aroma capture technologies during Bioart Society’s Tokyo Art & Science Research Residency in 2022, the exhibition will encompass a new aroma sculpture and video work largely developed while in Japan.

Fickle (Gritty) Memory is part of a wider cross-disciplinary research project exploring aroma sensing and electronic nose technologies and ways in which they might assimilate into our cities to sense atmospheric information. Through a proposed script for an electronic nose, the video work speculates on computer sensing and how memories associated with smells are stored. Based on recent developments in e-nose technologies Murphy has written a script for a nose that senses the molecules in a city, mixing this with personal memories associated with urban aromas. With this text Murphy speculates on possible language used by the nose to relay atmospheric information to a dweller. The language in the script starts to break down from aroma descriptions to individual molecular parts, drifting into an associative poetic language around smell. 

A computer controlled air system is installed into the second space of the gallery, gently diffusing an aroma reminiscent of soil. The main component of this aroma is geosmin, a molecule commonly found in most soils which creates their distinctive earthy aroma. The smell conjures memories of ground, digging, earth, worms and dirt while the sculpture itself takes on a cold and technical aesthetic referencing air conditioning networks and HVAC piping. This discrepancy between the automated and organic is a theme that Murphy has been exploring in his work for the past 7 years, attempting to find a fragile overlap between the organic and synthesized. Operating like an ecosystem of its own, the installation elements start weaving a dialogue between each other, exploring themes around the body, sensing and ecology through the lens of auto-fiction.

The work has been made possible with kind support from Suomen Taideyhdistys, Nuorten Taiteilijoiden Apuraha.