Exhaust

Risa Puno (Brooklyn, NY)

Opening reception: Friday, August 21, 6-9 pm
On view at SPACES: August 21 - October 16

Photo Catalogue

Exhaust is a sensory installation that harnesses the evocative power of scent to address the ubiquitous topic of energy politics. Fluctuating oil and gasoline prices continue to make headlines as the effects of competing factors unfold within a complex system of market forces, domestic and global economies, emerging technologies, class disparity, and the environment. Even experts in these fields are unsure whether or not currently developing economic, political, and ecological considerations will have a lasting adverse impact on a micro or macro scale.
This web of interconnected and sometimes conflicting interests, coupled with wildly divergent projections and predictions, has created a miasma of public unease. Exhaust highlights the uncertainty of our current situation and the unsettling ambiguity of the future.

Olfaction, or sense of smell, is arguably our most mysterious and primal sense. Our grasp of the sense of smell is so visceral that we often lack the vocabulary to articulate or analyze our olfactory experiences, yet one whiff of a familiar aroma can trigger extremely vivid and often surprising associations. A single odor can operate as an immediate instinctual trigger for pleasure, curiosity, caution, disgust, or even panic. However, despite its proven efficacy as a memory trigger, a distinct smell is almost impossible to recall from imagination the way we would an image or sound.Ambientscent is simultaneously enduring and ephemeral, specific and indefinable, bypassing the constraints of symbolic imagery and language, making it an ideal medium to express that which we know exists on the edge of our consciousness, but just cannot put into words or pictures.

Exhaust from risa puno on Vimeo.

Video by Talisman Brolin