Developed with Stephanie Ochona, Yuanjun Kang, Chris Liu and Tim Zhao, RMIT University of Technology
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Part of Melbourne Design Week 2022 programme, this data-driven olfactory installation looks at the intersection of three forms of data representation — physical, visual and playful — and how these can expose people to and reflect on significant issues through verifiable data.
The theories that underpin this project covers literature from various areas like human-computer interaction, consumer behaviour and communication design. These principles acknowledge that people are not just productivity tools but are motivated by pleasure, social and emotional connection, and agency. They also look at play, as opposed to rule-based games. Play has been empirically studied for it’s long-term effects on motivation; experiencing joy and affect promotes curiosity, exploration and critical thinking.
The installation, based on the everyday, familiar activity of making a cup of tea, reveals the problem with public parks in the City of Melbourne, a contentious awareness campaign given the state of Victoria’s claim as Australia’s “Garden State”. It also situates itself in what Thomas Markussen calls a “disruptive aesthetic,” a designerly way of intervening in people’s lives that incorporates visual or material practice and evokes revelation, contest, and dissensus amongst its audience.
Held at the MPavillion in Alexandra Gardens, this project investigated the lesser-known consequences of man-made urban parks that may seem insignificant at first, but pose large financial, health and safety costs over time. It looked at publicly available empirical data that communicated the more obvious benefits of parks in the City of Melbourne, such as the reduction of carbon emissions and air pollution by roughly $10,000 per tree per year, the reduction of psychological distress by 31% and the generation of revenue from mass gatherings in parks like concerts.
It also looked at risks that parks bring: Hayfever might not seem like such a huge medical emergency on the outset but the team did the calculations and found that the cost of people taking time off from work because of hayfever in the city of Melbourne actually cost the economy over $4 million in 2019. A fair amount of crime also happens in parks (362 incidences in 2020), which unsurprisingly increased during COVID due to spikes in unemployment. Gentrification of areas near parks can also drive housing prices up, trigger displacement of disadvantaged people and drain resources from other public spaces.
The project also looked at the data around the grey area of park maintenance: while upkeep has obvious financial costs, it also generates jobs for 400 people in the city of Melbourne alone.
The design team mapped the different categories of data with olfactory variables: the positive effects of parks were mapped to “happy” scents like mint for its cooling scent and menthone properties, apple for its sweet aroma (and well, an apple a day keeps the doctor away), whilst the negatives were mapped to more acrid scents like lapsang suochong tea and pink pepper. Park maintenance was mapped to liquorice, a scent and flavour that polarises — either you love it or hate it.
A base scent was then formulated mapping qualitative variables to quantities of ingredients, highlighting the narrative that while parks bring a lot of benefits, especially during COVID, there is still room for improvement in terms of planning for civic good. The smell ended up being quite an odd mix of floral, earthy and spicy scents — as one audience member described it, “it's like i'm served delicious tea in the woods then someone spiked my drink with LSD then I wake up clamped in someone's armpit.”
At the installation itself, audiences were asked a few questions relating to how they perceived these different issues relating to parks in the city of Melbourne.
Their responses then formed the basis of their own custom olfactory artefact, which they engaged with in a playful manner by grinding it up physically using a mortar and pestle. They could then choose to smell as a scent, brew as a tea on the spot or take home.