So after lots of talking, researching, emailing, pondering … I have come to a few conclusions about the contraption SMELLit. I sent all my posts, as well as many of your comments to Nuno (again — the guy who brought you SMELLit) and he had some interesting answers to my questions:
I considered paraphrasing all this, but I really wanted you all to see the exact questions that I posed to Nuno. After each question and his response I have posted my concluding thoughts on the subject (in italics), so here we go:
1 QUESTION: DO YOU THINK THAT THE POTENTIAL FOR SMELLIT TO TRIGGER BAD MEMORIES IN ITS AUDIENCE POSES A VIABLE THREAT TO ITS SUCCESS?
- Well Amanda, like images smell could trigger bad memories but I clearly think its impossible rating a movie by its smell, can you imagine? “the film advertised has been rated restricted – under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian – strong uncomfortable smell content”
- Well truthfully I happen to agree with Nuno here in that images and smell have the same if not only slightly differentiated potential to trigger bad memories. If we aren’t going to cut out triggering images, then who is to say that we should prevent triggering smells? However, I have to disagree with his supposition that it would be impossible to rate a movie by its smell. It may seem ridiculous right now, but I’m sure when movies first came out people never thought there would be any sort of rating system at all. Yet I think the same thing that has happened with traditional ratings will happen with smell ratings — that is that people will simply choose to ignore them. Just as we snuck into PG-13 and R-rated movies when we were underage, people will most likely not take smell ratings all that eriously, but those who are wary of triggering smells would at least have a warning this way.
2 QUESTION: WILL SMELLIT INCLUDE CARTRIDGES THAT PRODUCE “UNINVITING” SMELLS SUCH AS GARBAGE, EXCREMENT, GASOLINE, ETC?
- Yes . But you will be able to turn off any cartridges
And here we finally have our answer about being able to avoid negative smells! I think this will assuage many users’ fears about being “attacked” by undesirable smells.
3 QUESTION: WAS THE GENERAL HUMAN DESIRE TO PARTICIPATE IN MEDIATED EXPERIENCES THAT BEST RE-CREATE A REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE A MOTIVATING FACTOR IN YOUR DECISION TO CREATE SMELLIT?
- Do you notice that many people when go shopping for groceries, like to smell for example that juicy red apple, but also that ugly and not very pleasant slice of Rockford cheese? People are curious by nature, and this curiosity its probably the selling factor behind the SMELLIT.
I think what Nuno is getting at here is that people are just oging to be so fascinated by the next new gadget that promises to enhance our mediated experience that they will buy it just to see what it’s all about. I had posited this before, and we have discussed it through the blog and whatnot, but now we’ve got some validation from the mastermind behind the whole thing. I think this just ties in with what I have said in previous posts about how our society is just dying to have realistic experiences delivered to them at an instant. However, I will duly note that this desire often disturbs me because as some of you mentioned in your comments — this could lead to people replacing actual real-life experiences with mediated experiences. Is this WALL-E syndrome where we sit on floating hover-mobiles watching television all day long? Yikes!
4 QUESTION: I KNOW THAT IN YOUR ORIGINAL EMAIL YOU MENTIONED THAT YOU EMBARKED ON THE SMELLIT JOURNEY PARTIALLY TO MOTIVATE PUBLIC DISCUSSION, WHICH IT CERTAINLY HAS DONE IN THE CONTEXT OF MY CLASS BLOG. MANY PEOPLE HAVE EXPRESSED THAT THEY THINK THAT TV AND MOVIES SHOULD ONLY BE AUDIO AND VISUAL EXPERIENCES. I KNOW YOU SAID THAT YOU LIKE TO HAVE THE ULTIMATE MOVIE EXPERIENCE, SO WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THOSE WHO SEEM TO WANT TO LIMIT THEIR EXPERIENCE?
-To try it once if the SMELLIT go market…if they don´t like, can always get back to the old stuffy nose experience 
Not much to say here except — true that.
5 QUESTION: HOW WILL A USER OF SMELLIT BE ABLE TO RE-CREATE THE MUTE BUTTON WITH THIS PRODUCT? IN THE TRADITIONAL MEDIATED EXPERIENCE WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO TERMINATE ANY UNWANTED STIMULI. HOW WILL YOU PROVIDE THE SMELLIT USER WITH AGENCY OVER THEIR EXPERIENCE? CAN YOU?
-Yes, that will be possible to select the cartridges to be used, and the SMELLIT software will warn you of any unpleasant odor that could appear.
Again! Another answer to our worries about not being able to “mute” the bad smells. This will act as a in-movie warning rather than a general rating. I say it’s a good move that makes this a bit less radical or intrusive.
6 QUESTION: WITH ONLY 128 CARTRIDGES WILL ALL SMELLS BE ABLE TO BE CREATED THROUGH COMBINATIONS? IF SO, WONT THERE BE THE POTENTIAL TO HAVE WHAT MY PROFESSOR CALLS A “BLURRY SMELL”, AND WHAT WILL BE THE COMPLICATIONS OF A BLURRY SMELL ON THE USER EXPERIENCE?
-Yes, combinations are possible without creating a blurry smell. But each cartridge have the potentiality to recreate by themselves many nuances of the same smell. And as we all know some fragrances are used to create different smells or odors…Substances like the “Musk” its a good example.
To me this is a tech-y question here — I can’t really get into the specifics of how Nuno makes these cartridges work to produce varying scents within a scent category, but he seems to be pretty confident. I also totally didn’t even think about the whole idea of smells often being representative before. For instance, when I buy a Glade candle that is supposed to smell like “Country Apple Orchard” that candle is a representation of what a bunch of people at Glade decided a country apple orchard should smell like.
7 QUESTION: WHAT DO YOU THINK THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE FACT THAT THE SMELLS PRODUCED BY SMELLIT ARE ONLY REPRODUCTIONS OF SMELL, NOT ACTUAL NATURAL SMELLS ARE? IN OTHER WORDS, WHEN WE WATCH TV AND WE HEAR A CAR SCREECH IT IS THE ACTUAL SOUND OF THE CAR WE ARE SEEING ON SCREEN SCREECHING THAT COMES THROUGH THE TV’S SPEAKERS (UNLESS FOLEY IS USED OF COURSE — WHICH IS A COMPLICATION OF SOUND). HOWEVER, WHEN WE WATCH TV, LETS SAY A COOKING SHOW, AND SMELLIT RELEASES THE SCENT OF THE PIZZA THAT IS BEING MADE, WHAT THE USER WILL SMELL IS NOT ACTUALLY THE SMELL OF THE PIZZA THEY ARE SEEING, BUT RATHER A GENERIC PIZZA SMELL THAT HAS BEEN PROGRAMMED BY THE SMELLIT. HOW WILL YOU RECONCILE THAT THERE WILL BE NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SMELL OF A DELIVERY PIZZA AT A COLLEGE PARTY, AND A FRESHLY-COOKED GOURMET PIZZA MADE ON A COOKING SHOW?
-The SMELLIT can (like we discussed in question 6) mix different odors from different cartridges to accomplish a particular smell…and all sensitive combinations can be achieved by the SMELLIT smellcard and software.
This is kind of like question 6 as Nuno noted, but I’d like to mention that I see no difference between the liberties taken when using CGI technolgoy to recreate an image that could not be realistically filmed, or using Foley art to recreate a more “lifelike” version of a sound and the liberties taken when mixing different smells to recreate a specific odor through SMELLit.
So in conclusion I’m actually pretty pumped now for SMELLit to come out on the market, and Nuno has requested to stay in contact with me so maybe we’ll be hearing more updates in the future!
