Scent
Victoria Hertel
Installation Art
8 - 17 July 2022
1 - 7pm
Tue - Sun
Scent (2022) functions as a real time visualisation mechanism between human and nonhuman materialities. Constructed to refocus our attention to the present moment, surrounding space and our presence in it, the installation changes with our engagement.
Consisting of a volatile organic compound (VOC) sensor that artificially mimics the human olfactory sense, the work detects, measures and features molecules into scent data. In interacting with the sensor, our molecular input is translated into a projected particle system, with our individual aromatic profiles corresponding to a personal set of light gradients.
Converging invisible material processes (scent) with visible translations of these (colour), Scent aims to heighten our awareness of our energetic trace and influence within the environment we coexist in.
Victoria Hertel is a German-Venezuelan artist whose practice explores the entanglement of the self and non-self. Her site-specific works are constructed to distill the energetic information of diverse materialities into sensory encounters that heighten our awareness of the larger material network we inhabit. Through the experiencing of these encounters we are invited to expand our understanding of our relational coexistence with everything.
Merging art, engineering and data science, Scent is an interdisciplinary work constructed in a collaborative initiative with Scent Analytics, an NUS Incubated Deep Tech Startup by Co-Founders Tan Wee Chong and Fred Soh.
About the Artist(s)
Victoria Hertel is a German-Venezuelan artist whose practice merges site-specific painting and installation to create immersive experiences.
She is interested in new materialist theory, material oriented phenomena and the correlative tension between trace, surface, object, space and viewer. Her work is characterized by a monochromatic and organic aesthetic and diversified textural spectrum that converge to highlight the communicative potential of materialities.
Exploring the entanglement of the body, materiality, and space, her work is constructed to foster distilled sensory encounters between ourselves and our spatial context. Built on the idea of trace as an embodiment of time, presence and energy, the works highlight shifts in our surroundings as an indication and consideration of the greater network everything co-exists in.
Hertel received her BFA from the University of Barcelona and her MA in Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore in partnership with Goldsmiths University of London. She has been awarded the Chan-Davies Art Prize for academic excellence in her MA research and practice of Trace as energy in materialities.
