A very warm welcome to all of you who have joined our new EI community.

[Julie Want]

We have created this network with the aim of creating a community of like minded people with a genuine interest in Emotional Intelligence. This network is a place to share and discuss ideas, share our knowledge and resources together.

We welcome any ideas and thoughts you have on what you would like to see posted on this site, the more ideas the better :)

Please invite any friends who you feel would be interested in joining us and we look forward to receiving your contributions to the forum.


Julie Want

Secretary IAEI

[Roger Steer]

Hi Julie
I am an online tutor in EI working with Vision2Learn and FE colleges. I look forward to the discussions and will encourage bright students to join in.

Roger

[Tsvetana Ivanova]

Hello to all of you!
I am so happy that I found you are there!!!
I'll wish to join you as soon as I can in this beautifull journey. Just tell me what to do!
I am an MA Design Student at Central Saint Martins- London College of Arts.
I am on the very end of my final project - title is: Visualizing the Acoustic of the Smell.
I'll be more than thankfull for your feedback. You are the people I was looking for so long...
Thank you in advance. All my best wishes! Tsvetana

MADS SYNOPSIS 1 - TSVETANA IVANOVA
VISUALIZING THE ACCOUSTIC OF THE SMELL

I have always been fascinated by the unbridgeable connection between the Smell and “I”, about our social, human and life dependence upon it. Its elusive quality is what makes it very desirable and hard to define. I was looking for the answer in the connection of society and nature, what philosophy and metaphysics investigate, and the science and art as mediators.

The present theories of the Smell are more than controversial. The level of smell awareness at this stage of our evolution compared to our other senses is at embryonic state. There is no warning for it, no measure for it. The proof is that the terms used to describe it are borrowed from the terms of the other senses.

Humans "see" the world largely through two main senses: eyes and ears. The subjectivity and lack of a definite scientific explanation undermines the importance of the closest and most intimate of all senses, the very first sense to appear when we are born - the mysterious sense of smell. It is located in the same part of the brain that processes emotion, memory, and motivation. Therefore emotional and physical lives are profoundly shaped by both our reactions to and interpretations of different smells.

My question ‘Visualizing the Acoustic of the Smell’ was formed by the following questions:
Why is this sense neglected in our everyday lives and how full is our perception without smell? Can we really make memory from not full sensory understanding of a given object/experience? Is smell really subjective? Can smell be measured on the kind of linear scale that scientists use to measure the wavelength of light or the frequency of sounds? My goal was to design an idea, a system, a space, which can alter our state of consciousness so we do not perceive our main senses separately, but as one whole. Is it possible to understand smell through light and sound in order to attune humans' senses? It was my intention to answer these questions and to provide a tangible solution. After research I decided to provide this solution through designing a unique artefact in the form of an object, method or pattern to measure or represent these states. I wanted to find the symmetry between object and subject as between the word and meaning from senses point of view.

The existence of an electronic nose, designed by NASA, the help from Dave Kelland the sound engiener of “Pink Floyd”, passionate about the connection between the sound and the smell as synchronised tools, the support from a government physicist to explore the depths of Physics, the feedback from a number of scientists evaluating my concept as a futuristic, the revealed secret of the smell from an aroma therapist, highly interested in the potential of the idea - all supported my journey of perpetual rediscovering the hidden dimensions of my concept. Revealing it purely scientifically is a journey that is yet to come.

Through science we have extended our senses to observe and interact objects too small or distant to see directly. We are increasingly dependant on technology to sustain our social and cultural reality. It is part of being human in our time. Through science wave frequencies can be translated into patterns, light or sounds. Nearly all perceivable objects have attributes that must be mediated to be seen: the DNA, the magnetic field of stars… For we only perceive a small portion of the world around us it’s entities exist both within and beyond our perception. Space is a product of consciousness, and our perceived space is derived from a mix of direct and mediated stimulations. Smell with its invisible aspects is both. It creates mediated spaces and material spaces, a resource and process that explain the re-definition of objectivity.

In the present we note that objectivity has changed. Design has become a mediator not creator of the senses/spaces, shaping their body with information. Science is actually a tool, which extends our organic senses to the length that our curiosity spreads. Because of the fear of the unknown we are more content to rely on science evidence than to rely on our organic experiences and emotions.

The distinction between the sensed/directly and mediated artefacts is debatable because of its elusive coexistence. The experience differs though the source is the same. An artefact existence is independent from our full sensory capacity. We simply determine how we want to experience it. Such dependence, between material and mediated entities, has great implications for the arts, design and creativity - being able to make design decisions based on sensory discoveries.

The result is a creation of an artefact, which uses the pure combination of sound, light and smell to create today’s new Art mediator, creating an organic mediator to experience the experiment. My artefact delivers an experience or observation that can be generally shared (by a community of observers/exhibition), it forms a part of a database of social science, which is part of the structure of the human personality.

In the future, we will no longer need to fatalistically endure negative mood states of feeble brain power. We will increasingly be capable of enhancing our capacity to feel and think in pursuit of ever-grater levels of well-being the only thing holding us back is the fear of the unknown. Fear can never be the basis of a mediator and than you can visualize the acoustic of the smell…It is simple, elegant, elusive!