Back when I was writing my novels, I used to listen to music while writing. Aside from being pleasurable, I found that it helped trigger the immersion part of creativity. In other words, it projected me into the scene I was writing.
I’m sure I’m not the only one that does this, but I found it interesting how one form of art might fuel another form: music -> writing. I guess that should not be much of a revelation, music scores have been in movies/shows since the advent of recorded film.
Yet, it makes me wonder what future forms of sensory stimulation will become available for entertainment purposes. So far, we’ve successfully tackled written word, sound (music) and visual (performing arts). But what about smell? What if a technology is invented that allows movies/tv or even books to produce scents relevant to the scene being painted.
That scene you are reading on the beach, or watching on television, starts to emit the salty scent of the ocean. Or the scene where the protagonist is walking by a burning wreckage, and you actually smell the smoke. I guess it could be a sense used for both positive and negative evocations 🙂
That said, will there be a new form of artist in the future– one that creates memorable scents. What would they call these artists? Aromatic Engineers? Aroma Artisans?
They say dogs see the world in a complex array of scents that are invisible to us– would such artists turn the dog world upside down? Will commercials for that latest Purina dog food cause your tail-wagging friend to salivate at the scene emitted from your television?
It will be an interesting world when all the senses can be combined to produce multiple levels of art. Could we survive such a feedback loop? Will it give rise to even higher forms of art yet unimagined? Things to ponder…
-AJ