Perfume Pin-ups
As loyal followers of the mighty magazine, we lust over the clean, crisp touch of fresh, glossy pages and the sartorial feasts laid upon them. But Berlin-based interview magazine Mono.Kultur is challenging our notions of publishing by taking print beyond printing. Their latest issue is a collaboration with Norwegian scientist and artist Sissel Tolaas, and instead of images, twelve of the pages bare nothing but scents.
Micro-encapsulation - a process as difficult to fully comprehend as it is to spell - has allowed the pages of Mono.Kultur to be permanently 'printed' with perfumery, but readers and their noses beware: Tolaas' scents have been described as a "difficult" rather than a pleasant trip on the aromatherapy trail. As a professor at Harvard University dealing in the realms of 'invisible communication', Tolaas has worked with the likes of Comme des Garcons, adidas and Cartier, and has had exhibitions at MoMA in New York and Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.
A self-described 'professional rovocateur', the pages reflect the professor's move from words and images into the olfactory end of the art-meets-science industry. We are more than ready to open our airways and return to the yesteryears of the Scratch N Sniff. All hail Tolaas!
Written by Nicholas Burdekin.
