Sensory REcords: Printing “scented” audio

Reconstructing the analogue “playful” interactions into a meaningful artifact of individual residents.

In alignment of the Scent of Belonging project by Professor Christy Spackman and Lauryn Mannigel who will be exhibiting at the ASU MIX Center.

My Role:
Individual Design Project.
Conceptual design, Prototype design

Location
Seoul, Korea/ Mesa, Arizona, USA

Time
2 months

Deliverables
Interview excerpts, Printed records, Scent encapsulation

Table of Contents

Project Motif

01

Interaction Design

02

Prototyping

03

Project motif

Ties with Memories and scents

The Scents of Belonging project by Prof. Christy Spackman and Lauryn Mannigel explore the depth and relationship between human memories, place, and connections, with scents. Upon their workshop “Bottle Me Up", we were able to capture some of the nostalgic, heartfelt memories regarding certain objects or the smells they emit.
Expressing the relationships

Initially, I aimed to present the raw interview audio into a record, and upon playing it, the audience can also smell the scents the interviewees were addressing. However, due to my limited ability to replicate voice recorded audio, I had to replace the audio with resonating music piece related to the scent they bring up.
Interview on scents and memories

Interaction Design

Q: Can you make audio that can be scratch and sniffed?

Q: What would the interaction look like?

** Due to the confidentiality of the research methods and outcomes, I will only document the technical making of the Scratch ‘n Sniff Records itself for replication and inspiration.

Record making

- The code was obtained from an
  Instructables post pre-made by Amanda
  Ghassaei in 2013
  (https://www.instructables.com/Laser-Cut-Record/).
  Audio files can be converted into numerical data that each determines the
  'groove depths' of a typical record. Stylus can navigate through the grooves and recreate the waveforms defined by the shape of original audio waveform (https://www.instructabies.com/3D-Printed-Record/).
After multiple tests, both acrylic and MDF yielded similarly decent results in replicating audio signals to audio grooves. Audio files yielded clearer results when the frequency was increased and when the code was modified to output mono instead of stereo.

Scent Making

Papers on microencapsulation + video tutorials on homemade scratch n sniff stickers -- a lot recommended PVA solutions frequently used for microencapulsation of fragrance oils that can be broken to exert scents.
(PVA 1 : Fragrance oil 0.1 : Water 4 : Sodium polyacrylate 0.2) Capsules/ bubbles were nicely formed in the intial test. As the surface is scratched and the coating is visibly ‘torn apart’, I could smell the scent, but only when my nose was held very closely onto it --- which gets mixed with the original smell of MDF wood; less with acrylic.