Heterosmia

Definition

Heterosmia is Jim Drobnick's coinage for the smell-condition of the postmodern museum: "'Heterosmia,' a preponderance of smells from disparate sources, is my term to signify the condition of the postmodern museum. This is in contradistinction to the anosmic condition of the conventional museum" (p. 91). It names the olfactory consequence of the postmodern museum's programmatic heterogeneity — the museum defined "by virtue of their heterogeneity," participating in "the postmodern trend towards ambiguously defined spaces, ones that combine multiple functions and behaviours," having "appropriated elements from theme parks, malls, boutiques, food courts, and other types of cultural architectures" until "aromas from in-house restaurants and cafés, perfumes from gift shops and other odours cross over the threshold and permeate the inner sanctum of artistic worship" (p. 91).

Crucially, heterosmia is not a designed effect but an unintended, structural one: "Heterosmia is not necessarily a condition sought out by postmodern art institutions; it is more an unintended result of the mixing and close juxtaposition of previously separated activities" — the smell-side of decisions "about real estate, tourism, audience attendance, and the desire to transform a specialized institution into a one-stop, multiple-interest entertainment package," like the indoor mall "in which scents from a myriad of shops circulate and commingle" (p. 91). The concept thus has a polemical edge: the "pure" art museum was already a smell-regime (the anosmia of the white cube), and the postmodern institution trades one smell-regime for another without intending either.

Key Thinkers

• Jim Drobnick — the concept's author (Volatile Architectures, 2002/2006): heterosmia vs. anosmia as the two smell-regimes of the museum.

Related Concepts

• Olfaction — the parent concept: smell as the neglected sensory dimension of architecture; heterosmia is its institution-scale condition.
• Aromatopia — the contrast case: heterosmia is unintended commingling, aromatopia engineered saturation; both against the conventional museum's anosmia.
• White Cube — the anosmic condition's spatial form: "pollution-free pristine state" as the prior smell-regime the postmodern museum dismantles.
• Exhibitionary Complex — the institutional mechanism: heterogeneity as the museum's response to "the failure of the patrician class to preserve the museum as an elite, personal enclave."
• Heterogeneous Space — the spatial-order cousin: Drobnick's museums are "ambiguously defined spaces… combin[ing] multiple functions and behaviours" — heterogeneity at the programmatic and atmospheric level rather than Hight/Hensel/Menges's differential spatial order.
• Postmodernism — the cultural logic heterosmia exemplifies: multiple functions, blurred boundaries, commerce inside the aesthetic.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Volatile Architectures (Drobnick 2002/2006) — the concept's founding text (pp. 90–91): heterogeneity as the postmodern museum's definition; heterosmia vs. the conventional museum's anosmia; the mall comparison; the unintended-result thesis.
• Touch, Taste, Smell (Brown 2018) — the curation problem heterosmia's unintended condition poses for designed scent: Andreas Keller (quoted) states that "smells are more difficult to stably position in space than visual objects" — a scent exhibit "must be presented in a way that preserves the authentic fragrance, effectively transmits it to the visitor, and does not interfere with other nearby smells," and "people form all types of personal associations and judgments about smells from… their personal experience" — so the designed smellscape is the deliberate, stabilized alternative to heterosmia's commingling, fighting on heterosmia's own terrain (drift, contamination, interpretation). See smellscape.
• source-notes/perec-2006-the-apartment
• source-notes/solomon-2018-public-spheres-hong-kong

Open Questions

• Is heterosmia a condition or a resource — can it be curated, or is it by definition what escapes curation ("previously separated activities" mixing behind the curator's back)?
• Does heterosmia's democracy of smells (food court next to the sanctum) reproduce the exhibitionary complex's authority or dissolve it — is the visitor's nose the new "directed route"?
• If the conventional museum was never smell-free but anosmic by decree, what did its smell-regime actually smell of (varnish, dust, security, ozone of air conditioning) — and does a history of museum anosmia exist?