EMAILED KJELL DØVING
March 2005
In pursuit of more information on chemical smells I emailed Professor Kjell
Døving who works at the Department of Biology, University of Oslo.
I have taken the following information about his field of interest from his
website:
My scientific activities are centred on the sense of smell in vertebrates
and can be divided into three types of studies.
The first concerns the cellular mechanisms in sensory neurones. I have studied
these features by electrophysiological means and investigated the sensory
cells of the vomeronasal organ in frogs and in mammals.
The second type of activity concerns how the olfactory system is constructed,
for example what kind of sensory neurones are connected to secondary neurones
to deal with a particular chemical substance, including how this information
is coded and transmitted to the brain.
The third type of studies describes the behaviour patterns in animals that
are evoked by chemical stimuli. I have participated in experiments with salmon,
animals that use their sense of smell to find their way back home. Carps,
on the other hand, react with alarm to substances in their skin. This behaviour
is evoked via the olfactory organ. The olfactory sense is also important for
the behaviour of fish larvae. I have also studied the behaviour of tracking
dogs. How do use their sense of smell to find a trail and how do they detect
the direction of odour trails? The majority of all these studies have been
made in close co-operation with students and colleagues in Norway and abroad.
Kjell's websites:
http://biologi.uio.no/genfys/groups/KD/KDgr.html
I explained my interest in smells in relation to my project. Conceptually - the way smells (very rarely used in western performance) can evoke memories and emotions, and how this in turn may affect both performers and audiences. In practical terms - the development of a system to release smells/aromas using airbrush bottles as containers, and airbrush guns and fans to emit and disperse aromas in the space.
Kjell kindly agreed to meet me to discuss further implications.