Olfactory Haptic Tests is a participatory research-performance exploring the shared thresholds between smell, touch, memory, and neurodiverse perception with the participation of Behavior Specialist Elizabeth Fraines, M.A., BCBA. The project took place at The Centering Center a project in collaboration with Cynthia Campoy Brophy in collaboration with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Architecture and Engineering departments and with the participation of artist and researcher Elizabeth Fraines. The tests brought together a small group of neurodiverse participants for a sequence of guided sensory experiments that included tactility, olfactory and sonic cues and stimuli.
The work investigated how aromatic stimuli—delivered through evolving botanical, mineral, and synthetic scent compositions—could generate tactile, spatial, and emotional responses without physical contact. Participants were invited to map sensations across the body through gesture, breath, and improvised movement, treating scent as a haptic field rather than a purely olfactory event. Each session unfolded as both an experiment and a form of collective attunement, where heightened sensitivity became a shared language rather than a diagnostic category.
A public-facing iteration appeared as a pop-up activation at Descanso Gardens during Tonalism (in space) 2022, presented in collaboration with Dublab. In this outdoor context, the work expanded into a porous encounter with landscape, sound, and audience, allowing passersby to witness fragments of the testing process while live radio transmissions braided scientific inquiry with ambient sound and spoken reflection.
The project extends an ongoing inquiry into sensory substitution, neurodiversity, and embodied knowledge—positioning smell as a medium capable of collapsing distance between inner perception and shared public experience. Related theoretical groundwork is articulated in the artist’s paper, “The Kaleidoscopic Mind,” published in Arts (MDPI):https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/9/2/47