Scent as a Storyteller: Exploring Olfactory Art | M. Dougherty | S01E02

Guest
M. Dougherty [https://www.m-dougherty.com/]

Summary
In this episode, Eliana Pires Janssen interviews M. Dougherty, a scent artist and researcher. They discuss M. Dougherty's journey into the world of scent and their creation of the scent organ, a device that allows the user to play different scent molecules like a piano. They also explore the connection between scent and memory, the cultural significance of scent, and the science behind how our brain processes scent. In this conversation, M Dougherty discusses the fascinating world of scent and its impact on our lives. They explore topics such as the science behind scent, the relationship between scent and memory, the challenges of measuring and recreating scents, and the role of technology in enhancing our sense of smell. M Dougherty also shares their own projects and experiences in the field of scent design.

Takeaways

• M. Dougherty is a scent artist and researcher who explores scent in various forms of art, including sculpture and gallery installations.
• The scent organ is a device created by M. Dougherty that allows the user to play different scent molecules like a piano.
• Scent is deeply connected to memory and can evoke vivid emotions and experiences.
• Different cultures have unique relationships with scent, and Indigenous communities often have a deep understanding and respect for scent.
• The brain processes scent through olfactory receptors and various parts of the brain responsible for emotion, memory, and language.
• Our body odor can change based on factors such as emotions, diet, and hormones, and can even synchronize with a partner's body odor. Scent is a powerful sense that is closely linked to memory and emotion.
• The science of scent is complex and involves factors such as evaporation, temperature, and the environment.
• Measuring and recreating scents is challenging due to the variability of chemicals and the lack of a standardized language for scent.
• Technology, such as AI, is advancing the field of scent design and has the potential to digitize and share scents.
• Layering scents is a popular trend, but it can be controversial among perfumers.
• The scent industry is dominated by a few major companies, which can limit accessibility and creativity.
• There is still much to learn and explore in the world of scent, and collaboration and sharing of information are important in advancing the field.

Sound Bites

• "We don't really know as much about our sense of smell. Like it's still a pretty new science. And like we only discovered olfactory receptors in 1991."
• "Oh my god, yeah, it feels like, yeah, it's like the final frontier. I feel like, like very astronauts kind of vibes. Someone, not someone, Andreas Merschen, one of my mentors and someone who I've like worked with on machine olfaction conferences, he terms it osmonauts. Yeah, like, yeah, we're yeah, we're exploring a whole alien planet basically through noses."

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction and Background
02:38 - The Scent Organ: Playing with Scent Molecules
06:23 - Exploring Scent as an Art Form
09:19 - The Power of Scent and Memory
14:26 - Scent in Different Cultures
23:44 - The Synchronization of Body Odor
25:23 - The Power of Scent and Hormones
27:02 - Exploring Scent through Technology
29:29 - Speculative Design and Scent
31:19 - AI and the Language of Scent
33:36 - Digitizing Scent with AI
35:36 - Challenges in Measuring and Recreating Scents
37:19 - Controversy in the Scent Industry
38:44 - The Dominance of Major Companies in the Scent Industry
41:33 - Copyright and Ownership in Perfumery
43:15 - Layering Scents: Pros and Cons
44:46 - The Ongoing Exploration of Scent

Transcript

Eliana Pires Janssen (00:01.819)
I'm Eliana Pires Jansen. Sorry for the nasally voice. We got a little head cold going on here, but welcome to the second episode of Plot Twist, where we meet awesome individuals who have taken a plot twist in their life and arrived at an awesome destination. My guest today is Doherty. They are my oldest, probably high school friend, actually, I think, you know, when you do the math. But we haven't really seen each other in 10 years because life is crazy and we both had some plot twists.

So go ahead and introduce yourself, tell us what you're about, and then we'll dive into it and finish with what is your favorite color?

M Dougherty (00:41.22)
okay, cool. So I got distracted by the question. Yeah, so everything you said is accurate. So I am a scent artist and researcher. So that's kind of where the twist of my life has resulted. I like started in sculpture, and then I went into film and installation art and just through aggressive curiosity have ended up.

working with scent in art and that's like not just perfumery, I do scent for the body, but it's also like sculpture and gallery installations that involve scent in any way. And I'm starting to explore the research side of that too because there's still so much we don't know and I'm infinitely curious about it. Yeah. My favorite color is chartreuse, 1000 % chartreuse.

Eliana Pires Janssen (01:33.947)
Well played, well played.

M Dougherty (01:34.66)
The point where like my closet is black, white and chartreuse and my dog is also black and his harness is chartreuse so all the time we look like we're matching. It's just good.

Eliana Pires Janssen (01:43.387)
perfection, pure perfection. And one thing that we are going to dive into is your installation show that you did around the sensory with dogs, because that was so cool. But

M Dougherty (01:53.508)
Yeah. I highly recommend making Art for Dogs for anyone. The best audience.

Eliana Pires Janssen (01:58.619)
I mean, is there anything better? I mean, our dogs, I see no downside. So your thing that is, we're gonna just jump right into the scent organ because that to me is the most fascinating, immersive, creative thing that I've ever seen in my life. And it is the coolest thing.

M Dougherty (02:03.94)
Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (02:27.483)
And tell me, first of all, tell listeners what it is and then tell me about your process of what led there. Yeah.

M Dougherty (02:38.543)
Hello, listeners. So what it is, is it's basically a piano, but instead of playing sound, you play different scent molecules or materials. So I should be very explicitly clear that I did not invent the idea of the synesthesia between scent and music and this device.

Eliana Pires Janssen (02:41.947)
you

M Dougherty (03:01.348)
has been theorized since the 1800s. And different people have talked about it, drawn different diagrams for it, but only a few have really made it since. And I wanted to explore if it was more portable and being used by not just perfumers or musicians, what would come about. So.

Yeah, I've iterated on it like five times now. It's constantly evolving, which is kind of cool based on like how it goes and how people respond to it and what feels clear or not. So now I have it in a form where

Eliana Pires Janssen (03:31.899)
you

M Dougherty (03:45.924)
I worked with some other perfumers, George Teder specifically, to make sure that each keys, what in combination makes the most chords basically. So if you like, play these three keys, it'll be Fig, and if you play these, it'll be Chai. So right now it's like 15 different keys, and there's like 20 different chords that it makes. But there's infinite combinations there, so yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (04:14.651)
So when you were developing it, where were you? Because you've done a lot of residencies, you've done research residencies, you've also done plenty of talks and also I thought, and you spent time in Germany, correct? No. fair, that's right, that's right. Yep, son of a bitch.

M Dougherty (04:33.668)
No, I mean, I was supposed to. COVID, COVID, yeah. So really ruins travel plans.

Eliana Pires Janssen (04:44.667)
But where were you when you were developing the actual hands -on process of making it happen?

M Dougherty (04:49.188)
Yeah, it was part of my master's at NYU actually. So I that was the program I was supposed to be partially in Shanghai and New York and in Berlin for it's like, it's like an interactive media program, but

Everyone comes to it from different fields and it's all about using technology in new ways So everyone's exploring different things and we're collaborating across the world like half of my class I still haven't met because they're in China But yeah, I was in New York

and decided to explore it for my thesis project there. And the first version of it used water diffusers. So instead of like right now it's all air -based and using like physical pumps and things. But originally it was like a bunch of packed together diffusers basically that like had little steam coming off of them. So it felt a little bit like, you know, a haunted house kind of vibe.

Eliana Pires Janssen (05:48.379)
Yes!

Eliana Pires Janssen (05:53.147)
Hahaha!

M Dougherty (05:54.497)
And I wasn't as specific with the materials. So I think at that point there was only seven diffusers. So it was a lot smaller of a scale.

Eliana Pires Janssen (06:05.115)
So why scent? What drove that specific? Because obviously, like I mentioned, we were high school best friends. We were always in the creative realm in general. How did you arrive in this beautiful marriage of scent and creativity?

M Dougherty (06:23.876)
yeah, there's like a long version and a short version. Short version is,

Eliana Pires Janssen (06:27.931)
you

M Dougherty (06:32.612)
I happen to be in the right place at the right time and ask the right questions, right? So I was in Los Angeles, I was burnt out. And in Los Angeles, there's the Institute for Art and Olfaction, where a really wonderful person, Saskia Wilson Brown, started it to make working with scent more accessible. Right now, like before, you would have to have like a degree in chemistry, or you would have to do an unpaid apprenticeship for like years and years and years to be able to practice perfumery, right? So like, the

number of people that could do it was like a very small window, right? Hello. So she just wanted more voices to not be lost, right? Because only certain people were practicing. So she opened up the Institute, offers different classes, but also has a whole library of materials that you can come in and work with in like these open sessions. So I

Eliana Pires Janssen (07:05.467)
Yeah, especially in the economy today. Yeah.

M Dougherty (07:31.044)
went there. I was like talking to the people around me. Because something about me is I'm gonna ask questions no matter what. If I have a question, I will ask. So I was kind of harassing everyone around me and someone was there tinkering away and I asked them what they were working on. And they said they were trying to recreate the smell of hot Cheetos, which kind of blew my mind because at that point I had only really thought of scent materials as like essential oils and like naturals and I

Eliana Pires Janssen (07:40.219)
Let's go.

Eliana Pires Janssen (07:59.803)
Yeah. Me. Yeah.

M Dougherty (08:00.998)
like couldn't comprehend how you would even approach making something that doesn't exist in nature on its own, like how do you do that? So it kind of like blew my mind that and I was like you can make the smell of anything it doesn't have to grow on a tree it doesn't have to even physically exist it doesn't you know it can be all theoretical.

Eliana Pires Janssen (08:08.731)
Yeah.

M Dougherty (08:23.876)
And I started, I was doing performance art more at the time and I started just like weaving it in and like thinking with the art I was already doing, if you approached it and like you were blind or didn't have access to one of your senses, could you still get the same messaging through another one? Like could I have everything I was trying to say exist in the scent alone?

And I'm like just gradually over time, like I said, I kept getting more curious and asking more questions. And the truth is we don't really know as much about our sense of smell. Like it's still a pretty new science. And like we only discovered olfactory receptors in 1991. That's literally the year I was born. So that's like not that long ago. Yeah. We don't know anything. We just don't know anything.

Eliana Pires Janssen (09:06.459)
Wait, what? Wait! That's... That's... That's an awkward date that I thought was gonna be at least a hundred years before that. Yes.

M Dougherty (09:19.876)
Yeah, I mean, which is like exciting because it's like a time where we're like discovering more about it and, you know, we mentioned COVID before. I'm so sorry. I literally put everything on silent. I'm so sorry.

Eliana Pires Janssen (09:31.099)
It is okay.

Eliana Pires Janssen (09:36.891)
Those emergency bypass people, sneak right in. That's why I had to, on film sets, I had to nix the emergency bypass and when I told my husband I was like, sorry bro, but I'm not gonna ruin a take with your text. It can't be done. Can't be done. But... Should we shame them and just like read the text message? Just kidding.

M Dougherty (09:41.86)
going professional.

M Dougherty (09:51.524)
Yeah!

M Dougherty (09:55.46)
It's not even important, which is the more annoying part. Okay.

M Dougherty (10:02.852)
roll my eyes.

Eliana Pires Janssen (10:05.787)
But no, no, going back to your journey and discovering in 1991 our, your world and whatnot.

M Dougherty (10:07.044)
Yeah.

M Dougherty (10:12.388)
Yeah, and

Yeah, so also I should mention that Linda Buck and Richard Axel were the people that discovered olfactory receptors, won a Nobel Prize. We love a female winning a Nobel Prize. Hello. Super cool.

Eliana Pires Janssen (10:26.523)
Let's go.

M Dougherty (10:31.684)
But yeah, basically, so all these questions come up, like why memory is so crazily tied to scent, like you'll smell something and be completely transported to that time in your life in such a vivid, visceral way. We don't fully understand like the neural pathways. We don't know. There's like three prominent theories about how we even smell and how that gets processed information in our brain. We haven't like nailed which one it is. Yeah. So

Eliana Pires Janssen (10:50.075)
that make those connections.

Eliana Pires Janssen (10:57.851)
HONIN.

M Dougherty (11:01.476)
there's been like so many questions that have come up that I don't have the answer for, right? And so it kind of keeps me interested. And I've always had this like, not always, I've kind of made this promise with myself that like, no matter what it is, if I'm curious about it, I'll follow it fully. And that kept me moving through a bunch of different things pretty quickly. But I've stayed with Scent just because I'm still so interested and involved so many different skills and

There's always room to grow and learn and everything. So yeah, I haven't left, but maybe tomorrow I will. Yeah, not today, but maybe tomorrow.

Eliana Pires Janssen (11:38.331)
That's always maybe tomorrow. Now, do you enjoy just because I have a similar brain, it's like you give me a topic, I'll research the hell out of it. Like, and I'll go like I'm just that person because the curiosity takes over. But do you find yourself more fulfilled in research or creating the

M Dougherty (11:55.204)
Yeah... Yeah...

Eliana Pires Janssen (12:05.947)
the exhibits and the installations and whatnot.

M Dougherty (12:09.156)
I think that's the coolest part is it's both, right? And working with scent makes me practice in a way that's not natural, because your nose adapts to things around you pretty quickly.

If you're in a room with smells, your nose kind of turns off after an hour or two. So I can only mix, yeah, I can only mix for a little bit. So I have to take pauses where I'm not physically making. And that's when I like reflect and do more research and, you know, planning, etc. And then I can physically go back into making in a way where like any other work I've done is really like there's a planning process, and then there's a making process. And then I make the thing happen and it happens. This is so much more intertwined.

and sent itself as like chemistry and neuroscience and psychology and all of these different things and it's poetic right it's so subjective so it really blends the logical and emotional in a way and like the practical with the practice in a way that I really love but it also feels like really unique to this so I get fulfilled in that it's both and it like makes me do both when it wants to right like I could want to mix all day that's nice thought

Eliana Pires Janssen (13:18.599)
Yeah. Ain't gonna happen though. But it's also kind of cool because it has this like weird built in, especially when I think today in general across the board burnout is very, very prevalent in a lot of different creative industries. And so it kind of has a built in mental health break check so that you're not like, you know, wearing yourself out and just, you know, as much of like sometimes when that creativity strikes and you know, I'm branded this.

M Dougherty (13:21.654)
It's not gonna happen.

M Dougherty (13:32.964)
Hmm.

M Dougherty (13:38.308)
Exactly.

Eliana Pires Janssen (13:47.003)
podcast in like a couple of days when you just go, go, go. Now I have a head cold. So, you know, it like it's kind of cool that it has this beautiful built in like, hey, you know, me talking as your nose, like, let's chill for a second. Like, I need a second to recalibrate. Now, something that's really interesting to me that I was reading through in your work is the use of like scent in culture.

M Dougherty (13:51.78)
Yeah.

Love.

M Dougherty (14:16.9)
Mm.

Eliana Pires Janssen (14:16.987)
and kind of just how it has been intertwined in many different cultures across the globe in such a significant but different way. What question that might not even be a question and so you can answer it freely, but like what culture do you find has the most respect for scent and the emotions connected to scent and kind of understood it.

M Dougherty (14:26.372)
Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (14:45.403)
understand it or understood it if it is a prior culture, who do you think had it most dialed in?

M Dougherty (14:51.812)
Yeah.

I mean, the thing about it is every human has a different relationship descent, so every culture does too. I think...

My gut is inclined to say that Indigenous communities do, one, because they have more words for scent. We don't even have a universal language for scent to begin with. If I say something smells like one thing, it might mean something different to you. So there's a lot more words there. There's also just a connection to the earth in a way and to information and paying attention to the information that's being expressed by nature in a way that we don't

Eliana Pires Janssen (15:11.547)
Fascinating.

M Dougherty (15:33.238)
I mean, I say we as well, speaking from the like light American population, right? But the truth of it is we all have the ability to hear that information. It's just a matter of attention. And I'm also saying this obviously as an outsider to that community, but that's just like my perceptual understanding.

Eliana Pires Janssen (15:35.803)
But like, and most generally, yes. Yes, yes.

Eliana Pires Janssen (15:52.987)
Mm -hmm.

M Dougherty (15:54.5)
I think every culture does have their own relationship to it though, and things like religion and ritual and food and even like, you know, post the industrial revolution, a space is going to smell completely different, right? I think, yeah, so it's also like the environment changes the smell of things and then culture kind of responds. Yeah.

I don't know if there's like one person that's like, did it. But yeah, I know everything about Tent. Yeah. I'd love to meet them.

Eliana Pires Janssen (16:19.803)
That's fair.

Eliana Pires Janssen (16:24.827)
Yeah, like, nailed it, got it, check, moving on. So...

My question too, let's dive into the scent and the memory because I feel like every single person has experienced it and no one, you know, when you have those memories, like I think everybody has walked past somebody and they happen to be wearing the perfume of so and so from 10 years ago. And, or even if you don't know where it's from, like my daughter had her hip surgery and there's like a little scar cream that I put on and there it is a smell and I have no idea where.

M Dougherty (16:38.148)
Yeah.

M Dougherty (16:51.876)
my god.

Eliana Pires Janssen (17:02.653)
it is from but I know it from like shot or something else there's been driving me crazy for the past couple of months and I'm like holding put it on my finger hold up to everybody like what does this smell like to you does this smell like anything and everyone's like no are you crazy like I'm just like no please I swear I asked my mom my aunt cuz I was like okay maybe it's a childhood I'm just like please smell this like they're like

M Dougherty (17:06.756)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

M Dougherty (17:24.068)
Yeah. I mean, what's crazy though is she's gonna have that experience at some point in her life too, right? Where like, yeah, because it's such a vivid part of her life right now, I'm sure. And yours right now that like, when she's your age and smells it again, it's gonna be like, why do I know this? Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (17:33.595)
Mm -hmm. Yep. Yep.

Eliana Pires Janssen (17:42.075)
Yep, yep, and then I'm gonna be like, guess what? I tried. I tried. gosh. Now...

M Dougherty (17:47.108)
I did my best, okay?

M Dougherty (17:52.388)
Yeah, it's such a real thing. I remember when I first moved to New York and I didn't know where, like how to get around as well. So I took a cab and the cab driver was wearing like the perfume of like someone that I used to date. And I just was like in the backseat crying for no reason.

Eliana Pires Janssen (18:10.331)
See, but that's what I'm saying. It is such a, it is such an overwhelming, like, and it's instant. It's just like, you get that one whiff. Yeah. And it, yes. And the, the, even in.

M Dougherty (18:16.996)
Yeah. Yeah, it's like, it's not like, I'm thinking about it. It's I'm physically there. I'm like, in this room in this space with these people. Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (18:30.779)
I guess the science behind how quickly that fires. Because I mean, even when you stub your toe, you can still see yourself stub your toe and then the pain comes. But you smell something and you instantly know that you know that from somewhere. Like that reaction time. Talk about kind of like the brain. I know you were saying that we don't know a lot of information. So that's...

M Dougherty (18:43.332)
Here we go.

M Dougherty (18:49.316)
Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (18:52.987)
fun to talk about when, right? But, you know, for us newbies who have absolutely no idea, you know, kind of talk us through that connection between brain and nose.

M Dougherty (18:53.508)
Yeah, I can do my glass.

M Dougherty (19:05.252)
Totally. Okay, so scent itself is like molecules in the air. So basically it's like evaporation happening. So first it needs to get to your nose and there's like a ton of factors in that. First, once it gets to your nose, there's things called olfactory receptors that in pattern...

the molecules bind to, then I'm giving a very summed up version with none of the like, what's up people think this and other Yeah

Eliana Pires Janssen (19:33.627)
Yes. Yes, that's perfect for people like me who have, yes, yes, spoiler or not even disclaimer, this is for people like me who have no idea about anything. So continue.

M Dougherty (19:45.444)
Totally. And my brain, I'm like actively trying to filter that out. So excuse me for pausing. But yeah, essentially it reaches the nose, interacts with the olfactory receptors, and then passes through neurons in a bunch of different parts of your brain. Right?

So it's not like it's just touching one and then you're like comprehending it, shifting it. It's touching a lot. So it touches parts of your brain responsible for emotional regulation. That's why it's like really tied into emotion. There's long -term memory there. I think there's also, I don't think, I mean, there's like the...

the conscious response to smell where you're like, I identify that thing, it's this thing, the end. But there's also like the subconscious response to smell where it can be very physical. My favorite example is every time we have an emotion, we release different chemicals from our armpits, which like, okay, we're just gonna like body odors fine. There's nothing weird about it. We all have it. Yeah, like let's just get over that.

Eliana Pires Janssen (20:47.643)
No, no, no. Let's go, let's go. I've been through pregnancy, yeah, been through pregnancy. Shit ain't weird no more. Nothing's weird that the body does. Yes.

M Dougherty (20:56.356)
Yeah, it's not weird. It's super cool. Yeah, armpit hair is really just to diffuse actually. That's why it's there. It's not to keep us warm, obviously.

Eliana Pires Janssen (21:04.839)
Interesting. Fair. Fair. Can you imagine though?

M Dougherty (21:09.796)
This is a survival baby.

Eliana Pires Janssen (21:11.867)
Let's go. Let's go.

M Dougherty (21:14.567)
But yeah, so every time we have an emotion, we'll release a different chemical. And it's to signal other humans what's going on. So when you're afraid, you'll have a certain chemical. That's why if you're standing your stress out, people, you'll also have a physical reaction.

a really cool artist named Cicil Tolos, who's like one of my idols. She did a piece where she comes from biochemistry. So she did a research piece where she had a bunch of people with phobias and she measured their odor, where you can kind of do a reading of what chemicals are present.

in something, so she did that of their body odor and then showed them a picture of the thing they're afraid of and measured their body odor again and saw it was different. She then kind of like equated the materials that presented afterwards with like fear. She then like painted gallery walls with it so you could scratch and sniff the walls and smell fear.

fascinating. And everyone has a different response because it's not something that you like consciously smell necessarily, but you'll feel something. So there's like the physical response, there's the working through response where you're trying to identify something, whether it's from a memory, whether it's from like just repetition. Yeah, and I think what's interesting, I talked about how like we don't have universal language for smell, right? It's so different and subjective.

Eliana Pires Janssen (22:19.483)
Yeah.

M Dougherty (22:43.062)
But when we try to process smell, we don't, it doesn't go through the part of the brain that is responsible for language processing. So it's completely disjointed, which is interesting. Welcome back.

Eliana Pires Janssen (22:54.746)
Interesting. There I am. Ha. I'm back. I'm back. Actually, hold on. Technical difficulties. Pause. Pause.

M Dougherty (23:09.604)
Alright, everyone home, we're pausing for a quick commercial break. It's brought to you by Riley. Little Riley Beans, DJ Audio Extraordinaire. I just did a commercial from Riley, sorry.

Eliana Pires Janssen (23:11.995)
You

Eliana Pires Janssen (23:25.339)
Yes, yes, there it is, perfect. We're gonna put in a little, like, perfect little clip of Riley like DJing. Yeah, she's phenomenal. But, yeah, so picking back up.

M Dougherty (23:33.764)
Do do do? Perfect.

M Dougherty (23:43.012)
Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (23:44.795)
When, so I think I actually like texted you when I'm just like, I swear to God, I smelled different when, you know, I was breastfeeding or like, I smell like, like we match smells. Like, and it was like, it was really weird. And even my husband noticed it and I thought I was going nuts. And then I remember I just like texted you and you're like, no, that's normal. And I'm like, I have questions, but okay, I'm glad it's normal.

M Dougherty (23:51.908)
Yeah.

M Dougherty (23:56.964)
Yes. Yes.

containing excitement. Yes.

M Dougherty (24:10.916)
Yeah, I also have talked to people about this sense because I mean, because I'm going to be who I'm going to be and I'm going to ask a question. So after you talk to me, like I know, I mean.

Eliana Pires Janssen (24:16.027)
Mm -hmm.

Eliana Pires Janssen (24:20.763)
Yeah, yeah.

M Dougherty (24:24.932)
You will, if you start dating someone and living with someone, your body odor adjusts and you kind of both kind of match each other in a way. So your body odors will shift. I know someone who is convinced that her right armpit is now her partner's, but her left armpit is hers and the inverse for her partner.

Eliana Pires Janssen (24:44.667)
Dude, I buy that. I 100 % buy that because I swear to God. I swear to God.

M Dougherty (24:53.38)
It's so interesting. I mean, you know, our body odor scent, like the scent of our body is completely affected by so many different things. I said like emotions for sure, our diet for sure, but also hormones. So it makes sense when like moments in your life or like in your when your body's changing and your hormones are changing, it's going to change, right? And things like, you know, like the oxytocin produced from love and all of that, of course, is going to change your body chemistry. So perhaps that's

why. I also think of it like when people's cycles men's like okay I think about it when like people's cycles kind of sync up it's a similar thing with like hormones hormone practices and like the chemical signaling so I think it's just another example of that.

Eliana Pires Janssen (25:31.739)
Yeah, keep going.

Eliana Pires Janssen (25:46.747)
So how would one even begin to test to get the nuts and bolts of why stuff like that happens? What kind of testing would you have? Because you can't capture sense and rate of change effectively, can you? Yeah, right.

M Dougherty (26:00.388)
Hmm.

M Dougherty (26:07.716)
Not from a doctor. Yeah, I mean, you think I mean the same way you do hormone testing, of course. You know, if your hormones are changing your body odors changing period. Yeah, we don't really. I mean, it makes sense. It's just not there yet. Yeah, I mean.

Eliana Pires Janssen (26:24.411)
technology is just not the technology hasn't just met yeah and that's is that exciting to be part of something that hasn't fully been like

M Dougherty (26:34.116)
my god, yeah, it feels like, yeah, it's like the final frontier. I feel like, like very astronauts kind of vibes. Someone, not someone, Andreas Merschen, one of my mentors and someone who I've like worked with on machine olfaction conferences, he terms it osmonauts. Yeah, like, yeah, we're yeah, we're exploring a whole alien planet basically through noses.

Eliana Pires Janssen (26:38.395)
you

Eliana Pires Janssen (26:58.203)
Alright.

Eliana Pires Janssen (27:02.843)
That's amazing. So you've worked with wearable technologies that kind of help people's relationship to scent. Talk about a project that you, that kind of gets there and like what you're thinking, how technology can enhance or make it worse or where do you think technology fits in with this particular like sector?

M Dougherty (27:04.836)
Yeah.

M Dougherty (27:08.932)
Yeah, a little.

M Dougherty (27:14.82)
Yeah, basically.

M Dougherty (27:27.428)
Yeah, I have lots of things to say. So, there's so much information held in scent and we just don't pay attention to it. When I was very stressed during my masters, I started to read this book, Being a Dog, and it's all about dog's relationship to scent in the world.

Eliana Pires Janssen (27:48.411)
and they have one of the best, right?

M Dougherty (27:51.62)
Yeah, I think their noses are 10 ,000 times better than ours. And we see through our eyes, right? Like I recognize someone from their face before I get close to them, you know, like I don't need to smell them to know who they are. But dogs completely see their whole world through their noses. In the book, she talked about how

Eliana Pires Janssen (28:07.163)
Yeah.

M Dougherty (28:14.431)
I'm sure you've experienced this with your dogs where they kind of have a sense of when you're coming home, right? And they like almost get like anxious or something right beforehand or get activated and she proposes that it's because they've gotten used to like, okay, your smell is filling the house when you leave and then it slowly goes away and goes away and when it's at like this dilution level when it's like this faint that's about when they come home and that's kind of how they tell time, right? So I kind of like

I, Isn't it, like...

Eliana Pires Janssen (28:44.251)
That's so cool. That's so fascinating. Like, what never would have even...

M Dougherty (28:49.636)
Yeah

M Dougherty (28:54.532)
It's and it's so beautiful too, right? Like it's not a clock. It's not a number. It's like, yeah, like when the like, yeah, when the home smells like this, that's when they come home. Like it's

Eliana Pires Janssen (28:56.539)
It is!

Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (29:05.819)
And that makes so much sense. They smell everything. Every dog, every butt, every fire hydrant, every this, every cor - yeah. yeah. Mm -hmm.

M Dougherty (29:11.108)
They, yeah, they know when you're sick. I'm sure they knew when you were pregnant, like all of that, right? They, yeah, they smell every change. My dog smells my breath every morning. And I know it's like him doing like a health check of like, you know, how are we today kind of thing. But I...

Eliana Pires Janssen (29:24.987)
Say what's up? Yeah.

M Dougherty (29:29.316)
started doing like speculative design. So like thinking about like, okay, if I wanted to create some kind of system so that humans related to time through smell, what would that look like? And I kind of like, what are those like little the like, is it sand that goes hourglass? That's the word. You know where there's sand and you turn it and there's less sand?

Eliana Pires Janssen (29:40.219)
Hmm.

Eliana Pires Janssen (29:48.027)
Hourglass. Sand boys as I call them. Sand boys. Those things I think back in the day.

M Dougherty (30:00.292)
Yeah, you know? But yeah, basically, so like, could I create like an hourglass for scent, right? So if you like sprayed something at the beginning, scent is constantly evaporating, right? So that's part of it. So could it then gauge when the scent has dissipated? I call it speculative because I didn't like make the thing fully functional or like into a final product or project or whatever.

but more like proof of concept, more like attempting to play with that idea. But I've like thought about others, like different wearable devices, right? That people could have more dog -like relationship to smell or just, and that just to me, I take as like amplifying the information that's already happening in smell, but in a way that like is easier to pay attention or easier to tune into or is louder. Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (30:56.027)
Interesting. What's something that's on in this world that has just, you know, it could be a fine, it could be, you know, anything, but something in this world that has happened recently that has excited you. And I mean, obviously there's a lot because it's a new thing, but like, what's the hot goss of the sent world right now? Like, what's the thing?

M Dougherty (31:19.844)
Ooh, there's so much hot goss. Okay, the big thing right now is AI is like evolving pretty rapidly, right? I keep talking about the language of scent, right? We don't have this way of communicating it. And a nice like parallel is with color, right?

Eliana Pires Janssen (31:30.363)
Yes.

M Dougherty (31:41.028)
Before the RGB system, it was just descriptive. It was like swatches. But with the RGB system, it became three numbers, so not linguistic based. I can send it to another person. They can understand and then recreate it. So with scent, like that's three factors, right? RGB. With scent, we don't even know how many factors are involved. Like there's evaporation, temperature, all of the things

Eliana Pires Janssen (31:56.123)
Mm -hmm.

M Dougherty (32:10.982)
the environment wind before it even gets to your nose and then there's all the physical

Eliana Pires Janssen (32:13.563)
Humidity levels, I'm sure, yeah.

M Dougherty (32:18.18)
factors as well to like try and predict perception, et cetera. So it's a lot of numbers. It's a lot of different factors. So because computation is now advancing, there's a company, Osmo, that kind of branched out of a project from Google that's leveraging AI to kind of break this barrier. And it's like digitizing scent is kind of what it is.

So that, yeah, I could send a smell or receive a smell or it's going to be used a lot in all sorts of different industries where like there's dangerous things like natural gases or leaks and things like that. They have certain amount of technologies now, but they're pretty rudimentary. So it'll really change that. I don't know. I think about it a lot.

Eliana Pires Janssen (33:10.683)
And so effectively, you would say like, okay, I'm creating this scent. This scent is Weatherford, Texas on July 2nd at 4 p And you nail in, let's say, the code, and you would be able to send that exact scent to somebody to experience for them to recreate.

M Dougherty (33:34.244)
I mean, but yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (33:36.795)
if they had the same technology after the fact.

M Dougherty (33:40.996)
Yeah, I mean, kind of like a printer for scent is like one area, you know, one way it could go down. The other thing is like, even just measuring a scent is completely, it's a thing. There's different ways to do it, but they're so variable.

Eliana Pires Janssen (33:54.395)
Not your thing. OK.

Eliana Pires Janssen (34:01.467)
Yeah.

M Dougherty (34:02.308)
So there's like a photo ionization detection and that, yeah. So it will take what's called head space. So if you're smelling something, the head space is the material, like all the air above the material. That's what holds the odor. It's not the juice, but it's like the actual scent is in the air. It needs to be in the air.

Eliana Pires Janssen (34:06.555)
Hahaha

M Dougherty (34:24.26)
So their photoionization detection will ionize the chemicals that are in the head space. And you'll get a graph with different lines. And each peak is kind of a signature for a different chemical. The problem is not every chemical ionizes. So that doesn't work. There's GCMS gas chromatography mass spectrometry. And that does it with light.

But it's the same kind of measuring thing where you're measuring the headspace, it'll suck it in, it'll do this measurement, and you'll get a graph with different peaks. You'll then translate that to a list, and it'll be like 20 % this chemical, 0 .1 % this chemical.

and a whole list. The thing there is not every chemical actually contributes to the smell. And then as materials get into the air, they oxidize. So there'll be materials there that are part of that reaction and not necessarily the composition of the juice. So if you were trying to recreate the perfume, it wouldn't be the perfume recipe exactly.

Eliana Pires Janssen (35:29.467)
Got it.

M Dougherty (35:36.356)
And if you're trying to like archive artwork or preserve it that's scent based, do you write down the recipe? Do you write, like, do you measure the airspace? Do you, like, there's all different ways to do it. And chemists have one word for one thing, perfumers will have a different. And then...

Eliana Pires Janssen (36:00.923)
And it, cause it's new too. Yeah, that makes sense. It's all just up.

M Dougherty (36:03.588)
I mean, yeah, it's just a yeah, like and even in chemistry there's like two different numbers that are referring to it chemical and it's like purity is a thing like not everything is like isolated impurity and if there's like a little bit of something it can completely change it. So it's just so variable and like there's like what's called the big six which is like the big houses that yeah.

which sounds so nefarious.

Eliana Pires Janssen (36:33.266)
Right? It's either we need to fight them or like they're cool.

M Dougherty (36:39.044)
Somewhere between the two, I think. Like in the middle. Basically, they provide most of the scent materials to the world, but they also have all the perfumers. So if you're like...

Eliana Pires Janssen (36:41.307)
Hahaha!

M Dougherty (36:54.852)
Brand and you want to have a perfume you would go to one of the big six and a perfumer would make it if you make a cleaning product with scent in it you go to the one of the big six they also use AI to discover molecules all the time and then will Kind of copyright them under a proprietary name. So there's like a whole third name for thing

Eliana Pires Janssen (37:05.851)
Interesting.

Eliana Pires Janssen (37:19.227)
So we don't know if we like that because do they control it so that they can't make it available to other artists?

M Dougherty (37:28.868)
Some do.

Eliana Pires Janssen (37:28.891)
You don't have to talk bad about them if they're in your world. But in my head, my immediately was like, there's that artist. I think it's like Anush Kapoor, who's like in a war with Stuart Semple and they create pigments. Yeah, yeah. And apparently Stuart Semple actually legally just... Dude, he literally actually just changed his legal name.

M Dougherty (37:32.484)
Yeah, I do work with them sometimes.

M Dougherty (37:42.788)
Yeah, over the black. Yeah. I literally have Stuart's blackest black.

Eliana Pires Janssen (37:54.715)
to hit the other guy's name so that he's like, well, now am I allowed to buy? Right, yeah, it just happened recently. But like, you know, you find you only have these six houses if they're developing these scents because they are the only people who have them. Doesn't that give it a little bit of a monopoly feel where they're not giving the accent and scent should kind of be something that is available to everybody considering that we all have noses.

M Dougherty (37:58.66)
that's a whole new level I didn't know about. that's good.

M Dougherty (38:14.884)
Wait a second!

M Dougherty (38:21.54)
Yeah, it's tough. Okay, so they do make it accessible for a price, right? You're paying them, they make money. We are in a capitalist society, so I understand why they operate the way they do. Also with perfumery, copyright's crazy. Perfume compositions can't be copywritten. They cannot. There is no protections for the perfumers.

Eliana Pires Janssen (38:29.819)
Right. There.

Eliana Pires Janssen (38:41.819)
So if somebody figures it out and wants to recreate it and be like Dior 2, send it. All right. Fair.

M Dougherty (38:50.788)
Yeah, yeah. You can, you can like copyright and protect like the bottle and the name, things like that, but you cannot protect the recipe, which causes a lot of drama for perfumers working in the industry, but it's also part of why

Eliana Pires Janssen (38:59.003)
Mm -hmm.

M Dougherty (39:11.396)
those companies do that is because they can copyright a newly found or newly synthesized molecule. Those things like will expire. I think it's only a couple of years that it exists that way, where like only then they can sell it under this name.

Eliana Pires Janssen (39:17.275)
Huh.

M Dougherty (39:28.836)
But you can also do a little bit of research and find out what the actual chemical is. And then there's other companies you can buy chemicals from. It's tough because perfumery is based on chemistry. Even naturals, it's all chemicals. Sorry, my brain did the thing where it's just like, yeah, the whole naturals and synthetic's all logic.

Eliana Pires Janssen (39:54.811)
same thing it's like I edit as I speak where I'm like no no no too technical roll that back okay we're going here now don't yes yes

M Dougherty (39:58.084)
Literally exactly that. Yeah, so everything's a composition of chemicals. Absolutely everything in this world, right? There's companies that supply chemicals to laboratories and scientists, and then there's companies that supply materials to perfumers. They're completely separate.

which causes some of this like complication and names and things like that, but perfumery materials are far more accessible and regulated, so easier to be accessible than chemicals that can have bigger reactions and you have need more formal knowledge to handle them, etc. Yeah, so it's like a little bit proprietary, but I also can like understand why and they do a great job of making it accessible. Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (40:34.459)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Makes sense.

Eliana Pires Janssen (40:48.059)
Okay, so it's not like they're evil overlords who are like, no, we have created and we get to keep for ourselves.

M Dougherty (40:54.02)
No, I think it's pretty much just like a product of like the industry and that the way the legal system works, unfortunately, that like makes them do like they have to make money. So they're doing what they can to make money, you know, we're like, yes, I can easily vilify that. But also I like, okay, I get it. Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (40:59.291)
Fair. Fair, fair.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair.

Eliana Pires Janssen (41:11.099)
Yeah, yeah. Now question, when you, let's say you use their sentence to create your own set. You can't copyright, but you can sell the product. Would you, do you buy, like in, you know, in film photography world, it would be like a media buyout. So it's like when I shoot a gallery for a movie, they have to purchase the media buyout, but then they could do whatever they want.

M Dougherty (41:20.26)
totally.

M Dougherty (41:33.252)
Mm.

Eliana Pires Janssen (41:34.875)
and they can make profit off my photos, I don't see a dime, it's just how it is. Is that kind of how it is with them where it's like if you design a perfume, you don't have to give them dividends based off of what you made because they use your chemical, you use their chemicals.

M Dougherty (41:48.388)
you're using theirs. No, if you were a perfumer working in that house, they own everything. You do. You're like basically, you know, you're for hire like any company. Yeah. But I also I, I don't buy from just one supplier, but buy from money. Many, I mean. And

Eliana Pires Janssen (41:53.915)
Yeah, yeah,

M Dougherty (42:09.124)
Yeah, once you have it, it's like a paint, right? You don't have to like, if you make a painting, you don't have to like list off where you got the paint. Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (42:12.827)
Fair. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. That's so fascinating to think of paint and scent as like two very different, but I mean, hey, I've literally, yeah, I've literally only now in the past.

M Dougherty (42:22.788)
but the analogy works.

Eliana Pires Janssen (42:31.035)
six months have gotten into layering perfume and scents. And also, but like, it's funny because it's not even I'm like, at first I was just full sending it only on the neck. But I'm like, okay, when you shake somebody's hand, they get a whiff because the wind is most likely in the movement. So that's first impression. Yeah. And I was like, that's first impression. So let's make that less strong. Okay, we're gonna do this one over here. And then we're gonna do one over here. And then we're gonna do one over

M Dougherty (42:35.076)
Ooh, controversial.

M Dougherty (42:41.86)
Thanks for watching!

and you're touching.

Eliana Pires Janssen (43:00.941)
the back hair area so if you hug somebody that they get a nice yes okay I thought yep see right this is I'm getting all my facts in line let's go I can't smell right now but I could learn about it let's go

M Dougherty (43:02.532)
Hair. Yeah. But also it lasts longer if you put it with hair. Yeah.

M Dougherty (43:15.159)
I... You will again. It's just right now. But others can smell you. I will point out layering is pretty controversial to perfumers. I'm not saying...

Eliana Pires Janssen (43:26.331)
Ooh. Because they want their thing to be on their own. They made it full body for...

M Dougherty (43:32.612)
Yeah, right. Where like they've composed it a certain way. And as soon as like other materials start mixing with it, it can completely change it. Right. So like one perfume might smell amazing on its own. You add something else and suddenly it's sewage. Right. So it's just risky business, but like

Eliana Pires Janssen (43:38.075)
Mmm. That would be like editing my photos.

Eliana Pires Janssen (43:45.435)
Yeah, that's fair. I never thought about it. It's literally just like me handing over a photo and them doing edits on it. And you're like, bro, it's not the thing I made. Yes. OK, I can see that.

M Dougherty (43:54.212)
Yeah. Why do you trash art? Like, do you not like art? I will say though that there are, because it's becoming a trend, there are a lot of companies that are making perfumes designed to be layered, right? So they're a lot simpler in composition, meaning that there's like less chance for things to react. Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (44:14.235)
and branding partnerships. Crossover, yeah crossover and all that. Fair enough, that is very fair. Well, we have way past the 30 minute mark, but that's because we're both rad, right?

M Dougherty (44:21.156)
Yeah.

M Dougherty (44:25.38)
You like gave me permission to gash about the thing I like so I'm gonna do it

Eliana Pires Janssen (44:30.843)
Yes, let's go. I learned so much. See, this is why we do this podcast, y 'all, because these are all the questions that you don't even know to ask. And like, raise your hand in the comments if you freaking knew that we only figured it out in 1991, because that sure as hell was not me. That's insane to me.

M Dougherty (44:34.02)
you

M Dougherty (44:46.98)
It's also sad. I'll like discover something and people will be like, how long have you known that? And it's like six months. I've only like, I like work in this field, just learned it. There's like so much like that. Yeah.

Eliana Pires Janssen (44:53.883)
Yep, that's... Yep. Yeah.

Well, thank you for jumping on. You are so amazing and it is such an amazing, beautiful combination of all your talents and skills and they are plentiful and I will put all of your work in the links below so please check them out. It is amazing. Also, you are in, do you have any current exhibits or anything anywhere, anything in the works?

M Dougherty (45:06.468)
Mm.

M Dougherty (45:11.876)
Thank you.

M Dougherty (45:18.692)
Totally.

M Dougherty (45:27.716)
Yeah, I'm co -curating my first show. It's going to be an olfactory art retrospective at the New Bedford Museum of Art in the fall of 2025. That's like the big project right now. I have some like other collaborations doing more like odor organ in concert with musicians that I'm like tinkering but nothing set in stone yet. And I just wanted to

Eliana Pires Janssen (45:49.627)
it. Fair enough. Where can people follow Lana on your journey? Where can people kind of keep tabs on you?

M Dougherty (45:56.708)
Yeah.

I'm most active on Instagram. That's where I put things. I have a newsletter that I try to like announce when things are going on. I also want to say that like, I obviously am very excited about these things. So you've let me like word vomit about it for a while, but there's still so much, right? And this community that I am in this like kind of niche is pretty small. And I'm like here because people have been so generous with information. So I always like to pass that forward.

Eliana Pires Janssen (46:25.979)
Amazing.

M Dougherty (46:27.302)
So if anyone listening has any questions, please reach out to me. I will gush about it anytime. And if anyone's interested in practicing scent, follow that curiosity. It seems intimidating, but it's doable. And yeah, reach out if I can help.

Eliana Pires Janssen (46:40.187)
and exciting and cool and just really fun and creative, but not in a way that people anticipate of being creative. And I think that's what, you know, on my bingo card of creativity jobs, this is definitely was not on it. And it is so phenomenal that you found your way here because I think you are amazing at it. And I love you. Don't say that to all my guests, but it's fine. We'll end it there. But thank you so much for joining and you are the best.

M Dougherty (46:48.804)
I, yeah.

M Dougherty (47:02.443)
I love you too!

Hahaha!

Eliana Pires Janssen (47:10.141)
and I will text you here shortly. Thank you and good night.

M Dougherty (47:13.252)
Thank you. I love you.

Goodbye!

Eliana Pires Janssen (47:19.707)
You