Dutch scientists are recreating the deaths of some of the world’s most famous personalities by reconstructing their last moments using scents and sounds.
From the sweet smell of former US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s perfume mingled with the scent of former US president John F. Kennedy’s blood to US singer Whitney Houston’s last drug-fuelled moments in a Beverly Hills, California, bathtub, scientists at a university in Breda, the Netherlands, say they offer visitors a unique, if somewhat macabre, historical snapshot.
“We all have seen the images of JFK’s assassination, but what did it smell like?” asks Frederik Duerinck, from the communication and multimedia design faculty of Avans University of Applied Sciences.
Photo: AFP
To find out, visitors with a sense of the morbid are invited to lie in a series of four silver metal boxes similar to those found in a morgue.
The boxes, which are pitch-dark inside, are rigged with pipes leading to bottles containing pressurized smells.
A soundtrack is played and on queue different scents are released into the box to recreate a specific “final moment.”
For about five minutes, visitors can relive the smells and sounds believed to have surrounded four people whose deaths are etched into the world’s collective memory: Kennedy (1963); Britain’s Princess Diana (1997); former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi (2011) and Houston (2012).
For instance, those wanting to experience Houston’s final moments are transported to a bathtub at the upmarket hotel where the diva died in February 2012 at age 48.
A coroner ruled that the singing legend died of accidental drowning, with cocaine and heart disease listed as contributing factors.
To the sounds of splashing water and Houston’s voice, a visitor first gets a whiff of generic cleaner, used in hotels around the world, followed by the olive oil the singer used in her tub.
Then a strong chemical odor, similar to that of cocaine fills the box, grabbing its occupant by the throat, followed by the sound of rushing water and then silence.
“Smell is rarely used in communication and we wanted to explore its uses,” Duerinck said. “It’s a very powerful means of communication.”
Scientists have showed that smells are linked to the part of the brain that regulates emotion and memory.
Odors are often used in the retail industry to trigger a buying mood in customers.
“Who doesn’t want to buy a loaf after catching a whiff of fresh bread?” said Duerinck, who together with other lecturers and students has put together an inventory of odors and is devising new ways of using smell: for instance in story telling.
“It’s quite surprising and spectacular,” said Riks Soepenberg, 31, who experienced a recreation of Qaddafi’s last moments as the former was hunted and killed by rebels in October 2011.
“You can watch the pictures as many times as you want, it’s just not the same thing,” he said of the attack on Qaddafi’s convoy, forcing the long-serving leader to hide in a drainage pipe before being murdered.
“I almost felt myself being hunted,” Soepenberg said.
In the coming months the installation is to be taken across Europe.
“We’ve conducted extensive research,” said Wander Eikenboom, another lecturer at Avans about the authenticity of the experience. “There’s already a lot of information available on the Internet, such as what perfume Jackie Kennedy or JFK were wearing.”
“Whitney Houston’s autopsy report for instance, is also available,” he added.
However, the scientists admit battling to recreate the right scent for Jackie Kennedy’s perfume, which is no longer made.
“We had to rebuild something that resembled it as closely as possible,” scientist Mark Meeuwenoord said.
The inventors of the “final moments” smells said in any case, exact historical accuracy was not their aim.
Rather, they wanted to explore new ways of “smelling” stories.
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