Eventful Scentsoroom

Authors: Amelia Guiffre, Cassandra Stratigos, Oliver Damian, Adeel Jaffery, and Anousha Xegas

Teachers: Dr. Jestin George, and Dr. Tom Lee

Our team of product designers, fashion designers and visual communicators initially worked from two different, existing narrative scenarios about synthetic biology and scent. These narratives were used as prompts for further speculation that could be templated in a variety of different ways, focusing on character, relationships, emotion, the sense, setting, plot, tone, objects and so on. The original stories are barely perceptible echoes in the final prototypes presented here, which tell a very different story in terms of content but align with our working principles as a team to focus on the complications and ambivalences of new technologies embedded in and shaped by everyday scenarios. We structured our work over four weeks, with 5 x 1 hour check-in/ presentations and response to feedback completed in-between. The final output, entitled Eventful Scentsoroom, includes a storyboard, characters or personas, diegetic prototypes and a speculative video ad.