An empirical study on this topic would be a waste of time. Had one to decide with which of one’s five senses one could most likely dispense, it would probably only take one a second to point to one’s nose.
Regardless of the fact that the olfactory sense has probably more to do with love than anything that lovers could say with their lips or optical charms: Smelling seems to be the one of our neural and adenoid experiences to go without easiest.
And still: A newborn recognizes the breast of its mother by smell only. Our body has turned so many individual as well as collective memories into material DNA making up the very essence of our being that our personality can hardly do without them.
Cardiff based artist John Norton worked with the people in and around Ebertplatz in order to tackle a number of key questions in the city that brought about the Eau de Cologne: What smells of home? What is the smell of fear, of sexual attraction, of success, of death? What taste does a city leave behind and can we produce a theatre performance from these beginnings?
Urban Interventions, Theatre