ALL POSSIBLE AROMAS

Do photographs have the capacity to trap us in a sensory experience that goes beyond their formal appearance, when their code of representation relates exclusively to the privacy of the person who takes them? Or could it be that in the substratum of many of them there is nothing more than the omnipotent smell of the chemicals that have made them recognizable? The virtuality of the image stirs in us a desire for the absent. Will we be able to extract from them the necessary information to go beyond mere informative cataloguing, which transcends the merely ingenious? Will we be so poor as to content ourselves with that restricted reading that scarcely manages to be more than a compositional game, a structuring of greys or nuances? Might we be able to photograph with our eyes closed that which captivates us through our olfactory curiosity alone? Smells like tones? Or could it be that photographs do not enclose within them all possible aromas?

Eduardo Ibáñez