2019 - Elmhurst Art Museum, “Bottling the Impossible,” Elmhurst, IL

2019 - High Concept Laboratories, “Bottling the Impossible,” Chicago IL

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Aromas trapped in impossible perfume bottles cause the seemingly impossible to unfold in viewers’ hands. This participatory performance explores chance and the biological triggering of wonder.

This new performance and debut series of objects seeks to investigate wonder via the sense of smell. Guests are seated and presented with ‘impossible perfume bottles,' evoking imagry of a ship in a bottle. Bottles contain totally solid objects such as a chess pieces and pocket mirrors,that are far larger than the neck of the bottle. Both the bottle, and the items inside, have not been cut, tampered with, or 3-D printed in anyway. The items inside are totally solid, and everything is exactly as it appears. The bottles, functioning almost as a play on a a modern day magic wand, each house a unique scent that when dispersed into the room, allows a unique, corresponding type of magic to occur. These performance vignettes include attendees seeming to predict the future, causing objects to disappear and reappear, and mirror another person’s thoughts.