Week 6: Smell

What is multisensory culture?

Multisensory culture refers to the idea that cultural experiences are engaged through all the senses—sight, sound, touch, smell, and even taste—rather than only visually or intellectually.

What is purely visual culture?

Purely visual culture emphasizes seeing as the main way of understanding culture, often neglecting bodily, tactile, or auditory engagement.

What does Marks say about multisensory vs. purely visual culture?

Marks critiques purely visual culture, arguing that meaning and cultural experience are not complete without the body’s engagement. She emphasizes that multisensory experiences reveal how culture is lived, felt, and embodied.

What does Marks mean when she says media and cultural experiences are not just “seen,” but felt in the body?

She means that our sensory and bodily responses (touch, movement, emotional resonance) are part of how we experience media, not just intellectual understanding. Meaning arises through embodied engagement, not only observation.

How are haptic visuality, the cinesthetic body, and embodiment related and different?

• Haptic visuality: Vision that evokes a sense of touch. Focused on tactile sensation through sight.

• Cinesthetic body: The body experiencing movement, rhythm, and spatial awareness while engaging with media. Broader than touch.

• Embodiment: The overall integration of body and perception, including both haptic and cinesthetic responses.

• Relationship: Haptic visuality and cinesthetic body are types of embodied experience, but haptic focuses on touch, and cinesthetic on movement and bodily engagement.

What is haptic visuality?

Haptic visuality is when looking at something evokes the sensation of touching it. It’s vision that engages the body through a tactile response.

What is an example of haptic visuality?

In experimental cinema, a blurred or textured image of peeling paint might make viewers imagine feeling the texture, activating their tactile sense through sight.

How does a multisensory approach emphasize that culture is lived and experienced, not just represented?

By engaging all the senses, a multisensory approach shows that culture is felt and enacted, not only interpreted intellectually. Even without full knowledge of a culture, bodily responses—like touching, moving, or tasting—make the experience personal and participatory.

How does culture influence multisensory experiences?

Cultural context shapes what we notice, value, and respond to in sensory experiences. For example, the taste, touch, or sound of a ritual or food carries cultural meaning that affects how we feel and engage with it.

How do new media technologies mediate multisensory experiences?

Technologies like VR, haptic interfaces, and immersive cinema engage multiple senses, making audiences physically react to media. This shows that meaning and affect are inseparable from bodily engagement, as we experience the story or environment through sensation, not just observation.

How does Vivian Sobchack explain that cinema can evoke a sense of smell (olfaction) even though films do not produce odors?

Sobchack argues that cinema evokes smell through visual cues, memory, and imagination. The body fills in the missing sense by recalling past sensory experiences, creating the illusion of smell.

What is the “dream olfactory”?

The “dream olfactory” is the imagined experience of smell triggered by film, even though no actual odor is present. It is a sensory illusion created by the viewer’s body and memory.

What is an example of the dream olfactory?

A scene showing rotting food, garbage, or sweat might make viewers feel like they can “smell” it, even though there is no real scent.

What does a film rely on to recreate the sensation of smell?

A film relies on the viewer’s memory, imagination, and prior sensory experiences to recreate the sensation of smell.

Why might viewers “smell” a scene differently based on their own histories?

Because smell is tied to personal memory and lived experience, each viewer draws on different sensory associations, leading to varied imagined smells.

What does the “dream olfactory” involve?

It involves embodiment, memory, imagination, and sensory association, showing that spectatorship is active and bodily, not just visual.

What is Sobchack’s purpose in focusing on smell as a theory?

She uses smell to challenge the dominance of vision in film theory, highlight neglected senses, and argue that meaning comes from embodied, multisensory experience, not just sight and narrative.

How do Laura U. Marks (haptic visuality) and Sobchack (dream olfactory) connect?

• Both argue that cinema activates senses beyond what is physically present:

  • Marks: vision can evoke touch

  • Sobchack: vision can evoke smell

• Together, they show that film experience is multisensory and embodied.

What is a simple way to remember haptic visuality and dream olfactory?

• Haptic visuality → “I feel what I see”

• Dream olfactory → “I smell what I see”

How does Sobchack’s idea of the “dream olfactory” relate to the cinesthetic body?

• The “dream olfactory” shows that the cinesthetic body is not limited to movement, but includes internal, sensory imagination like smell.

• It expands the idea of the cinesthetic body by showing that the body actively participates in film through multiple senses, even those not physically present.

How does the “dream olfactory” demonstrate embodied spectatorship?

• It shows that viewing a film is an active, bodily experience, where the viewer’s memory, senses, and imagination are engaged.

• The spectator doesn’t just watch—they physically and sensorially participate in the film.

How does Sobchack’s concept connect to affect (pre-conscious feeling)?

• The imagined sense of smell often triggers immediate emotional or bodily reactions (like disgust or pleasure) before conscious thought.

• This shows that affect is pre-conscious and sensory, aligning with the idea that the body reacts before we intellectually interpret.

How does the “dream olfactory” challenge the idea that film meaning comes only from narrative?

• It shows that meaning also comes from sensory and affective experience, not just plot or dialogue.

• The viewer’s bodily response (like imagining a smell) contributes to how the film is understood.

How does Sobchack expand traditional film theory through the “dream olfactory”?

• She moves beyond a focus on vision and representation to emphasize multisensory, embodied experience.

• This challenges the idea that film is only about what we see and interpret, highlighting instead what we feel and sense.

How does Parasite create tension before any explicit violence occurs?

• The film builds tension through slow pacing, subtle music, and controlled camera movement, creating a sense that something is “off.”

• This produces unease in the viewer’s body before any visible threat appears.

How does the film use sound, pacing, and camera movement to build unease?

• Sound is often minimal or eerie, increasing anticipation.

• Pacing is slow and deliberate, stretching moments of suspense.

• Camera movement follows characters closely, making the viewer feel trapped or watchful, heightening tension.

How does Parasite shift between genres, and how does this affect the viewer?

• It moves from comedy → thriller → horror, which destabilizes expectations.

• This shift creates shock and discomfort, making the viewer feel unprepared—similar to how trauma disrupts normal experience.

How do confined spaces create tension?

• Spaces like the basement feel tight, hidden, and suffocating.

• This produces anxiety and discomfort in the viewer’s body.

How do stairs communicate class hierarchy?

• Going up = wealth, control, power

• Going down = poverty, danger, marginalization

• The viewer feels this hierarchy through movement.

How does the earlier tone of the Birthday Party scene intensify this moment?

• he earlier lighter tone creates a false sense of security.

• This makes the violent shift feel more extreme and disturbing.

How does the birthday party scene reflect trauma?

• Trauma is often unexpected and overwhelming.

• The scene mimics this by disrupting the film’s rhythm and overloading the viewer emotionally.

In the rain/flood scence, how does the descent home convey class inequality?

• The long movement down through the city mirrors a drop in social status.

• The viewer physically feels the distance between wealth and poverty.

In the rain/flood scence, how does the flooding create an embodied sense of helplessness?

• The overflowing water and cramped space create physical discomfort and chaos.

• The viewer feels loss of control and vulnerability, mirroring the family’s situation.

In revealing the basement scence, how do lighting and camera movement produce danger?

• Dim lighting obscures visibility, creating uncertainty.

• The camera follows closely and moves downward, making the viewer feel trapped and unstable.

In the basement reveal scence, how does the descent into the basement create tension and discomfort?

• The repeated movement downward creates a feeling of falling into danger.

• The viewer experiences claustrophobia and unease as the space becomes more enclosed.

How does space influence the viewer’s emotional experience?

• Open, bright spaces (Park house) feel safe and controlled.

• Tight, underground spaces (basement, semi-basement) feel suffocating and tense.

• This contrast produces embodied emotional responses.

How does Parasite make the viewer feel class inequality?

• Through spatial contrast (rich vs. poor homes) and physical movement (going up vs. down).

• The viewer experiences inequality as comfort vs. discomfort, openness vs. confinement.

How does the film produce affect rather than just tell a story about class?

• It uses tension, spatial movement, and sudden violence to create bodily reactions (stress, anxiety, shock).

• The viewer feels class inequality, rather than just understanding it intellectually.

What does Tarja Laine argue about Parasite (2023)?

• Laine argues that Parasite does not just represent class inequality and trauma, but makes the viewer experience them affectively and bodily.

• The film’s meaning comes from how it feels (tension, discomfort, shock) rather than only its narrative or message.

What does “trauma as affect” mean?

• “Trauma as affect” means that trauma is experienced as immediate bodily and emotional responses (like anxiety, tension, or shock), often before conscious understanding.

• It emphasizes feeling over explanation.

What is an example of trauma as affect in Parasite?

• The slow buildup of tension before the basement reveal creates anxiety and unease in the viewer.

• Even before anything violent happens, the viewer feels something is wrong, which reflects trauma as a pre-conscious bodily experience.

How does Parasite create affective shock, and why does Laine argue this mimics trauma?

• The film creates affective shock through sudden, unexpected violence, especially in the birthday party scene.

• This mimics trauma because trauma is often abrupt, disorienting, and overwhelming, disrupting normal experience and leaving the body reacting before the mind can process.

Why does Laine argue that the film’s power comes from how it feels rather than what it represents?

• Because the film engages the viewer through affect and embodiment, making them physically experience inequality and tension.

• This emotional and bodily response is more immediate and impactful than simply understanding the film’s themes intellectually.