Bottle in a Message is the result of the exploration of several ideas around the representations of identity, cross-sensory experience, the creation of new visual languages for a hyper-visual society, and the book as object.

Interested in the power of scent and the idea of perfumes as symbols of identity, Vidal-Escabi embarked in the process of finding visual representations of smell molecules visually expressing the combined components (molecules) of these scents, offering a kind of sensory translation: instead of drawing what one sees, this time she’s drawing what she smelled.

This process of sensory translation recalls the phenomenon of synesthesia in which the stimulation of one sensory pathway is perceived simultaneously through another sensory pathway. With that in mind, the artist developed a new, cross-sensory language that might be “read” and interpreted by both the eyes and the nose.

At the same time, the book as a functional object rather than as a mere vehicle of communication or vessel of knowledge. Its layered pages create both a flow of information and also a guide to reading this information. Because of this, the medium of the book serves as an optimal means of combining this newly created molecular alphabet to spell out full fragrances. Like the pages of a book, the components of a perfume take a layered form, including a base accord, a middle or heart accord, and a top accord. Together, these three layered accords create a fragrance.

Each page of this book contains both a visual representation of a single smell molecule and also the smell molecule itself embedded in the paper. When we put these pages together in the form of a book, we visually and literally create a fragrance. It is therefore an interactive piece of art. The reader can reshuffle the pages as they please to create their own version of the fragrance. - The artist