The Institute for Art and Olfaction (IAO) and Ghost Hunters of Urban Los Angeles (GHOULA) have teamed up to present PHANTOSMIA: A HISTORIC GUIDE TO AROMATIC HAUNTINGS IN L.A. - a self-guided tour highlighting locations notable for paranormal disturbances uniquely driven by scent. Haunted by the famous (Orson Welles, Peg Entwistle, Rudolph Valentino) and the forgotten ("The Cheap Perfume of an Unknown Showgirl”), each location is rich with sensorial reminders of the lurid, turbulent, and baroque history of the City of Angels. As part of this tour, the IAO will make a Phantosmia Perfume Kit available for sale, which will include a printed guide with a map to each of the thirteen locations, a history of the paranormal reports related to the location, and a selection of scents representing the hauntings. The scents are composed by members of The Smelly Vials Perfume Club, the IAO’s in-house punk rock perfume-making society, whose primary members include Kendra Gaeta, Maxwell Williams, Julianne Lee, Jeffrey Paul Ames and Saskia WIlson-Brown. As part of the project, guests are invited to visit each location on their own, experience the space with their haunted smells and collect a rubbing from the Phantosmia marker. Guests who visit all thirteen sites will be invited to a special blending session at the IAO, where they will be able to explore their own olfactory version of ghostly LA.
