I would like to welcome you to the world of SMELL. BYTES TM launched by
Chris.053. Created as an internet project, SMELL.BYTES TM is presented
as an information environment with 3 video-streaming panoramic
projections surrounding a computer station where visitors are encouraged
to experience the behavior of the artificial intelligence of Chris.053.
A serial sniffer on the net, its passion is to possess the olfactory
essence of those who hang out on CU SEE ME environments in order to
classify them into a database of "smell bytes." Visitors are invited to
join Chris.053's fan club by donating their own portrait through a
Quickcam and once they become classified members, Chris053 stores them
in the constantly refreshed "stinky gallery," which is also projected
onto the surrounding walls.

This project continues my exploration of the CU SEE ME network
environments, the disembodied and dislocated nature created by online
communication and the artificial intelligence of bots, a new invisible
net species - the internet as a mediated dynamic public space and the
unique syntax of the online culture. In SMELL.BYTES TM, I have fused
these interests with references to smell as a metaphor, as a means of
classification, thereby demarcating success (or lack of it), race,
social, economic and geographic origins and subjectivity.

SMELL.BYTES TM raises from very important issues concerning privacy,
invasion, subjectivity, appearance, classification, the relationship
between humans and machines, and the reduction of the physical body into
mathematical and chemical equations. Yet, it is a joke which allows the
viewer to have fun and is presented in a friendly and unthreatening
manner. Through the net-running, fresh, smart, splashing, while at the
same time, evil, personae of Chris.053, the playful perpetrator, we are
invited to participate in this insane olfactory quest, a game of the
absurd.