Fine-Tuning Your Sensory Experiences:
What starts out as a way for people to easily re-experience personally significant episodes from their lives, warps into a provocative science fiction short film full of plot twists and angsty good fun. The story heats up when a programmer hacks the app for Olfactory, the company that developed the scent based memory device, to manipulate his own past memories and seriously screws with his perception of reality.
Olfactory is a film that cannot be watched once to appreciate its real beauty. Subsequent viewings add layer upon layer of understanding to the film and make you question the nature of reality. When you consider that a person bases their sense of what’s real, the here and now, on events in the past that shaped their personality and formed their worldview, what happens when you can permanently alter your remembered past? If you could change your memories of the past–would you do it? A sticky wicket to be sure.
In an “Atlantic” article from August 27, 2014, titled “Changing Memories to Treat PTSD,” there is a discussion of DARPA’s research into manipulating the memories of soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) to remove the trigger memories that haunt soldiers. The article mentions that the military is researching a “concept in which old information is called to mind, modified with the help of drugs or behavioral interventions, and then re-stored with new information incorporated—like a piece of metal that’s been melted down, remolded, and left to harden into a different shape.” The concept and big idea behind Olfactory, as sci-fi-ish as it feels, is something actually being explored by the cat herders at DARPA. The question that Olfactory explores, as does the article by the “Atlantic,” is what part of yourself do you lose when manipulating the past? The film drives home the belief that we all live an interconnected life and when you change your past these changes affect the lives around you as no life exists in a vacuum. This is brought home in the raw emotion that permeates the film as the fabric of shared memory ripples and shifts in the minds of the characters.
What did you think of the film? Let us know in the comment section below.
Cast and Crew
Kieran Mulcare: Brian
Alison Barton: Amanda
Molly Camp: Rachel
Christopher Piazza: Director/Co-Writer
Eli Cane: Producer
Jon Fordham: Director of Photography
Accolades
Best Dramatic Short Film at the Berlin Sci-Fi Filmfest
Best Twist, Christopher Piazza and Lucas Kane at The Zone Sci-Fan Film Festival
Best Actress, Molly Camp at The Zone Sci-Fan Film Festival
Best Actor, Kieran Mulcare at the Twin Falls Film Festival
Award of Excellence – Highest Rating: Best Shorts Online Competition