Get a whiff of this, space geeks. A pair of artists has created a batch of scratch-and-sniff prints that smell like the moon.
And just how does the moon smell? Hagen Betzwieser and Sue Corke haven't been there themselves, so they went with reports from Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke, who said it has a strong smell resembling gunpowder.
The limited-edition silkscreen prints, which sell for $55 unframed, started out as "Moon, Scratch & Sniff," a commissioned project for Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, which held an event on olfactory art last month.
Now anyone with an interest in solar system scents can take a sniff of them.
"Smell, place, and memory are very closely linked. No one who sniffs our postcard from the moon is ever likely to go there," said Corke, an apprentice with Edinburgh Printmakers, which is selling the prints. "Yet now I hope this is a smell, similar to a freshly struck match, which will always remind them of it."
The 11x7-inch art was imprinted with "Moondust Natural R342," a smell designed as a scent by a "flavorist" at Omega Ingredients in the U.K. The scent was then converted into printable ink by The Aroma Company and transferred onto the print with a waterproof stencil.