Touchstone
Aether Arts

What is the one object that has become ubiquitous, that is always nearby if not on one’s actual person, an object that in some form crosses all gender, cultural, and socioeconomic spaces? An object that possesses great power, that can bring us help, that can connect us to those we love, an object that if we forget it, causes no small anxiety: the cell phone. The cell phone has become the talisman of our modern age. A kind of metaphorical worry stone or touchstone if you will, we can’t keep our hands off it. It reassures us and connects us when we are lonely or afraid and could literally save your life in some situations.

So how to turn the idea of a cell phone into perfume? Cell phones require minerals from the earth in their manufacture and their signals travel invisibly through the aether, so earth and air guided my choice of notes. Many of the minerals used in cell phones are silvery-to-gray in color. Materials like Tantalum, Palladium, and Platinum. So I created a flinty-gray accord with flashes of color running through it to hint at some of the other metals used—Silver, Gold, a bit of Copper—giving it a mineral and a metallic aspect. A spacious aether accord represents the air our signal travels through. Just as a quartz crystal in our cell phone vibrates at a fixed frequency, an actual piece of quartz crystal in the bottle reminds us to be aware of our own vibrations. What signals are we sending out into the world? What is the fate that you create?