An ever-present memory that springs into action: this is the magic and reality of Olfactive Studio's Flash Back perfume.
A tart, fresh and lively fragrance, Flash Back is a scent memory: tart rhubarb and green citrus notes combine with a beguiling childhood scent, the smell of rhubarb cake. A base of vetiver and cedarwood adds a woody sensuality.
FlashBack - Laurent Segretier
The past suddenly appears on the stage of the present. The past gives the moment a density, a sharpness that it might never have had if it had not emerged.
A character in a novel or a film hero, a flashback has a persistent and narrative charm that is both retrospective and introspective. This fragmentary nature and rearrangement of time creates a surprise effect – a distortion of reality.
As a catalyst for sensations, it dazzles and, in this sense, resembles a flash of lightning, the source of concentrated light that is so essential to photography. However, the intention is not to leave the darkness behind completely, but rather to highlight the memory brought to the centre of the construction in the beam of the searchlight. At first, the flash surprises us when it goes off, but as the landscape is reconstructed, visions of the past emerge and touch us.
Dance of Kronos. For a split second, perspective becomes blurred, then the intensity of time increases tenfold and its logic is torn apart. Memory steps into the bright daylight to plunge into the moment to come.
Is it the geometry of this beautiful face? Is it the analogue unevenness of its aura, pixelated and distorted by Laurent Segretier? The romantic and attractive personality that appears in the image reconciles all paradoxes, leaning towards the uncertain future, equanimous in its movement, while looking at us with closed eyes.
The flashback is an extremely expressive and desirable subject matter. We would have liked to see this face unchanged, without digital processing. This face, with its serene thoughtfulness, free from any suspicion of digital cosmetics, enlivened by the cheerfulness of the pixels chosen by the artist. It captures a suspended moment – an area of memory that is burned deep into the retina, evoking distant memories – perhaps a déjà vu: that of a face, a body, a feeling that becomes present again. Perhaps a temporary apparition before returning to the future.
