Yolanda Uriz Elizalde, Pamplona-Iruña, 1982

Admiring the potential of olfactory language to communicate with the non-human, Yolanda Uriz's work focuses on inventing peculiar environments that encourage expanding subjectivities. She employs sound, scent, and digital technology in interdisciplinary installations, presented at festivals such as ISEA, Ars Electronica, Eufònic, Sonar+D, Schemerlicht, Wroclaw Biennale, and Sonic Acts, among others. She is a founding member of the collective iii (instrumentinventors.org NL), with whom she regularly collaborates.

"Chemical Calls of Care" 2024-25
The installation is a science-fiction machine for wired chemical telecommunication.

Attempting to establish olfactory communication with plant species, it consists of tubes and fans transmitting chemical information from plants to a receiving terminal. From another transmitting terminal, visitors can send messages—limited in this case to messages of care—by choosing among various beneficial substances that promote the health and balance of the ecosystem. Plants respond by emitting their volatile organic compounds (VOC), odors we might be able to decode.

Additionally, Chemical Calls of Care includes gas sensors that provide data on air composition, translating it into sound—a language potentially easier to understand than olfactory signals.