TOP NOTES: Metallic · Aldehyde · Ozone
HEART NOTES: Rice · Spices · Floral Notes
BASE NOTES: Musk · Ambery Notes
EXPERIENCE RITUAL:
Use a spoon to place one capsule onto the hand → Spray 1 – 2 pumps of fragrance onto the capsule → Press and break the capsule with your finger → Rub gently to allow the two layers of fragrance to merge.
SOMA FRACTURE is a work that explores the relationship between the Era and the Self, between Machine and Humanity.
First presented in 2026 as a personal project for OLFACTORY ODYSSEY IV – Scent × Future,
the work explores the intersection of perfumery and future. This art work received the Best Concept Award at OLFACTORY ODYSSEY IV – Scent × Future 2026.
Rather than presenting fragrance as a unified composition, the work deliberately divides the olfactory experience into two independent components. These two components represent two parallel states of existence within contemporary human life. What makes SOMA FRACTURE distinctive is the way these two parts are brought together. They do not merge from the beginning, but become a single experience only when the wearer actively breaks the boundary between them.
SOMA FRACTURE is not used in the conventional way.
The user first uses a spoon or tweezers to place one capsule onto the palm of the hand, then sprays 1–2 pumps of fragrance directly onto its surface. At this moment, the spray fragrance creates a sharp, cold olfactory impression, representing the Era and the Machine. The user then presses and breaks the capsule directly on the skin with their finger. The alcohol in the fragrance, combined with the pressure of the hand, softens and breaks the capsule membrane, releasing the scented gel inside. Under the warmth of the body and the movement of the hand, the two layers of fragrance gradually begin to merge.
Cold metal meets warm rice.
Aldehyde meets flesh.
Artificial structure meets the traces of labor and life.
The two previously separated olfactory worlds ultimately become a single experience.
The name SOMA FRACTURE comes from the most essential action within the work itself: the act of breaking. The user cannot complete the fragrance experience simply by spraying it. They must use their own hand to break through the capsule's outer shell. This action is not merely a technique for using the fragrance; it is an integral part of the work's meaning. The Fracture is the moment when the human being directly breaks the boundary between the two components, allowing two previously separate worlds to meet.
SOMA FRACTURE is composed of two distinct olfactory components, each representing a different state of existence.
The two components therefore create more than an olfactory contrast.
They represent two states of existence: artificial and organic, machine and body, the Era and the Self.
The Era is expressed through a spray fragrance, carrying the opening accord: Metallic · Aldehyde · Ozone
Cold, dry, flat, and artificial, the scent evokes metal, mechanical surfaces, sterile air, and technological environments. It represents a world shaped by machines, artificial materials, and systems that are becoming increasingly embedded in human life.
The Human Self is concealed within small scent capsules. Each capsule contains a gel built around: Warm Rice · Cumin · Salted Butter · Musk · Woods
Rice and warm cooked rice represent the basic nourishment that sustains the body, an intimate image of life and the material foundation of human existence. Cumin, Musk, and nuances of sweat and skin evoke the living body and traces of human presence. Here, sweat is not simply an olfactory characteristic, but a trace of labor.
Through SOMA FRACTURE, I have gone through countless questions in search of an answer: “What makes us human? What distinguishes mere existence from a life truly lived?”
The deeper I went, the less these questions seemed to lead me toward a definition. Instead, they brought me back to the very nature of being human to the body, to labor, to our capacity to feel, and above all, to thought. Human beings labor to create material things. Yet it is through this process of labor that we transform the world around us, accumulating memory and experience along the way. From the biological body emerges consciousness, and from consciousness comes thought; through thought, we do not merely exist within the world, but begin to question our own existence.
Perhaps, after hundreds of questions, only one proposition remains: “I think, therefore I am.”
Perhaps living means retaining the ability to feel, choose, create, and think for ourselves about the things we are living through.
In contemporary life, machines no longer merely assist us physically. Technology, particularly AI, is increasingly becoming part of the processes through which we think, create, and make decisions.
SOMA FRACTURE does not place Machine and Human in a simple opposition. Instead, the work asks: "As technology becomes increasingly capable of thinking alongside us, what remains distinctly human?"
The answer does not lie in eliminating machines. It lies in human agency. Machines shape the modern face of our era. Human beings carry humanity within them. But only the human hand can create The Fracture the moment when two worlds meet.
When the capsule breaks, the two olfactory streams merge into one. It is also the moment when the work returns the experience to the body: the warmth of the skin, the movement of the hand, the scent of the body, and the traces of labor.
SOMA FRACTURE is therefore a work about the intersection of technology and humanity; but more deeply, it is a reflection on our ability to think, feel, and act with agency - the qualities that make us human.
A few moments from the award ceremony at OLFACTORY ODYSSEY IV – Scent × Future 2026.