Introducing...NOP

Today we are capping off Scent Access Memory, aka SAM, a 12-part editorial series about olfactory triggers, digital traces, mall pretzels, utopian cities, cherry chapstick, and the impressions we leave behind.

And we are pleased to introduce you to NOP, a perfume from UFO Parfums—in collaboration with Dirt and Are.na—made in the great city of Los Angeles, California.

A NOP is "no operation," an elegant architecture of empty space. Software engineers use these instructions to provide safety and balance without impacting the underlying memory. Sometimes strength is felt most keenly in absence, and sometimes the correct command changes nothing at all.

NOP is a perfume created in response to scent's relationship to memory. Created with a blend of molecules not found in nature (along with some that are, but used in unrecognizable ways), NOP pushes back against the smeller's necessity to reach into their memory centers as a reflex. NOP is meant to be a meditation of the present tense.

UFO Parfums founder Maxwell Williams is a perfumer, olfactory artist, researcher, DJ/producer, and writer. Dirt’s Daisy Alioto talked to Williams about the concept behind NOP and what it means to create a scent that can only exist in the present. You can read their conversation below.