Howser’s Law

Howser’s Law | PS2 | Belfast | 8th-27th August 2011

Howser’s Law : “The primary personality trait of a given subject is directly determined by their reaction to a smell”.

Dr Douglas Howser

This project makes a re-presentation of the scientific research undertaken in the West coast of Ireland by a group of pioneering scientists lead by Dr. Douglas Howser in the mid- 1960s in the field of Olfaction. They discovered a formula which allowed them to determine the predominant personality traits of individuals by their reaction to a certain smell. However their work has never been fully recognized nationally or internationally due to the economic constraints and political agenda of the Irish government at that time. This lack of awareness on the international stage meant that through the passage of time the work of Dr. Howser and his team has been forgotten by history. In addition to this much of the documentation of the groups’ work was lost to a fire in the storage warehouse of the Natural History Museum in the outskirts of Dublin in 1985. In an attempt to redress this balance what is left of their work is being exhibited here along with the chance to take part in the experiment that proves Howser’s Law.