From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
The Kármán Whisper—A Synaesthetic Olfactory LARP (Tbilisi, 2021–ongoing)
This article documents a blindfolded participatory experience. For related works on Leif's sensory deprivation and the Kármán boundary, see The Three BreathsA Synesthetic LARP in Kolkata (2021ongoing).
"The Kármán Whisper" stages the Kármán boundary—the threshold between breath and void—as a synaesthetic ascent through blindness, scent, and Armenian liturgical breath-prayer. Participants are blindfolded at the base of a Tbilisi hillside and guided upward through five scent-stations, each marked by Georgian polyphonic song and a distinct olfactory threshold: earth and amber; frankincense and iron; salt and cedar; herbs and void-edge; and finally an almost-imperceptible ozone-like scent at the cairn marking the "Kármán boundary."
Navigation is olfactory and haptic only—no sighted guidance breaks the blindness. A Deaf performer at each station signs Saitsavlebi verses as the scent-guide speaks them aloud in Armenian and Georgian. The work is intentionally accessible to blind, Deaf, and sighted participants equally; temporary blindness creates mutual vulnerability.
The collective frames the work as an exploration of Leif's ascending pressure and doubled vision as a liturgical rather than clinical condition. Documentation is prohibited; three complete cycles are verified (2021, 2023, 2024); [citation needed] a fourth (2025) is disputed.