Researchers at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage are working double-time to identify and catalog scents that exist all around us—from the smell of an old book, to a pub at a particular time of night, and worn-in leather. Many of these are disappearing right under our noses. For example, as we collectively move deeper into a digital age, books are being read on phones …
For multi-disciplinary artist Anicka Yi, a project two-and-a-half years in the making now yields a collection of three fragrances and a consumer-facing olfactory brand called Biography. While it’s a bit of a departure from Yi’s typical work (conceptual pieces that lie at the intersection of scent, experience, and science), the process did not differ all that much. Yi, alongside perfumer Barnabé Fillion, tested samples and …
You know the sensation of pressing your nose into an antique book or walking through a historic library. But we’ve long struggled with the exact adjectives to describe these scents. Thankfully, two University of London researchers have developed guidelines for describing these characteristics through chemical analysis of volatile organic compounds. To translate this academic approach to the sensory world, the team partnered with visitors of …
