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Universal scent blackbox: engaging visitors communication through creating olfactory experience at art museum

Published: 16 July 2015 Publication History

Abstract

This paper describes the experience of experimental artwork "Universal Scent Blackbox", which encourages visitors interaction through creating olfactory experience in art museum. Smell is used as the evocative interface between the artwork and the visitors. When a visitor passed by a certain area, it would trigger the odor emission in another area for the other visitors. The visitors on another side could trigger the odor emission back as well. Throughout the experience, visitors can freely explore the scents around the area of the artwork. In addition, the visitors can express their memories of smell through writing onto origami boxes which contribute as a part of the city model of the artwork. The artwork consisted of all the visitors' memories expression and communication at the end of exhibition. The aim of this paper is neither technology investigation nor user experience evaluation. Instead it is an open-end exploration which questions the role of olfactory interface in art museum context and provokes the insights about olfactory interaction design in Human-Computer Interaction. The artwork becomes the inspirational probe to explore the possibilities of olfactory interface with the users when designing for communication. The benefits and drawbacks of the chosen approach towards olfactory interaction design would be discussed. I would also address the lessons learned behind throughout the process.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    SIGDOC '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual International Conference on the Design of Communication
    July 2015
    239 pages
    ISBN:9781450336482
    DOI:10.1145/2775441
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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    • Arizona State University: Arizona State University
    • North Dakota State University: North Dakota State University
    • University of Limerick: University of Limerick
    • Chongqing Acad. Sci. Technol.: Chongqing Academy of Science and Technology
    • Microsoft Research: Microsoft Research
    • XA: Experience Architecture Program, Michigan State University
    • Iowa State University: Iowa State University
    • SIGDOC: ACM Special Interest Group for Design of Communications
    • University of Central Florida: University of Central Florida

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    Published: 16 July 2015

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    Author Tags

    1. art museum
    2. interactive installation
    3. olfactory interface
    4. smell

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    • Arizona State University
    • North Dakota State University
    • University of Limerick
    • Chongqing Acad. Sci. Technol.
    • Microsoft Research
    • XA
    • Iowa State University
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    • University of Central Florida

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    SIGDOC '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 49 of 82 submissions, 60%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 355 of 582 submissions, 61%

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    • (2024)Using olfactory cues in text materials benefits delayed retention and schemata constructionScientific Reports10.1038/s41598-024-68885-814:1Online publication date: 1-Aug-2024
    • (2024)Accessible Design for Museums: A Systematic Review on Multisensory Experience Based on Digital TechnologyAdvances in Design and Digital Communication V10.1007/978-3-031-77566-6_21(291-305)Online publication date: 24-Dec-2024
    • (2023)A gyulai Almásy-kastély Látogatóközpontban végzett, a látogatóI élmény feltárását célzó kvantitatív kutatás bemutatásaVezetéstudomány / Budapest Management Review10.14267/VEZTUD.2023.01.0454:1(38-51)Online publication date: 16-Jan-2023
    • (2023)Understanding Curators' Practices and Challenge of Making Exhibitions More Accessible for People with Visual ImpairmentsProceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3597638.3608384(1-18)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2023
    • (2022)Using New Tools to Attract Visitors to Museums and Heritage SitesHandbook of Research on Digital Communications, Internet of Things, and the Future of Cultural Tourism10.4018/978-1-7998-8528-3.ch016(291-310)Online publication date: 2022
    • (2022)Ольфакторное восприятие в музее: посетительский опытВестник антропологии (Herald of Anthropology)10.33876/2311-0546/2022-1/45-58(45-58)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2022
    • (2022)Defining Scents: A Systematic Literature Review of Olfactory-based Computing SystemsACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications10.1145/347097518:1(1-22)Online publication date: 27-Jan-2022
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