Smeller (installation)

The first mechanically controllable prototype of a scent ‘organ’ (in the sense of a musical instrument) was invented by Wolfgang Georgsdorf in 1990 and demonstrated for the first time in the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum.

[1][2][3] Georgsdorf thus realized a time-based art form he called Osmodrama in order to enable the exploration and performance of olfactory sequences and ‘chords’.

Smeller 2.0, which can be played or controlled by MIDI, was first presented to the public in 2012 in the exhibition Sinnesrausch at the OK Center for Contemporary Art in the OÖ Kulturquartier in Linz, Austria.

It is equipped with polypropylene pipes and aluminum hoses which deliver precisely dosed scents to a continuously existing air flow; overlays of different fragrances are thus avoided.

During the emerging practice of Osmodrama, Wolfgang Georgsdorf and his collaborators were obliged to invent terms to describe unprecedented techno-olfactory phenomena: