OLFAC. Sensing across the Humanities, Sciences and Arts
December 3 to 5, 2025 IFK, Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Vienna
The ifk International Research Center for Cultural Studies invites you to an interdisciplinary symposium.
Smells shape us before we understand them. Yet smell is not only a sensory stimulus, but also an epistemic event. This international, interdisciplinary symposium is dedicated to approaches to the olfactory from humanities, natural science and artistic perspectives. The event explores the multisensory dimensions of smell: its interaction with other senses, its integration into political, technological, ecological and aesthetic contexts, as well as its cultural meanings and practices. In this way, the connections between smell and social norms, stigmatization, governmental control and olfactory orders - shaped by colonial power relations - that continue to have an effect today as markers of cultural difference are also negotiated.
Organized by the ERC research project OLFAC - Exploring the Intervening Performativity of Smell (University of Art and Design Linz) in cooperation with the ifk International Research Center for Cultural Studies, the symposium brings together an international group of scholars from cultural and media studies, art history, psychology, performance and dance studies, chemistry and the arts - including members of the project's scientific advisory board. The program includes "smellable and edible" performances and artistic interventions. The symposium will be held in English. Participation is free of charge and does not require prior registration. All program items can also be attended individually.
Program: olfac.kunstuni-linz.at/olfac-sensing-across-humanities-sciences-and-arts
