It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s the olfactiano: the world’s first piano that plays scented music. Designed by Belgian olfactory artist Peter de Cupere, the olfactiano works like a combination piano and organ, blowing scents into the air depending on which of the instrument’s 27 keys the pianist plays. The keyboard is divided into three layers corresponding to the “notes” in a perfume: bass, middle, and top. For every “scent concert,” the performer must create a digital score based on a timeline. The scent intensity can be changed according to the room, ventilation, and size of audience. The fragrances are replaceable by other fragrances according to the desire of the performer.

The “scent piano” doesn’t actually play any sounds, so it’s not a synesthetic experience of two different sensory experiences, for example along the lines of what pianist Alexander Scriabin envisioned with his idiosyncratic association of color and music. The keyboard is simply used to trigger the scents. Nevertheless, de Cupere fully intends the olfactiano to be used as part of a multi-sensory experience involving visual images, color projections, sounds, etc. The first scent sonata was played at the Cordoba festival in Brussels in November, 2004.

For more information, see www.peterdecupere.com/olfactiano.html.