Painting: Jan Steen: The way you hear it, is the way you sing it, Painting c. 1665, Mauritshuis
We are proud to announce the launch of the ICPR 2022 ODeuropa Competition on Olfactory Object Recognition (ODOR), the world’s first competition for the detection of olfactory objects in historical artworks.
Olfaction is a crucial element of human experience, but has not gained a lot of attention in cultural heritage. The ICPR-ODeuropa Olfactory Recognition (ODOR) challenge has been created in the context of the EU-funded Odeuropa Project, which aims to remedy this shortcoming by promoting, preserving, and recreating the olfactory heritage of Europe.
Through this challenge, we want to promote the development of object detection algorithms that work under realistic conditions, such as varying image quality and modalities, long-tailed category distributions, or fine-grained detection classes. Being able to detect olfactory objects (e.g. tobacco pipes, perfumed gloves) might in turn lead to the ability to recognize more complex, implicit smell references such as smell gestures or olfactory iconography. The challenge thus promotes a multi-sensory perspective in computer vision and digital humanities.
Interested in competing and putting your computers up to the sniff-test? Find out everything you need to know to register here!
Sort: Strawberries ‘Elsanta’ / Place of production: San Giovanni Lupatoto, Verona, Italy / Cultivation method: Foil green house / Time of harvest: June – October / Transporting distance: 741 km / Means of transportation: Truck Carbon footprint (total) per kg: 0,35 kg / Water requirement (total) per kg: 348 l / Price: 7,96 € / kg; Photo courtesy of Klaus Pichler.
On December 15th and 16th, 2021, the Odeuropa project in collaboration with the Berlin Center for Cold War Studies (BKKK), hosted its second workshop: Malodours as Cultural Heritage?. The goal of this workshop was to explore and challenge the topic of stench from varying angles and provide methods and techniques using malodours as an important means of storytelling within heritage institutes. The workshop targeted different questions such as: what do malodours tell us about transitions and advancements within urban, social, cultural, and environmental contexts? How can the sense of smell act as a measurement of analysis for histories of the past and present? And how can malodours be used as a storytelling technique within heritage institutes?
The workshop consisted of twenty nine ‘lightning talks’ from thirty one experts with interdisciplinary knowledge about malodours. The presentations were categorised into five different sessions with the first two sessions taking place the first day of the workshop: 1) Malodours as Cultural Heritage? and 2) Smell Cabinets, which consisted of two parallel sessions that the audience could choose to attend – Smell Cabinet A : Smells from ‘Hidden’ Infrastructures – Sewers and War and Smell Cabinet B: Smells of Leather and Body Fluids – , 3) Malodours and Environmental Relations: Past and Present, 4)Shaping ‘Otherness’ through Smell and lastly 5) How to Incorporate Malodours in Heritage Institutes?. Each session was followed by an opportunity for the audience to ask questions.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the workshop was held entirely online. Regardless of the online form of this workshop, Odeuropa stayed faithful to its nose-on approach by developing a ‘Do it Yourself’ curriculum for remote smelling which online participants could follow before and while attending the workshop.
Odeuropa intern, Christina Kotsopoulou smelling the remote DIY scent of mould as suggested in the program of the workshop for the talk of Cecilia Bembibre on “Fluffy Growth and the Threat of Decay: An Exploration of the Smell of Mould”. Photo taken by Sanj.
Over 160 participants registered to participate in the workshop. All participants were ready to exchange knowledge about malodours – odours which many heritage institutes and perfume makers tend to avoid due to their intensity and the current lack of knowledge surrounding them. This workshop opened new doors in considering malodours – as well as fragrances – as an integral part of our cultural heritage. Keep reading for a summary of the two-day workshop.
