»Kultur denken. Season 8 Episode 4: OLFAC with Gwenn-Aël Lynn and Dorothee King

Gwenn-Aël Lynn is approaching a threshold at which it may enable
the very wealthy to mine and settle beyond Earth. Yet in the
absence of a breathable medium, olfactory molecules cannot reach
the olfactory mucosa, and sound waves cannot travel. If Earth is
exhausted, the life awaiting the few humans who remain on such
inhospitable worlds would be marked by sensory deprivation—and,
with it, the loss of many forms of pleasure. In her talk, Dorothee
King seeks to identify contemporary Swiss smell-based signifiers of
othering and inclusion in social relations, political structures,
and identity politics, situating them within a complex sense of
Swissness shaped by multilingualism and multiculturalism, evolving
notions of immigration, distinctive geography, and urban–rural
divides. The OLFAC Symposium, held in December 2025 at the ifk in
Vienna, was organized by Silke Felber, Freda Fiala, and Julia
Ostwald as part of the ERC Consolidator Project OLFAC. More
information is available at olfac.kunstuni-linz.at. Interviews/
Redaktion/ Moderation: Katharina Rahn Sound Editing: Paul Jones