Can your sense of smell enhance your experience when watching a play? It’s not a topic that would immediately spring to mind when thinking about Insight’s research, but the ever creative team in the TRACTION consortium are exploring exactly that. From using technology to bring opera to underrepresented communities, to creating an olfaction experience to synchronise with a play Prof Gabriel-Miro Muntean and his team are pushing the boundaries of how technology can contribute to a cultural experience.

So what are they doing? Well a play called The Dead Letter Office, by Mary-Lou McCarthy is being performed in The Civic Theatre in Tallaght and the Everyman Theatre in Cork. It is supported by Ready, Steady, SHOW!

The Traction team, Dr Anderson Simiscuka, Dr Mohammed Togou and Prof Gabriel-Miro Muntean of the DCU Performance Engineering Lab and part Insight, will enable olfaction technological support in order to enhance viewers enjoyment of the play. Much as a sound designer creates a soundscape for a piece of theatre, the Insight team will be creating a scent-scape for this play.

The team will deploy olfaction dispensers, placed in certain locations close to the audience, which release olfaction stimuli synchronised with the play.

The technology was developed part of the European Union project TRACTION (u). The show will run in Dublin at The Civic Tallaght between 26th-28th October 2022. Not to be missed Booking info at: https://civictheatre.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/873628977